Accidental Innuendo: In "Justin's Little Sister", Alex blatantly admits to her mother that the idea of her parents canoodlinggrosses her out more than the idea of going out with her own brother. This scene can be considered the turning point for many fans of the show, as from this point on you were either a Jalex fan or you weren't. Note that is not a case of That Came Out Wrong, as neither her or her mother saw anything wrong with this.
Perhaps not-so-accidental: in "Helping Hand", after Max 'invents' his toothbrush/backscratcher, Jerry and Theresa have a conversation debating how unfair their 'backscratching' is in bed. Jerry accuses Theresa of pretending to be too tired to 'scratch his back' and she accuses him of not returning the favour, stating "It's just scratch, I'm done."
Actor Shipping: Most people out there think that Selena Gomez and David Henrie look cute together. In a round-about way of avoiding squick, many fans who can't stomach their character pairing resort to shipping them in real life instead while watching the show. In an interview, her perfect guy description basically was the impersonation of David, physic and personality likewise: "My color of hair. I don't know, i've never been attracted to someone who doesn't have brown hair. Tall, cause I like to feel short. I don't like to feel taller than someone, and I do like to wear heels so someone has to be taller than me. Green eyes because I don't have green eyes and I think they are very pretty. Muscular, kind of. Or between. I dont like them to be too muscular, but I want them to take care of me. Uh, scruffy. I kind of like a little scruff. Goofy and a little serious because I love to have a good time but I also like someone who can have an intellectual conversation."
Harper is cheerful, dorky, kind, a bit naive and known for her outrageous (and often ridiculous) fashion sense. Easily among the most endearing characters on the show, if not in the Disney Channel pantheon.
Zeke is nerdy, easygoing, and passionate about robots. He is also part of an "alien language" club and he and Justin often speak "alien" to each other.
Alex herself can be this, when her magic actually works, she also makes being rebellious look adorable at times.
Alex enjoys fighting with Justin and teases him relentlessly, mainly because she wants to get his attention and seeks his acceptance. This is heavily implied in some episodes like "Dollhouse", where she laughs and jumps happily when Justin yells at her, saying "there's the fight I was looking for!", then hugs him, and Art Museum Piece when she wants him to say that her work is cool. This interpretation of Alex was pretty much made canon with the episode "Delinquent Justin", where Alex reveals her plan to keep Justin from leaving and going to college. This showed that Alex has spent at least the last 4-5 years of her life wanting Justin's praise and attention, most of her schemes are simply trying to keep it.
Also, is Justin really the sweet nerd he appears to be, or one of the show's biggest manipulative bastards. He puts on an act that he is always punished and Alex gets away with everything, but in every episode Alex will get in trouble even unfairly, and he will usually be pardoned since he is the good kid.
The "Werewolves Vs Vampires" episode ends with a never-previously-mentioned mutual weakness between vampires and werewolves, that if Vampires bite Werewolves, they lose their humanity and become full-wolf, while if a Werewolf scratches a vampire, they lose their powers and rapidly age. This pretty much comes out of nowhere to justify breaking up both Alex and Mason AND Justin and Juliet, and easily weakens any emotion that could have been in the ending when this happens.
The finale ends with Justin winning the Family Wizard contest and, depending on your view, that seems like a reasonable ending. Except, it turns out he only won because Alex went back to help him after he got stuck on a branch (somehow, given how flimsy the branch looked, its amazing he couldn't have broken free from it himself), and so he hands her the title of Full Wizard. OK, less reasonable and definitely feels like Character Shilling, but OK. But then, Prof. Crumbs announces out of nowhere that he's retiring, and hands his power over to Justin, allowing both Alex and Justin to ultimately keep their powers, while Max gets to inherit the family sandwich shop, meaning they all get a happy ending, but each without any build up to justify it.
Broken Base: Half of the fanbase think season three is great season because of the witty humor, story-arc episodes, and new characters. The other half think it is terrible due to Alex and Justin's relationship became Cain and Abel, the tone became darker and dramatic, the mean-spirited humor, and the introduction of Mason.
Creator's Pet: Mason is not liked very much by the fans, but he appears to be loved by the writers. As a result of this, Alex will always take him back no matter what he does.
Max/Zack Martin- They have a lot in common, meet on a boat trip and shared a smoothie together.
Designated Hero: Everyone in the Russo family has their moments of doing morally questionable acts, and unpleasant and insufferable jerks to each other despite being the so-called heroes. Alex and Justin are some of the most guilty victims of this.
