YMMV / The Owl House S3E2 "For the Future"

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The visions of Caleb and the dead Grimwalkers appearing before Belos have led to two interpretations that greatly depend on how one views Belos. For those who believe that Belos feels no guilt for his actions, Caleb and the Grimwalkers are actual ghosts waiting for Belos to die and deliver judgement upon him. For those who believe that Belos does feel guilt but has been suppressing it to avoid feeling pain, these ghosts are hallucinations created by Belos' subconscious after he was forced to relive his worst memories from Gus' spell in "King's Tide".
  • Does Boscha genuinely miss Amity? While she certainly seems sincere, and it's hard to imagine Boscha acting this desperate unless she is genuine, a more cynical take is that she's merely treating Amity as a "last option" after losing Amelia and Cat. Her being willing to let Amity go seems to suggest the latter, while the fact that she is much more insistent with Amity than with Skara (who also used to be part of her possé) implies that she really does miss Amity specifically.
  • On top of that, does Boscha have a crush on Amity, or has she simply developed attachment issues from having lost her teammates and family? A majority of fans suspect the former, noting how a good portion of her interactions are of a person who may have a one-sided romantic attraction to a person. Some suspect the latter, noting that Boscha may simply be looking for a person to latch onto after losing everyone else and not having taken incentive to approach Amity in prior episodes. Still, some fans are considering both possibilities are true.
  • How much of Boscha's tyranny is actually done on her own incentive, and how much is Kikimora pulling her strings? Kikimora is an adult who has served under a Manipulative Bastard most of her life, which has made her a seasoned, cutthroat politician, while Boscha is a young and impressionable teenager. Boscha's previous actions certainly support the idea that she's power hungry, but by the end she seems to hand over leadership to Matt on her own accord (Amity merely asked her to let them go), and claims that she only really wants to play grudgby with her team.
• Angst? What Angst?: Shortly after Willow admits that she misses her dads in the midst of a breakdown, she seems to quickly recover from it afterwards to focus on the battle with Kikimora. Given the fact that Disney Cut Short the show, it may be justified to an understandable extent, but some found it jarring. Even then, she does thank Hunter for what he said, showing that she may not be over it yet.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Even though Boscha is the main antagonist of the special, the anticipated confrontation with her lasts no more than 20 seconds. Boscha is defeated by Amity talking her down and getting her to switch sides. Instead, the real fight for this special ends up being with her "lapdog" Kikimora.
• Ass Pull: Boscha revealing she not only missed Amity since the end of their friendship, but begging her to return to her side. Even ignoring the bad timing of this revelation, what with the apocalypse happening as they speak and the heroes being separated, not once have any of Boscha's prior appearances implied that she either missed Amity or that she was that hung up about her breaking their relationship. It's implied that the loss of her other friends is behind this sudden desperation, however. Another factor is of course probably the shortening of the series.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • After what he just did to Luz, Hunter, and Flapjack in "Thanks to Them" (in addition to all of his many other atrocities in the series), Belos being put through hell in this episode is very satisfying to watch. Not only is he being haunted by visions of his past victims as a result of his Sanity Slippage, along with a very deserved disappointed glare from Caleb, but his body is deteriorating rapidly to the point where he can't sustain his physical form at all anymore.
  • Fans were cheering over the karma that Terra and Odalia were given, with the former being forced to participate in humiliating playtime and the latter being forced to be nothing but a servant to clean up after the Collector's messes.
  • Kikimora finally gets called out for trying to usurp Boscha and gets pelted by grudgby balls, along with cementing Boscha's Heel–Face Turn.
• Epileptic Trees: The figure Luz sees in the beginning of the episode is generally accepted to be the Titan, based on an increased saturation image of them that shows them to be a humanoid figure with a skull-like head and wings. Other, less popular theories posit that it may be a Titan Trapper, a future King, some other Titan, or another Collector.
• Fanfic Fuel: The Reveal that there are (or at least were) multiple Collectors, possibly even a whole species, immediately led to a number of fans making their own original Collectors.
