Recap / The Owl House S2E1 "Separate Tides"

Original air date:

6/5/2021 (early screening)

6/12/2021 (official)

Production code: 201

Luz feels guilty about Eda losing her powers, so she sets sail in search of a lucrative bounty to help the Owl House.

The episode was screened early on June 5th.

Full Recap

TBA...

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Tropes:

• Actor Allusion: Eda demanding "Do you know who I am?!" alludes to one of Wendie Malick's past roles as one of Burdine Maxwell's catchphrases.
• Affectionate Nickname: Hooty takes to calling Lilith "Lulu". Lilith initially hates it, but warms up to it after Hooty helps her, and gives him the nickname of "Hootsifer" in return.
• The Atoner:
  • Lilith is still agonizing over the things she has done to both Luz and Eda and is desperate to make up for it in some way. To do so she decides to create a potion that would allow them to spy into the Castle of Emperor Belos. However, getting the ingredients proves to be harder than expected without magic.
  • Luz, similarly, sees it as her fault that Eda lost her magic and her livelihood, and is driven to claim the bounty on the selkiedomus in order to make up for it and prove she's not The Load.
• Big Damn Heroes: Just as Lilith is overwhelmed by the swarm of Burning Bees and cries out for help, Hooty comes to the rescue and delivers a Curb-Stomp Battle with a giddy Lilith watching on.
• Big Entrance: The Golden Guard reveals himself to Luz and Eda by conjuring a huge fist of boiling seawater that crashes down onto the beach before them and disperses to reveal the Guard himself, kneeling and his armor steaming, but utterly chill as he says Luz being killed "can still be arranged."
• Big Shadow, Little Creature: The Garlog, a monster that Luz is hunting at the beginning of the episode, casts a huge shadow on the wall but turns out to be a tiny creature using a lamp to make itself look bigger. Luz picks it up with one hand, only to have King eat it in an attempt to get her to chase him.
• Bilingual Bonus: Luz ends her video message to her mother with, "Te quiero, Mama. Te lo prometo, regresaré a casa pronto." ("I love you, Mom. I promise, I'll be back home soon.")
• Bland-Name Product: When Luz is looking for new bounties, they're all posted on a board with the label "Greg's List".
• Blind Obedience: Invoked by the Golden Guard when Eda asks him why he's hunting the selkiedomus, saying that his job is to follow orders, not question the Emperor's will.
• Bounty Hunter: Luz resorts to this to ensure the Owl House still has money to bring food on the table.
• Call-Back:
  • The beginning of the episode has Luz paraphrase her Imagine Spot at the beginning of Season One's first episode, holding Owlbert's staff like a bazooka, only to trail off in the middle of saying "Now eat this, sucka!" when she realizes the huge shadow she's facing is being cast by a tiny creature (similar to how King was introduced).
  • Eda tries to remind Luz how "[they] weirdos have to stick together", but Luz interrupts her when she says that Eda sticking with her was the reason she lost her powers.
  • Eda can still manipulate her limbs, which she uses when robbing the ship and attacking the Golden Guard.
  • After tricking the Golden Guard, Luz is shown watching Eda practice drawing the light glyph while surrounded by dozens of previous attempts, a reverse of their situation at the end of "The Intruder".
  • The Golden Guard's chipper goodbye at the end of his threat before leaving references a comment Eda made to Lilith.
  • Luz blows a raspberry at the Golden Guard as he leaves in the same way that she stuck out her tongue at Amity back in "I Was a Teenage Abomination".
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Luz gave up the door to Belos but not the portal key. It's implied near the end of the episode that he's keeping an eye on her for that reason, and will be coming once the portal is finished.
  • At the beginning, Luz is surprised to find out that her bounty is using a light source to make his shadow bigger and mislead her. She and Eda use a similar technique to fool the Golden Guard in the climax.
• Child Prodigy: Lilith sourly proclaims that the Golden Guard is a teenage magical prodigy, and received "special treatment" from the Emperor for it.
• Cliffhanger: Emperor Belos has reassembled at least half of the portal to the Human World, though it is unknown if it can be activated again without Luz's key.
• Commonality Connection: Part of what convinces Luz not to kill the selkidomus is when she sees that it has a cub all its own, much like how Eda looks to Luz as her surrogate daughter.
• Continuity Nod: Lilith mentions how Eda isn't the only member of the family with a talent for potions. Both of them were on the potions track back when they attended Hexside.
• Contrived Coincidence: Played with. Eda happens to rob the same ship Luz was working on, even though the Emperor would no doubt have more than one ship, but Eda knows this ship has a bounty of gold she can steal, so it makes sense the two would gravitate to the promise of a large payment.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Averted. As the Golden Guard points out, just the steam from the Boiling Sea is enough to cause third degree burns.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: When Eda and Luz decide to attack the Golden Guard, he just dances around their attacks, even dodging Luz while holding his staff behind his back with both hands, and knocks them both to the ground effortlessly, before dangling them over the Boiling Sea to get them to stop.