Despite being the main character, Alex is this for many episodes, while she does indulge in bad habits and some somewhat behavior; a lot of the time the girl cannot breathe without being treated like she is the Anti-Christ. Some of the most infamous examples include "Alex's Logo", where Alex is enchanted into speaking what is on her mind, and is punished for it, or "Re-Test", where Alex is entirely blamed for Aunt Megan's actions, instead of Aunt Megan. This gets especially bad during the finale when Alex convinces Justin and Max to give up their powers in order to save Harper and Zeke. After losing their powers, Justin and Max become extremely abusive towards Alex, and are portrayed in the right for doing so. The fact that they were willing to let people die is never acknowledged. Harper calls everyone out on this in the reunion special, saying they should love Alex for who she is and not constantly expect her to change.
Die for Our Ship: Mason gets this treatment from Jalex fans. Harper got this treatment when she was crushing on Justin (hard) but now that Harper has moved on she’s apparently cool now (although Harper/Alex has always been a ship). Fortunately for Juliet, she is the Ensemble Dark Horse, so she has been saved from this.
Stevie Nichols, another wizard who rivals Alex in how much of a troublemaker she can be. Having Les Yay with Alex and being arguably the biggest case of a Designated Villain in Disney television helps.
Hurt/Comfort Fic: This is a big one. In order to make the Justin/Alex plot make sense, usually the two are set up in a hurt/comfort situation: either someone dies (often the entire rest of the family), or they can't get over a breakup with a lost loved one (Mason and Juliet usually). Almost all Harper fics involve her terrible home life or self-loathing issues, and her latching onto Justin, Alex, Max or Zeke for support.
Other common ones include Dark Fic (the 'bad Justin' from "Delinquent Justin" has nothing on the Justin in dark fics...), Child Fic (either Harper or Alex get preggo, and Justin is usually the father.), and Continuation.
Fanon: A good half of the fandom believes that someone is adopted. The most accused of this fate is Justin, because he doesn't look Latino like Alex and Max. The three kids are Latino and Italian, Justin simply inherited his looks from his father. Not to mention Justin was ripped from existence in the movie. This implies that if anyone were to be adopted, it would be Alex. The Family Wizard is immune to the effects of the spell, and Alex had, by the climax of the movie, become the family wizard, and thus Justin was next in line to be ripped from existence.
A very common fan theory is that Stevie is a lesbian. There's nothing ever to refute it in canon and the character is Ambiguously Gay. Her being played by a lesbian actress also helps.
"Alex's Logo" is despised for its mean-spirited nature. It also confuses fans because David Henrie wrote the episode and made his character an unlikable prick.
The post-series movie, "Alex vs Alex", likewise is usually ignored by most fans. The series had a good enough finale, so the special felt unnecessary and, to many, just one more excuse to stroke Alex's ego after she had long won the wizard competition. Justin not being there didn't help matters.
Fan-Preferred Couple: Justin/Alex is easily more popular than their canon pairings with Juliet and Mason respectively. This is mainly due to the major Incest Yay between the two, the chemistry between the actors, and the fact that they weren't originally supposed to be related. The pairing dominates fanfiction about the show on both Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction Dot Net. It has also lead to some shipping their actors.
In the Season 2 episode, "Future Harper," the Russo kids confront a fantasy author writing about their lives who turns out to be an adult Harper, come back in time because books about wizards are no longer that of big sellers in the future due to the existence of wizards being public knowledge. While she won't give details, she does go so far as to say that it's the fault of someone in the room; all three Russo kids immediately assume this means Max. (Yes, including Max himself.) After the two-part Season 3 finale/Season 4 premier, Max is the only one of the three kids who doesn't expose wizards in Crumbs' secret test.
Also in "Future Harper", there's a quick joke where Future!Harper asks Alex what's wrong, prompting "Did Mason break up with you?" Alex, having not yet met Mason, pauses and asks "Who's Mason?" Fast forward a few seasons to Alex's werewolf boyfriend.
One episode involves Jerry getting caught up in one of Alex's Zany Schemes (as per usual) and having to deal with Cupid. David DeLuise would later go on to play Cupid in an episode of The Haunting Hour.
Stevie being Ambiguously Gay becomes even more hilarious when her actress Hayley Kiyoko came out as a lesbian in 2017.
Alex lied to the reporters that Lady Gaga was going to jump over a shark tank while riding on a motorcycle in "Alex Tells the World". Guess what happens during the season?
Leven Rambine, the actress who played Rosie Justin's angel of darkness love interest had a previous role in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles as Riley. Similar to Rosie, Riley was a spy who'd been sent to get close to a John Connor only to end up developing feelings for him. The characters from both series even have names that begin with the same letter (Justin/John, Rosie/Riley).
There seems to be some between Justin and his dad (after all, Justin is his favorite). More noticeable is the amount between Max and his Conscience—he and his Conscience were wrestling (which looked very suggestive) and his Conscience has even sat on his lap. It probably doesn't help that his Conscience is played by Moises Arias, Jake T. Austin's (the actor who plays Max) best friend in real life.
