YMMV / X Men Evolution S 2 E 10 Walk On The Wild Side

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: Perhaps it is Jean who needs to learn the Aesop here? She assumes sexism whenever Scott tries to help her, and forms a vigilante group that risks exposure and endangers her friends simply to feel empowered - so perhaps the Aesop is that feminism is not so shallow, and Jean should be happy to accept help from anyone who wants to lend it for the sake of the greater good.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Why does Mystique intervene to disband the Bayville Sirens? Is it because she wants to control the X-Men and Brotherhood herself and doesn't want them to be fighting crime independently? Is she worried about possible mutant exposure, if only because it might interfere with her plans? Or as Rogue's stepmother, does she want to honestly keep her out of trouble? Or some combination of all the above?
• Awesome Art: Towards the end of the montage, the animation for the girls dancing is pretty good.
• Best Known for the Fanservice: The episode is remembered for the X-girls donning the sexy black costumes to fight crime in. The Seasons 3 and 4 opening credits added plenty of scenes with them too.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The music video style interlude showing the Bayville Sirens forming and fighting crime. Not necessarily for the subject matter - which is relevant to the episode's plot - but because of the shift in style and the fact that the cartoon never featured something like this again.
• Broken Aesop: Besides female empowerment, the episode appears to be giving an Aesop about not taking the law into your own hands. Except the X-girls are not just random civilians; they have appropriate combat training, and powers to back them up in a fight. What's more is that they only go after criminals - muggers, car thieves, conmen - and apprehend them as non-violently as possible. It's even said that Bayville's crime rate has dropped. Granted, the only reason they stop is because Mystique disguises herself as a police officer and warns them to stop to avoid being arrested.
• Fanon Discontinuity: This episode gets a considerable amount of hate from fans due to being an incredible ham-fisted "girl power" episode that has multiple characters, most glaringly Scott, acting out of character to shove the message down the audience's throat. Mind you, this show NEVER treated the female characters as less than the males as Storm is an authority figure and Jean is treated as one by Xavier. The tone and characterization are so alien to what the show normally is the episode itself can be considered as a borderline Bizarro Episode.
• Fans Prefer the New Her: For obvious reasons, fans quite like the black costumes the Bayville Sirens wear. Boom Boom even wears hers in the fight against Apocalypse.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Jubilee sadly gets forgotten in this episode, despite "Joyride" showing that she has a rebellious side as well. In fact, she'd be more likely to be part of the Sirens than Jean.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: As note above, it would have made more sense for the new recruits to be the ones forming the Bayville Sirens, since "Joyride" had already shown them as rebellious and prone to using their powers recklessly. Having Jubilee or Wolfsbane be the one to respond to a sexist taunt from Iceman would be more in character, and it would make more sense for Jean and Scott to be the ones saving them.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Jean comes across as extremely temperamental and unsympathetic - exploding at Scott simply because he saved her and Amara from a falling boulder. So it would be less sexist to let it fall on them on the offchance they'd be able to stop it? And Scott wanting to help Amara and Boom Boom is apparently another sign of sexism, prompting yet another immature strop from Jean.