YMMV / The Owl House S2E21 "King's Tide"

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Did Alador refuse to accompany Amity and the other kids to the Head so he could continue to hold off the Abomitons as best he could? Or did he think the draining spell would kill him before long, and didn't want Amity to be Forced to Watch?
  • Luz thinks that Belos wants fame and glory and to be known as a "Emperor of the Witch Hunters" (Or Witch Hunter General, as he puts it). As such, she plays to his ego. However, what gets under his skin enough for him to consider her offer was her telling him his fashion sense was outdated. Ultimately, he spares her after she calls him by his real name "Philip". Did Belos actually care about getting the glory, or did he just desire to catch up with modern human culture?
    • The following episode "Thanks to Them" implies that Belos's colonial coat once belonged to his brother Caleb, and he wore it during his search for his brother in the Demon Realm. Thus some fans believe that Belos was more insulted by Luz making fun of his late brother, even if he killed him for falling in love with a witch.
  • Belos branded Hunter with a coven sigil while fully knowing it would mean draining him of all magic and life force... but Hunter has no natural magic, a trait Belos presumably knows about and may have even built into him as a Grimwalker. So was Belos branding Hunter purely a show of how he invariably expected Hunter to "betray" him and would've killed him no matter what, or did Belos deliberately render Hunter magic-less to see if he'd survive the Draining Spell in the event this particular Grimwalker stayed loyal to him? Or was he always planning on killing Hunter because he was created through magic, and thus invariably 'tainted' by it?
  • The Collector's "game" of tag with Belos. Is that an example of his normal games and a glimpse of how destructive they can be, or was that fully deliberate payback on Belos and he would have toned it down with other people if it was actually just a game? The fact that the Collector starts reshaping the Boiling Isles for their next "game" while utterly oblivious to how much they're terrifying those watching seems to hint at the former, while the way their tone drops when they saw "I'm it" seems to hint at the latter.
    • Immediately after splattering Belos, they remark the gang "looks slow too" and offers them a head start. There is NO indication that they intend on anything other than obliterating them too, they simply want the game they're currently enjoying to last longer.
• Awesome Music: "Whatcha Playin'?", the Collector's introductory theme.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • When Kikimora delivers "Hunter" to Belos and asks to become his new right hand, Belos tells her that he would rather cut his arm off. Then, he literally shows her the door and tells her to find a hole to wither away in. If seeing her get demoted in the previous episode wasn't enough to please you, seeing Belos give her this treatment will. As a bonus, she's force-fed Humble Pie from it.
  • Adrian Graye hasn't fully recovered from the events in "Labyrinth Runners" yet and looks messed up. Considering how much of an exceptionally huge asshole he was, it's quite pleasing to see.
  • After all Belos has put Luz through, it is incredibly satisfying to see her outsmarting him and branding him with his own sigil, reducing him to a rampant monster. It's also extremely satisfying, after every despicable thing Belos/Philip has done and planned to do to so many others while pretending to be the good guy, to see the Collector effortlessly smash Belos against the wall in revenge, reducing the evil witch-hunter to a few mobile globs of slime and possibly robbing him of his human form (the form he so prided as a way of convincing himself that he wasn't the inhuman monster Luz told him he was) for good.
  • The reaction of the smug, corrupt and ruthless Coven Heads who have aided Belos when they realize that their "Paradise" was a lie is pretty satisfying. Seeing Terra Snapdragon in particular have her pride broken once she realizes too late that they're all going to die and that swapping Eda for Raine was the biggest mistake she ever made is especially something to cherish considering how exceptionally nasty, smug and vicious she's been throughout all her appearances.
• Creepy Awesome: The Collector is an adorable little kid in purple star pajamas that kills Belos with a fingerpoke and doesn't have any morality except just wanting to play games.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The Collector poking Belos so hard he splats against the wall? Terrifying. The Collector claiming that they were playing a game of tag and that Belos was "too slow?" Hilarious.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Since Luz and her friends are trapped on Earth, what adventures will they experience?^note Despite Season 3 being renewed as a shorter season,Season 2's pacing and original boards make it highly unlikely that the showrunners were originally planning on making episodes focusing on this. How will Camila react to all of this? Will they have trouble getting used to this new world and attract unwanted attention? What is their plan to return? Will Gus finally get the chance to see a real giraffe?
  • What has Vee done since the last time we met her? Is Jacob Hopkins still after her? If yes, what will he try this time? What about Vee's new friends? Will the real Luz meet the people Vee befriended while pretending to be her?
  • Some of the goo that was once Belos is now in the human world and still moving. Can Belos recover? How will he react to the modern human world? Will he try to get revenge on Luz and her friends?
  • Kikimora describes the Collector as a "child from the stars," but what does that mean? Is the Collector what passes as an actual child for their species?