Max and Mason have quite a bit, too, especially from Max's side. It seems like at first he's just trying to get on Alex's new boyfriend's good side, but then Mason breaks Alex's heart, the rest of the family hates him, and...what's this? Max is following him down the street? Mason tries to convince him that maybe they shouldn't keep hanging out, Max debates being hurt over it and then pretty much just ignores it? Yeah. There's something there. And it seems one-sided until the end of the movie, when Max is howling from the top of the castle and Mason returns. And Max nearly cries. And...it's just all kinda weird, really.
Then there's the episode where teenage Max and Justin wrestle each other... resulting in lines like this:
Max: Give up yet? Justin: Of course not, I'm on top of you.
Alex and the Tutor. Alex wanted to befriend that girl so much that she fought with Justin (who wanted to date the Tutor) for an entire episode, like two beings that fight for the same love partner. It didn't help the fact that, at the end, the Tutor reveals herself to be an elf, explaining to them that "everyone loves elves", which validates the insights regarding Alex's true intentions.
Also there is quite much of this between Zeke and Justin, too, with more on Zeke's part. When Alex tells him that Justin doesn't want to be his partner anymore, he almost has a breakdown.
Zeke: Goodbye, old science partner. If that water powered engine doesn't make you happy... you know where I'll be. In the library, reading comic books.
Alex and Stevie. And occasionally Harper, which turns "Third Wheel" into a Love Triangle. This was later confirmed as intentional since the producers wanted Alex and Stevie to date, but it was shot down.
The final scene in Wizards Return. the second movie, where Alex says, to Mason's dismay, that Harper is the one person who has always accepted her for herself and that even if her powers are taken away she'll still have Harper, is as close to an open declaration of homosexual love as we're ever likely to get on a Disney show.
The first thing Harper says after seeing Jenny turn back into a teenager?
Pretty much Alex interacting with female characters.
Incest Yay Shipping: Jalex (Justin and Alex who are brother and sister) is the most popular ship for Wizards of Waverly Place.
Informed Wrongness: When Alex doesn't write lines for the puppet show she and Harper are doing to raise money to buy their own apartment, Harper decides to do it on her own, but she does a puppet making fun of Alex, which hurts Alex's feelings. When Alex does her own puppet show using Justin and Zeke for puppets and people enjoy it more than Harper's, Harper gets mad at Alex for stealing her customers, ignoring the fact she disregarded Alex's feelings by making fun of her in public, despite seeing how upset Alex was. Even after Alex apologizes, Harper never apologizes to Alex in return, even though her making fun of Alex was just as wrong.
Alex. In addition to the huge Jalex community, Alex is shipped with Harper, Max, Justin, Alex herself. Juliet, Dean, Stevie, Mason, Zeke, Theresa, Jerry Basically anyone who ever comes onto the show.
Memetic Mutation: "What's that? A hat, a crazy funky junky hat!"
Mind Game Ship: Expect mind games to be played between Justin and Alex in almost any episode you watch.
A great example of this aspect of their relationship is in "Fairy Tale". She acts really nice to Justin to get a role in his play, and when that doesn't work, she flat out uses mind games to trick him into getting it.
Misaimed Fandom: Regarding Justin's and Alex's relationship. Although the fandom might have made itself misaimed for noble purposes.
Never Live It Down: Some people still have a grudge on Justin for his actions in Alex's Logo. Being out-of-character, and getting no punishment for his actions also helps.
Replacement Scrappy: Maxine (Max in a little girl's body) to fans of Max's actor, the temporarily absent Jake T. Austin. This is a very unusual case, since they are technically the same character.
Many fans don't understand how Alex acts so different when Mason's around, not to mention how he was a jerkassstalker in "Wizards vs. Werewolves", "killing" Juliet and effectively rendering both Justin and Alex heartbroken for the majority of Season 3. Many people who like him are either Alasonshippers, or they just think Gregg Sulkin is cute. This is not helped by the fact that Juliet appeared in less episodes in season 4 (justified since Bridgit Mendler was busy doing Good Luck Charlie at the time and couldn't return until during the final episodes) and that he appeared in more episodes during this season.
Daphne, who seemingly serves no purpose outside of proving that Justin isn't Hollywood Dateless. It's hard to blame Justin for wanting nothing to do with her, since she's clingy, forces herself into his life against his will and generally only seems to be interested in him because she believes he won't get a date otherwise.
Season 4 was considered the series worst season because of Flanderization on the characters (especially Alex, Justin, Max, and Theresa), Maxine replacing Max, Alex and Mason's romance (see Strangled by the Red String) and many episodes that has nothing to do with the plot.
Season 3 also qualify this, including Mason's appearance and romance with Alex. Also, Alex and Justin's relationship became Cain and Abel instead of their friendly Sibling Rivalry making Jalex shippers disappointed.