• I Knew It!:
  • A strange example. Many fans have theorized that Luz's palisman would hatch into a snake, due to Luz's affinity for snakes being shown or mentioned in many different circumstances throughout the series. Turns out that they are half-correct, as Luz's palisman hatches into a shapeshifting snake, or a "snake shifter" as Luz calls her. Which means that even if her true form is a snake-like being, she can turn into whatever animal she wants, making any theorized animal of the other sides of the fandom (such as a bat, a dragon, a scorpion, a otter "with a dark side", etc.) still being technically correct. It's a weird "win-win" scenario.
  • After theorizing that Gus learned about Hunter's true nature when hijacking Belos' memories in "King's Tide", when Willow leaves the room after thinking she made Hunter feel worse, Gus himself confirms to Hunter that he's known ever since that fight against Belos.
  • A number of fans theorized that since Flapjack sacrificed his life force to rescue Hunter, Hunter would gain the palisman's abilities. Sure enough, he ends up learning Flapjack's dash on complete accident when saving Willow and Gus during the former's breakdown.
  • While not exactly a theory, a lot of fanfics that show Boscha in a more positive light depicts her as regretting that her friendship with Amity fell apart, and wanting to make amends. This episode confirms that Boscha does indeed feel that way, even if she is bad at handling it.
  • After several cute moments, as well as the obvious ship bait haircut scene from "Thanks to Them", the popular fandom ship Huntlow that began as a crackship finally had its first inarguable confirmation in this episode, with Willow curling her pinkie around Hunter's at the end of the episode and saying "You mean a lot to me too".
• Jerkass Woobie: Boscha may be acting like a tyrant, but beneath that facade is a broken girl who has had to watch two of her friends become puppets in a moment of sacrifice, having tried to find them but failed, and really wants to be friends with Amity again. Being with Kikimora is the closest she has to having some sort of semblance to normalcy.
• Memetic Mutation: Raine's puppet form being called "Funtime Raine" due to their rather cutesy attire.
• Narm: The Collector eavesdropping on King declaring on his solution for dealing with them permanently has come off as a hamfisted way to ensure conflict continues into the next episode, as after his menacing way of describing his intention to remove the Collector as a threat, he then proceeds to reveal he intends to try Talking the Monster to Death. This is particularly so for fans who have become tired of seeing the usage of this trope.
• Narm Charm: Luz's admission "The only thing I've ever really wanted... was to be understood!" sounds ridiculous and generic on paper, but the context behind said line cancels out any cheesiness behind it. For so long, Luz barely had anyone to call a friend, let alone anyone to accept her. What she says here is an acknowledgment that she's not alone anymore, leading to a surprisingly, and genuinely emotional moment as her palisman finally hatches!
• No Yay: Much of the fandom has remarked upon being disturbed by Boscha's interactions with Amity in the episode, noting that it comes off similarly to an entitled one-sided lover or aggressive ex-lover trying to force themselves on an ex who has since moved on, between invading Amity's personal space, grabbing her hand without warning, forcibly hugging her from behind and restraining her wrists. Needless to say, the ship on its own became very unpopular.
• One-Scene Wonder: The grimwalker with long, messy hair immediately developed a fanbase, owing mostly to being one of the most notable grimwalkers by virtue of standing close to the camera and next to Caleb, and because their hairstyle was a strong contrast to most grimwalkers having either short hair or covered by their hoods.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Despite this being the first time they're together since "Any Sport in a Storm", the Emerald Entrails never have a proper reunion between them. The most we get is a scene of Viney telling Willow that her plants are waging war against the kindergarteners, and even then that's less them catching up and more setting up Willow's escalating, repressed stress over the situation.
  • The confrontation between Boscha and Amity could've been the perfect opportunity to put a proper closing to the "friendship" they (and Skara) used to have, allowing the girls to close that part of their lives and learn to move on. However, Skara doesn't accompany Amity in this moment, and they don't really interact in the episode either; the one accompanying Amity instead is Mattholomule, who has no real personal history with either girl.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: While the episode is clearly framing her in a sympathetic light, some fans feel that Boscha is also retroactively made more sympathetic in season 1 as well; Knowing that she did genuinely see Amity as a friend, it becomes easy to feel bad for her for losing one of her closest friends of several years basically overnight. And to make things worse, that friend starts dating the new girl in town shortly afterward.

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