  • Everybody on the Boiling Isles has to deal with the Collector and the aftermath of the draining spell now. How will they react to the fact that the Emperor they admired and trusted so much tried to kill them all? What will Kikimora, the Coven Heads, and Odalia do when the people learn that they were willing to sacrifice them? How will Eda deal with the permanent loss of her arm? Which role will the Hexsidians like Principal Bump, Edric, Emira, Boscha, Skara, Jerbo, Viney, Barcus, or Mattholomule play? Will they join forces with students from other schools like Bria, Gavin, and Angmar? How will Alador cope with his daughter vanishing and the fact that his own wife was willing to inflict genocide on his country?
  • What games will the Collector play with the people on the Boiling Isles, how will the chances of survival be and how much influence will King have on him? Can King rein him in or will the Collector lose his patience eventually?
  • It is implied that Eda had her own circle of friends consisting of not just Raine, Lilith, and Bump, but also Perry Porter, Darius, Alador, and even Odalia. How did they become friends, and what happened since then?
  • Since the article about Anne Boonchuy on Camila's tablet confirms not only the Shared Universe, but that this episode takes place sometime after Amphibia's final episode, how will Luz react to learning about the events of that show's penultimate episode? Will she attempt to track down the Calamity Trio when she learns of their similar experiences?
• I Knew It!:
  • Many fans predicted the figure in Belos' past resembling Hunter was named Caleb after Flapjack suggested it to Hunter as an alias. This episode proves it to be correct. The only thing causing any confusion at this point is the above-mentioned subtitling error.
  • A lot of fans correctly predicted that Belos would betray the Collector.
  • Many fans expected the Collector to act more like an absurdly powerful child instead of a methodically malicious entity. Moments after being freed, the Collector plays a short game of tag with Belos and immediately obliterates him. The Cliffhanger of the episode even leaves with the Collector dragging the entire Boiling Isles into a literal game of "Owl House." Unlike Omnicidal Maniac Belos, the Collector seems to operate on sheer childish impulse.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Belos's shockingly violent defeat at the hands of the Collector has even seen direct participation from the production crew.
    • The Mass "Oh, Crap!" of the Protagonists soon after.
    • Hunter's squeaky noise in the same scene when he meets the Collector.
  • Confusion over whether Belos had said "Caleb?!" or "Kill him!", brought on by a captioning error.
  • After Amphibia was confirmed to be in a Shared Universe (or Shared Multiverse) by a Freeze-Frame Bonus on Camila's tablet, it's not uncommon to find jokes and fanart where Luz, Amity, Hunter, Willow, and Gus go to group therapy under the care of Sasha, who got a psychology degree as an adult and works with troubled teens like she used to be. However based on the calendars, both shows are actually only a few years apart if you exclude the time skip, meaning that Sasha is most likely still in high school. The general response to this is that these scenarios happened several years after both shows ended or that it is simply a joke.
• Nausea Fuel:
  • Belos mutating into a grotesque monster is not a pretty sight.
  • The kids wind up having to run through Belos' slimy remains to get to the portal. Hunter is understandably freaked out, then a blob of this clings onto Hunter without being noticed...
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Belos' monstrous form is unnaturally thin with a skull-like face and eyes all over his body.
  • The Collector. They are an otherworldly entity who can casually drag the moon around in the sky and only cares for playing games, blasting Belos apart after he lied about being their friend by just poking him in the face. They had to be trapped by a full-grown Titan to be contained long ago. Now, he's free and eager to play new games...
• Realism-Induced Horror: Belos reshaping his head to talk down Hunter is downright disturbing. The tone he uses and Hunter's distressed reaction portrays how domestic abusers manipulate their victims scarily accurately. Belos then drops the act, bellows with rage, and resumes his rampage the second he spots Flapjack and it inadvertently reminds him of Hunter's template, which is also eerily similar to how quickly some domestic abusers can go from sweet to violent the second their victims make them mad (even accidentally). Hunter also expresses the most shock from Belos' death, which depicts how even victims of child abuse may feel attached to their abusive parents.
• Shocking Moments: The Collector making a big black stain out of Belos with practically a finger poke.
• Signature Line: "Say, you wanna play tag? I'm it."
• Signature Scene: The Collector defeating Belos with a finger poke or moving the moon away like it was a touchscreen.
• Spoiled by the Format: Given that there is a Season 3 greenlit, it is painfully clear that Emperor Belos won't be defeated for good in here and the heroes' plan will go sideways in some form, otherwise there will be no conflict left. To the shock of everyone, he is defeated and the Collector takes his place as the main antagonist, leaving him as a relatively non-threatening blob of goo. However, the end of the credits implies he might not be completely gone...
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: More than a few fans were disappointed that Odalia was nowhere to be seen during the Draining Spell scenes, considering that she was also given the lie about becoming royalty in the "new world" and her realizing that her own products sealed her doom would have been a Catharsis Factor moment on par with those above.
  • There is also no sign of the Hexside rebels from "Labyrinth Runners", outside of Hunter, Amity, Willow and Gus playing major roles in this episode. Since Principal Bump has a coven brand, it would've been touching to see him willing to sacrifice himself for his students.

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