• De-power: Lilith is revealed to have lost her powers as well due to sharing Eda's curse in the Season 1 finale.
• Death Faked for You: Eda and Luz use light and plant magic to create a shadow of Luz seemingly decapitating the selkidomus, which combined with the horrid smell is sufficient for the Golden Guard to accept the job as done.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?:
  • Eda's struggles to make ends meet and putting Luz's needs before her own speaks tones to that of a Struggling Single Mother, and one with a special needs child as well what with Luz requiring a specialized diet due to being human and thus unable to eat a lot of common witch foods.
  • Lilith's sub-plot about no longer having magic and being unable to do the things she used to do plays into the stories of people who become handicapped one way or another later in life and have to come to terms with the fact they just can't go back to doing things like they use to.
• Dressed to Plunder: Luz, Eda, and the sailors on the ship are dressed like pirates. King also acts like a parrot saying, "King wanna cracker!"
• Epic Fail: Lilith tries to conjure an ice spell and gets just a single ice cube.
• Even Evil Has Standards: The Golden Guard points out that he can force Luz into Indentured Servitude to make up for the bounty money she lost and arrest Eda for stealing said bounty from the Emperor Coven's ship, or simply kill them both for resisting, but admits that he's not that mean, and would rather they willingly slay the selkidomus for him in exchange for looking the other way.
• Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job: With her access to the human world lost, Eda's junk stall has no inventory to sell, forcing her to turn to various odd jobs (and thievery) to make ends meet, especially since the foods that Luz can eat are rather pricey. Bounty hunting is the job of the week.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Lilith initially finds Hooty to be just as annoying as the other inhabitants of the Owl House do — compounded by him having humiliated her on a number of occasions — and brushes off his attempts to befriend and help her with increasing vehemence. When she picks a fight with a hive of fire-bees and realizes she's in over her head, Hooty rescues her — leading to her warming up towards him and giving him the nickname "Hootsifer" in repayment for him nicknaming her "Lulu".
• Foreshadowing:
  • Luz wonders if Lilith will be able to become friends with the rest of the Owl House while filming a video message for her mother, which is immediately followed by Hooty spooking Lilith. Guess which two characters form an Odd Friendship by the time the episode ends?
  • At the very start of the episode, Garlog uses a shadow on the wall to make himself look like a giant imposing monster, while in reality he's a tiny, harmless creature. Luz and Eda later use this same tactic to fool the Golden Guard into thinking they killed the Selkiedomus, using plant glyphs to cast shadows on the wall to make it look like they killed it.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: At the episode's conclusion, Emperor Belos is shown placing another piece of the door to the human world, turns to the camera, and ominously mutters, "Knock, knock, human." Considering humans watch this show, it's creepy in more ways than one.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Luz is looking looking through the list of bounties at the beginning of the episode, one of them reads "Wanted: a friend" and another shows that the Bat Queen is looking for a babysitter.
• Gaining the Will to Kill: Despite Eda's attempts to dissuade her, Luz decides to harden her heart and kill the selkidomus both in order to save King and repay Eda for all the trouble she's caused her. This sparks an argument between them that ends with Luz brushing off Eda and plunging backwards off the mast of a derelict ship to fight the beast. It's ultimately subverted as Eda stops Luz and reveals the selkidomus is normally peaceful and just trying to provide for and protect her baby, causing Luz to come up with an alternative plan to rescue King.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Lilith shows some jealousy and envy of the Golden Guard getting special treatment.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Eda tries to beat the Golden Guard with her own detached arm.
• Hard-Work Montage: A montage showing Luz using her glyphs to do chores aboard the ship.
• Hats Off to the Dead: When Captain Salty's ship arrives at the Simmering Shoals, the crew notices the burning wreckage of another ship, leading two of them to take off their hats in respect.
• Hostage for MacGuffin: The Golden Guard holds King hostage to force Eda and Luz to slay the selkidomus for him.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Both Eda and Lilith, two of the most powerful witches in the Boiling Isles, are now ridiculed and barely getting enough money to get by, because of their loss of magic.
