Dance, Dance, Resolution
- The extent to which Julien is desperate for the approval of parents who just don't care about him is astonishing, it even gives him nightmares.
- When Julien puts on a new dance recital for his parents because they had originally left just before the original one and it seems like they've failed to show up again, Julien seems on the verge of a panic attack staring at the empty chairs.
- Julien gets his emotions stomped on repeatedly throughout this episode, but Maurice gets kicked around a lot as well even though he’s just trying to protect Julien.
- The first is when Julien sends him out of the throne room because he wants his parents to act like parents. The look on Maurice’s face is heart breaking.
- This scene is even worse when you learn that he was abandoned by his parents as baby and never had a family of his own growing up. Julien was the closest he got. He even admits as much to Clover later.
- Then later Julien turns on Maurice when he warns him that his parents won’t show up now that they’ve got what they want.
- This supposed to be played for laughs, but at the end when Julien sees that his parents really did attend he dismissing what he said earlier about Maurice and Clover being family. Maurice looks a bit upset to discover this.Maurice: What about all that stuff you just said about us being your family?Julien: That was back when I thought they were gone forever. Now they're back, and I'm free to blow off the valuable lesson I just learned!
- A quick throw away line, but we get a glimpse of Tammy’s emotional abuse when she reveals that one way she motivates Todd is to threaten to put him up for adoption.
- While Julien and his parents are having their ups and downs, Karl steps in with a Death Trap that will kill Julien and family if his parents can't answer a single simple trivia question about their son. When it very nearly works, it is successful in crushing Julien, who is clearly ready to die because he knows his parents don't love him.
- The abuse on Maurice from Julien’s parents finally takes it’s toll on him as he starts to hear bells everywhere and is throwing himself out of windows.
- YMMV but the fact that Julien LETS his parents treat Maurice like a dog. Yes, Maurice is technically a commoner, but he’s also Julien’s best friend.
- Julien being convinced that literally everyone in his life is just pretending to like him because he's royalty hits him hard, no matter how much he's made jokes along those same lines before. The implication that even his best friend Maurice has only been pretending to like him devastates Julien particularly hard.
- Karl sobbing his eyes out because Julien barely acknowledges him. It's ever sadder in context when you factor in that his own family doesn't care much for him.
I, Maurice
- Poor Maurice is so desperate to find out who he is and where he came from only to discover that he was left to die for sentient bells. To top it off his survival means danger to the aye-aye and they all turn on him, even suggesting killing him.
- Maurice is giddy to discover that he’s a chosen one only to have it crushed with the truth.
- When he reaches the bar there’s a look of hurt in his eyes when Maurice admits he’s looking for his family and the bar laughs at him for it.
- Julien is clearly hurt that Maurice would even wonder what their lives would have been without each other.
- While in a coma Julien calls out for Maurice and Clover can only tell him sadly that Maurice is gone.
The Strife Aquatic
- The hopelessness of the situation everyone is in. Nobody knows what to do, Mort is the only one who still believes Julien might come back to save him, and meanwhile Mort's faith is unjustified as Julien has completely given up on the kingdom and is ready to abandon it.
I Am Fartacus
- Maurice's Heroic Sacrifice hits Julien so hard, he clearly doesn't even want to live without Maurice.
- As if losing Maurice wasn’t enough Julien’s uncle is yelling at him about how he wants nothing more than for Julien to die. And Julien AGREES. He wants to die to be with his Mo-mo again. He even sticks his head in Mary-Ann’s mouth crying, “I just want my best friend back!”
- Julien’s sheer devastation over Maurice’s death is heartbreaking. He doesn’t care about anything, but finding his best friend again.Julien: I don’t want my kingdom back without Maurice.
- In the next scene after this we see him wandering about desperately calling out for Maurice. He doesn’t even notice that he’s walked into a MINEFIELD.
- Julien actually DIES and end up in Frank-ri La. Even then he just wants to find Maurice. Even though his death is an accident, it would have been entirely believable if instead King Julien killed himself on purpose to look for Maurice in the afterlife.
- His joy that Maurice is alive is quickly negated by the fact he’s, well, dead.
- Julien has already been through so much throughout the Exiled saga, but the thought if it all being for nothing hits him so hard, he begins thinking he never even deserved to be a king in the first place.
The End Is Here
- Although his speech to Clover is fairly heartwarming, Julien does break up slightly when he's forced to admit that Clover is really leaving and he's going to miss her.