Some say the series went downhill early as season two. During the season, Alex's jerkass personality starts to develop.
She Really Can Act: This scene in the movie, which had arguably Selena Gomez's most powerful acting in the series, where Justin loses his memory and Alex breaks down crying about she looks up to him and begs her not to leave him. Then Justin gets sucked into the vortex and Alex tries desperately to conjure a spell to fix everything. You can really hear the hopelessness in her voice...
Especially in the first two seasons when it was obvious the "special effects" were little more than cut-and-paste Photoshop effects.
In the climax of "Future Harper", Alex runs to the Grand Canyon to tell Harper that she gave her permission. Even at first glance, it's obvious that Selena Gomez is simply standing in front of a giant green screen, since the scenery clips into her hair and there's clearly no depth whatsoever.
The entirety of "Graphic Novel". Remember that this is a Disney show? Yeah, instead of just animating the characters, maybe even in the Glen Keane style, which would've been a really cool gimmick, they just put a "pencil sketch" filter over the actors on a live-action set.
In "Alex in the Middle," Alex and Kelbo open a package of sea chimps which fills the room with water and transforms them into sea chimps. Alex and Kelbo's sea chimp forms are just barely-moving images with the duo's faces plastered on the heads, like they're sticking their heads into cutout dolls.
Mason and Alex. Literally together for only an episode before Alex was 'in love' with him. Then you were supposed to be sad for him when he gets turned into a wolf, after he flat out tried to injure/kill Justin and Juliet for no apparent reason.
Meanwhile, Alex seems to not care that Juliet and Justin's lives are in danger at all
Stevie's evil plan amounts to getting rid of the one-wizard-per-family rule. Considering how the show does demonstrate how much damage this rule does with Megan, Kelbo, and Jerry, it comes off as her wanting for a more unified wizarding world.
In "Wizard of the Year", Alex is granted the titular Wizard of the Year award for saving the world in "Wizards vs Angels" and puts her ahead of Justin in the wizard competition. This naturally pisses off Justin and while making what is supposed to be a tribute video to her, he ends up giving a very angry and vicious speech about how she doesn't deserve the award. While Justin does come across as rather petty, jealous and entitled during the speech, his points are not inaccurate. Alex has frequently been shown to be irresponsible and careless with her use of magic, often to disastrous results. Justin, meanwhile, is the most consistently responsible and hardworking of the Russo siblings, has invented his own spell, taught a class of delinquent wizard youths as part of his wizard community service and frequently helps Alex out of problems she creates. Worse, it was actually Justin who saved the world from the Angels of Darkness in "Wizards vs Angels" meaning that Alex was getting credit for something Justin did.
Sweetness Aversion: Alex and Mason's relationship. Apart from the fact that the whole thing is just a Strangled by the Red String case, their supposedly "perfect couple" image comes off as downright cheesy.
During the whole "girlfriend's been kidnapped by a mummy" fiasco, and later when Juliet loses her powers during a fight with Mason and becomes an old lady. A few of the moments where Justin was on the verge of tears would have come across as cheesy, except that dammit David Henrie can act.
From the same episode, Mason becoming a real wolf right after proving to Alex that she's the one he wants.
Even Max gets one, comedically howling to wolf!Mason from a distance before sullenly saying "I'll see you around, buddy."
In the Grand Finale, during the montage where the viewer sees the three Russo siblings attempting to work to get the sub shop back in business. They slowly soften up to each other after having been at each other's throats for having thought that Alex got them disqualified from the wizard competition. Eventually, they all work well together, bring in enough business, and bring their parents back.
Values Dissonance: In "Wizard School, Part 1" Justin explains he has a cousin who was made fun of because his name was Kim. In South Korea, Kim is actually a very common name for boys.
Villain Decay: The mummy isn't nearly as badass as he was at the end of the Chronicles of Moises arc, and his defeat is ridiculously easy.
This show is pushing the limits on what can be shown on Disney Channel due to some content (werewolves, vampires, Alex's Anti-Villain tendencies).
They've also killed off quite a few characters (such as Stevie) and react rather coldly to their deaths—they go on as if nothing ever happened and really don't seem to care.
The dark angels who wanted to invoke some sort of Apocalypse, before they got there halfway. The same episode had Max maliciously turning the girls from the sleepover into fruit the family was going to eat. The final scene is the family listening to the fruit tell jokes. The audience is left to assume they changed them back to girls and wiped their memories or something, but there was some pretty dark humour in that scene, when Jerry practically threatened to put them into a blender.
The cynical humor, especially in later seasons is definitely not "kid-friendly".
There's a very dark sense of humor always underneath the surface, certainlywhereHarper'scharacterization is concerned, and the relations between Theresa and Jerry, or the parent Russos and their children are concerned. The dysfunction is often Flanderized and/or Played for Laughs.
had spoken up
