Awesome / After the Jungle Series

After the Jungle Series

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A Perfect Disaster

• Near the end of the second-to-last chapter, Olga^note Who has become even more of a Broken Ace as she's gotten older has been feeling sorry herself throughout the entire story, mulling over things such as her failed career an actress, her shaky marriage to Patrick, her distant relationship with her kids (particularly her daughter) and is clearly resentful of the fact that Helga's become the more successful one of the two of them. But Helga's having none of this and—and while she doesn't yell and/or get physical with her sister, it's still obvious that Helga's absolutely furious with her—calls Olga out on her attitude and pretty much every single one of her faults, particularly when it comes to how she treats the twins (especially Lisa). Helga also notes that Olga's current situation in life is pretty much her own fault. After Helga finishes her speech to go join the others at Slaucen's Ice Cream Parlor, Olga (who describes her sister's words as being like lashed with a whip) is left totally speechless, especially since she realizes that her "baby sister" is absolutely right.
  • Kind of a minor thing (in that it's something that happened off-screen) is that during her verbal beatdown to Olga, Helga mentions that Logan (who's passionate about art) once showed some of his work to Helga's old friend/classmate, Thaddeus "Curly" Gammelthorpe^note Who has grown up to be a renowned artist, who is his idol. According to Helga, Curly had given his serious/genuine opinion of Logan's work: he's very talented and has the potential to become a great artist when he grows up.

The Spelling Bee II

• After she and Arnold catch Bob trying to bribe Kiara with a check for $500, Helga finally has a chance to call out her dad on caring way too much about winning and for all the "Pataki Pride" crap that he tried pushing on her and Olga when they were growing up, he always tries to use money to get ahead. Helga also finally reveals how she had purposely lost the spelling bee that she and Arnold competed in when they were kids (in turn calling Bob out on having no faith in her to win the spelling bee on her own).
• Kiara gets 1st-place in the spelling bee while Andy gets 2nd-place—while he's clearly a bit bummed about losing, it's just as clear that Andy's happy for his best friend and is glad that he at least lost to someone like her.
• After the competition, Andy and the rest of the kids (plus Kiara's family and Olga) find out not only about Bob trying to bribe Kiara at the current competition and Arnold at the same competition when he and Helga were kids, but that he's done it (or at least attempted to do it) three^note After Olga questions him, Bob confesses that when Olga first competed in the spelling bee, he thought about doing it but didn't go through it—but this makes it clear to Olga that, despite always trying so hard to please her dad, he still didn't have a ton of faith in her. other^note When Lisa (speaking for herself and Logan) questions him, Bob admits that he was planning to bribe someone during the times that they had competed, but they got eliminated before he had a chance to do so. times. Of course, everyone calls him out on it (verbally and not-so-verbally) and, shockingly enough, Bob feels genuinely ashamed of what he did and acknowledges (like, actually admitting out loud in front of everyone) that it was wrong.

Andy's Tournament

• Andy's got a big karate tournament coming up and it turns out that Wolfgang Wenworth Junior (more commonly called "W.J."), the son of Arnold's old childhood rival/schoolyard bully, is planning on competing in that same competition. Once the day of the actual competition comes, Andy discovers that W.J. convinced his friends/lackeys to join his dojo in an attempt to one-up Andy at the competition. But unlike Andy (who's been taking karate since he was 6 and legitimately earned his black belt), W.J. and his friends aren't nearly as experienced in karate as he is and don't so well—Andy, on the other hand, totally dominates the competition and becomes one of the two finalists (the other being W.J.).
  • When Edgar questions how Andy could be doing so well in the competition, Mitch (before being cut off by W.J.) points out that Andy and the rest of the competitors from outside of their dojo have probably seriously practiced/studied karate, so unlike them (who didn't really earn their black belts in the same way that Andy has).
• Once it's time for the competition's final match (which will determine the new champion), W.J.'s friends don't seem too confident for him and figure that he'll probably end up losing to Andy.
• It may not seem like much, but after Andy (along with his siblings and their parents) arrive at the competition and see the rest of their friends and family there, Big Bob (Andy's maternal grandfather) wishes him good luck but doesn't put any pressure on him to win the competition—it seems like he really has learned his lesson after what happened at Andy's spelling bee.
• W.J.'s ultimately exposed for cheating^note He had a bunch of quarters stuffed into his karate gloves, which, of course, would seriously hurt someone if W.J. hit them after Andy wins their match. While W.J. isn't technically disqualified (since Andy was able to win their match through honest means), W.J. is banned from competing in any and all future karate tournaments.

Cool Party II

• After Andy discovers that Kiara and the rest of their (main) group of friends weren't invited to Courtney Gammelthorpe's titular party, Andy goes to confront her about it—while his dad (probably) would've been too polite to say anything if he were in his son's position, Andy (rather bluntly) tells off Courtney for how she's treating their friends and refuses to go to her party. As a result, Courtney puts Andy on the "geek list," but Andy doesn't care at this point.
  • The exchange was witnessed by Kiara and the rest of their friends (Adam, Keisha, Sammy and Freddy), who're very happy to see Courtney being told off by Andy and appreciate Andy sticking up for them.

Reunion at the Boarding House

• Nearly all the people who lived at the boarding house back in the original series (when Arnold was in 4th-grade) call out on Oskar on pretty much all of his faults, particularly Arnold's paternal grandfather, Phil—when Arnold tries going after Oskar (who leaves the party in a huff), his grandfather stops him and even Helga notes that Oskar's a lost cause at this point, claiming that Arnold did all he could to help him.
• More subtle but while Suzie (Oskar's ex-wife) didn't take part in the former boarders' exchange with Oskar, she ultimately acknowledges that, when she and Oskar were still together, her own treatment of him wasn't exactly okay and that the toxicity of their relationship went both ways. But for as much as she'd love to forget it, she's willing to accept what happened and has ultimately come to terms with it.