• I Gave My Word: The Golden Guard keeps his word to return King and let Luz and Eda go after they seemingly "slay" the selkidomus, despite having them all in his clutches and being well within his power to arrest them if he wanted. However, he does tell them that if he catches them defying the Emperor again, he will arrest them without exception.
• I Work Alone:
  • Lilith refuses help from Hooty multiple times, partly because she wants to be useful on her own even without her powers. She grows out of it at the end of the episode.
  • Luz similarly insists on killing the selkidomus by herself, in order to earn money for Eda. Played with in that Eda doesn't want to help her, she wants to stop her (and eventually succeeds).
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: While turning in their bounties for the day, Eda says that she's "trying to stay civil" right before deliberately kicking over a guy wearing advertisements for joining covens.
• Immediate Sequel: In her video to her mother, Luz mentions that a week and a half has passed since the events of "Young Blood, Old Souls".
• Infernal Retaliation: Fire-bees, as the name suggests, are giant, perpetually flaming bees that are extremely territorial. Set a foot near their hive, and they immediately swarm at the intruder.
• Instantly Proven Wrong: Lilith claims that her name still commands respect and fear while posing next to a flyer of her promoting the Emperor's Coven... immediately before said flyer is burned off the wall with a flamethrower and replaced with one of the Golden Guard.
  King: Haha! You're a traitor!
• It's All My Fault: Luz feels that, between nearly being petrified, losing her magic, and having to find a way to make ends meet so that everyone in the Owl House (including Luz, who can only eat certain foods) can eat, Eda's life wouldn't have fallen into a hellhole if she never came to the Isles. Eda snaps her out of it, pointing out that Luz has been constantly selfless and generous to those she doesn't know well; besides which, the curse was going to strip her of her magic eventually, and Luz saved her from being turned into stone. Eda says they're in this together. She also has this mindset about monster hunting as a way to make up to Eda.
• Karmic Jackpot: After faking the death of the selkidomus and getting the Golden Guard to leave peacefully, the selkidomus rewards Eda and Luz by vomiting up a pile of "selkigris", the equivalent of ambergris (the substance produced by sperm whales) and equally as valuable as the real thing.
• Kick the Dog:
  • Played for Laughs. When a baby-like demon Eda suggested Luz catch for its bounty commiserates with her, King contemptuously boots it off the statue of Emperor Belos.
  • The Golden Guard was sent to kill the selkidomus for seemingly no reason, as he doesn't bother collecting the supposed corpse or anything of value that it might have had. As we learn from Eda, it's a peaceful creature as long as it isn't being provoked.
• Lima Syndrome: Played for Laughs. After messing with King by removing and returning the curtain flap of his cage several times (as King freaks out each time it's removed and goes back to sleep every time it becomes dark), the Golden Guard laughs that King is an oddly endearing creature, a fact King himself disputes.
• Literal-Minded: When Captain Salty tells his crew to keep their eyes peeled, one of them peels back his eyelids and ties them behind his head.
• Loophole Abuse: While the curse prevents Lilith or Eda from casting spells of any meaningful quality, nothing stops them from making potions.
• Losing Your Head: As the selkidomus attacks the ship, one of the sailors gets his head cut off by a flying spike. He then picks it up and puts it back on like nothing happened.
• Loss of Identity: With most of her magic gone and rendered a fugitive for her betrayal of the Emperor's Coven, Lilith starts to question who she even is, a question that brings her visible despair. Fortunately, she finds an unexpected friend in Hooty.
• Magic Potion: Eda and Lilith both default to their Potion Track skills in an attempt to deal with their loss of magic.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: The selkidomus has elements of seals, sharks (its fins), puffer fish (can puff itself and shoot spikes), sperm whales (produces an ambergris-like substance), and seaweed (blades of it growing out of its head and body).
• Meaningful Appearance: Lilith has dispensed with her regular outfit, and now wears a t-shirt with the "low battery" symbol on it, referencing her magical abilities being reduced to almost nothing.
• Monster Is a Mommy: As they're fighting the selkidomus, Eda and Luz are tossed into a seaweed nest and find the creature's cub, with Luz later mentioning that the selkidomus is acting so vicious in order to protect her child. This convinces Luz to not kill the monster.
• Mood Whiplash: After ominously warning Luz that the Emperor is not a merciful man, the Golden Guard departs with a cheerful "Byeeee!"
• Mundane Utility: Luz uses her glyphs to perform chores on the ship, earning the respect of the captain. She also uses King's horns to scrape barnacles off the hull.
• No Biochemical Barriers: Zig-Zagged. Despite Witches appearing mostly human, Luz is incapable of properly digesting many of the more common foodstuffs on the Isles. Unfortunately, with the portal gone, Eda can't get any human food for her and what she can get that Luz can eat is apparently rather pricey, prompting Luz's guilt in this episode.
• Not Afraid of You Anymore: The locals of Bonesborough have no problem screwing Eda out of deserved payment, because they know she has no magic and thus can't do anything about it. Eda's reputation as the most dangerous witch in the Boiling Isles is what kept them honest, at least to some extent.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Due to the events of the previous episodes, day-to-day life in the Owl House has changed rather drastically for the tenants, both old and new.
  • Luz is now the main provider of magic and is teaching Eda and Lilith how to use glyphs like her. Eda is forced to rely on potions to defend herself.
  • Luz and Eda have to resort to bounty hunting as, without the portal, Eda can no longer scavenge for her curios store, or even "borrow" human food for Luz.
  • Lilith has lost her authority due to being a public traitor and has to live in the Owl House with barely any magic like her sister due to sharing the curse.
• No, You:
  Golden Guard: Oh, that thing smells awful, why are you touching it with your hands?! Gross.
  Luz: YOU'RE gross!
• Odd Friendship: At the end of the episode, Lilith, of all people, accepts Hooty's friendship.
• An Offer You Can't Refuse: The Golden Guard forces Eda and Luz to hunt the selkidomus, because the alternative is forcing Luz into Indentured Servitude for losing the money Eda tried to steal, and locking Eda up for stealing said money in the first place. He also has King as a hostage in case that's not enough motivation.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Credit to the Emperor, he does repair the portal to Earth in a week when Luz assumed she had damaged it beyond repair. He also uses Lilith's scrying spell to spy on the Owl House, hinting he's going after Luz for her portal key.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: The Owl House residents, sans Hooty, keep reminding Lilith casually that it's her fault that Eda lost her powers and was cursed for thirty years. Eda snarks about how she had to deal with feathers on her clothes and being a fugitive. King snickers when the Golden Guard posters replace Lilith's Emperor Coven recruitment flyers, calling her a traitor. Luz bluntly tells her mother that she's not sure if anyone can befriend Eda's sister about what happened. Lilith accepts this as fair punishment. In fact, she is worried about the fact that she doesn't know how to make up for it.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Normally, it's Eda willing to do unethical things for money and Luz who acts as The Conscience and The Heart. Now, Luz is willing to kill what she knows is a peaceful creature and it's Eda arguing to Take a Third Option due to the selkidomus being innocent, showing just how desperate their situation has become. (Or rather, how great Luz's guilt over Eda's situation is.) Luz snaps out of it when she sees the selkidomus cub, and understands why Eda was protecting it.
• Our Mermaids Are Different: One of the ship's crewmen is a kind of reverse merman, with a fish upper body and human legs and feet.
• Pet the Dog:
  • The Golden Guard keeps his word and lets King go, as well as Luz and Eda when they seem to kill the selkidomus. He doesn't even check on the body. As he said, his job is to follow orders, not enforce the Emperor's will.
  • When Eda declares they'll order takeout and draw on Hooty, Hooty looks genuinely dismayed by the idea. Lilith assures Hooty she'll protect him, earning a grateful smile.
• Pirate Episode: To generate stable income for the Owl House, Luz joins a pirate crew to collect a bounty worth one million snails with King serving as her parrot.
• Poke in the Third Eye: At the end of the episode, Lilith's scrying potion works and allows the Owl House residents to spy on the Emperor's Coven... but unbeknownst to them, Belos is apparently aware of what they're doing.
  Belos: (while looking at the camera) Knock knock, human.
• Poor Communication Kills: Eda refuses to hunt the selkidomus, framing it as too dangerous a mission for either her or Luz. Luz decides to join the hunt herself to earn the bounty and help Eda. Eda, meanwhile, plans to steal the bounty from the ship Luz joins, knowing it's part of the Emperor's fleet and thus would have the cash on hand. She didn't want to target the selkidomus because it's a peaceful creature.
• Previously on…: Luz begins the episode by doing a recap of the previous episode in a video to her mother.
• Privateer: As it turns out, Captain Salty and his crew are these, commissioned by the Emperor to snag and plunder rare and valuable finds, such as the selkidomus, and King sees what appears to be a Letter of Marquee with the Emperor’s sigil.
• The Reveal: The mysterious figure at the end of season one is revealed to be the Golden Guard, a "teen prodigy" whom Lilith had something of a rivalry with, and who has become the new face of the Emperor's Coven following Lilith's betrayal in "Young Blood, Old Souls".
• Selkies and Wereseals: Fans of the selkie legend can probably guess the selkidomus will be some kind of seal creature. (Though this one seems to be combined with a giant monster rather than a humanoid.)
• Shadow Discretion Shot: Invoked by Luz and Eda to trick the Golden Guard into thinking they've killed the selkidomus.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Luz vents her feelings of guilt and insecurity regarding Eda's dire situation, the baby-like demon Eda had tasked her with capturing commiserates with her by saying "That's rough, buddy." in reference to Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender.
  • Luz's sailor outfit looks a lot like the uniform of the Team Aqua Grunts from Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire.
  • King finds a box of Kraken Krackers, with the slogan "Release the Krackers!"
• Sigil Spam: King enters the captain's quarters and finds a letter sealed with the Emperor's sigil. He turns up the lights and sees the sigil all over the room, and he realizes they're on one of the Emperor's ships.
• Significant Wardrobe Shift: Lilith has swapped out her black dress for a new outfit after moving into the Owl House. Said outfit includes a t-shirt with a low battery symbol, which signifies her as being Brought Down to Normal.
• Skewed Priorities: After finding out that Lilith intents to use a scrying spell to spy on the Emperor's Coven, Hooty thinks they can use this information to find out who Lilith's "old buddies" have crushes on and give them cute couple names.
• Spontaneous Weapon Creation: After giving the ultimatum of Eda and Luz killing the selkidomus for him, the Golden Guard conjures a mass of fleshy tendrils that transforms into a bronze-colored cutlass.
• Stalker Shot: When Luz and King join a ship's crew to hunt the down selkidomus, the camera changes angle to reveal the Golden Guard watching her join and it's revealed the ship she's boarding belongs to the Emperor's Coven.
• Stomach of Holding: The Selkidomis reveals a massive amount of Selkigris in its throat which it coughs up for Eda and Luz when they aid it.
• Subtext: King yelling “You’re a traitor!” to Lilith doesn’t just refer to her betraying her Coven, but it’s also considered subtext to how she committed treachery against her own sister by cursing her.
• Super Cell Reception: Averted. With the portal destroyed, Luz's cell phone no longer has any signal or wi-fi. How she's keeping it charged is anyone's guess.
• Teen Genius: According to Lilith, the Golden Guard receives special treatment within the Emperor's Coven because he is a "genius teen prodigy", a fact which greatly irritates her.
• Tempting Fate: Lilith mocks Eda for losing her reputation as the most wanted criminal and the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles, then proceeds to proclaim her own image still commands respect and fear. Cue her posters for joining the Emperor's Coven being set ablaze and being replaced with the Golden Guard's image.
  King: Haha! You're a traitor!
• This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Lilith insists on collecting the ingredients for the scrying potion herself even though her magic is too weak to do so because she wants to prove she can do it without help, and to make up for what she did to her sister.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: After being ignored by everyone last season and pushed away by Lilith this episode, Hooty finally gains a friend when Lilith accepts his help at the end of the episode.
• Took a Level in Badass: Normally, Hooty is only effective against threats to the Owl House. When Lilith finally calls him for help, he takes on the fire-bees with relative ease because she's a resident now and under his protection, at the cost of him getting countless burning stings.
• The Unreveal: Belos is putting on his mask when the scrying potion zooms in on him, but we don't see his face, only that he has long, gray hair that he usually keeps hidden.
• Vine Swing: Eda rescues Luz from the Selkidamus this way.
• William Telling: In order to test her new bounty hunting weapon, Eda tricks King into putting an apple on his head as a hat, while he’s in front of a bullseye. Luz has none of it.
• Wham Line: "Knock knock, human." The Emperor says this after placing another piece on the portal, while looking into the camera. It implies that he's coming for Luz, for her portal key.
• Wham Shot: Just as it seems the Owl House residents are set financially for a few months, and Lilith has realized that potion-making doesn't require magic, the scrying spell goes into overdrive. It shows the interior of the Emperor's castle, showing that Belos has finished making the door. He then turns to look directly into the camera — and whoever is doing the spell — implying he's coming after Luz.
• You Are Not Alone: When Lilith finally asks Hooty for help, he does so and fights off the fire-bees to get the ingredients. She helps patch him up, as she admits she's not used to lacking her independence. Lilith also says she feels she can never make up for hurting Eda. Hooty tells her that redemption isn't a solo path, and she doesn't need to find it alone.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: When Luz tells Eda how she considers it her fault Eda lost her powers and is left struggling to make money, Eda proceeds to retort that Luz retrieved King's crown when he and Eda were only strangers, saved her from turning to stone, and enabled her to reconcile with her sister Lilith.

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"Knock, knock, human."

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