I doubt there would a have been a story arc after Cassandra's redemption. Just fighting a Dark Lord-type Evil Demon doesn't have the emotional weight of fighting with your best friend, so a Zhan Tiri-centric season would have been a step down from what came before.
Me, I think this show is probably the best animated series Disney has put out in recent years. I think its biggest flaw is that its plot takes too long to get going — there are way too many filler episodes early on, and while most of them are perfectly entertaining, their sheer amount gives the wrong impression of what the show becomes halfway into season one.
I can understand why this show (and other shows) had those stand alone (I don't like the word filler) episodes. It gives a chance for world building, and establishing the characters' relationships with each other. Stuff you likely wouldn't have time for in a fully serialized show. And of course, there's nothing wrong with an occasional breather episode. Having said that, they might have overdone it a little in season 2. Did they really need to spend several episodes on that tropical island?
As for Cassandra, I think that if they had gotten a fourth season, then Cassandra's redemption would have taken place there. The end of season three would have seen Cassandra defeated, and then at the start of season 4 she would have been banished or in exile. The rest of the season would have been her struggling to win back the trust of her friends and town, and eventually rejoining the party to defeat Zhan Tiri. This is how I suspect it would have played out, but they had to condense all of this into one season due to lack of time. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's just my theory.
I love that duet. I don't think I've heard a Disney song before Nothing Left To Lose where a redeemed antagonist tries to talk down the current antagonist. Also Jeremy's a great singer.
see my completed Tangled (Varian) fanfic collection! https://archiveofourown.org/works/24467056/chapters/59049532Season 3 will be added to Disney+ on April 23.
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And I think that song is also what suggests me of a longer story that got cut. There are so many good emotional beats there that... just never get touched again. And basically the final arc of the series doesn't really have any songs in it. Least none that really emotionally develop the characters like Waiting In The Wings, Crossing the Line, or Nothing Left to Lose do.
First half of S3 has a slow meandering pace, while Nothing Left to Lose and on are pretty much when the pacing starts picking up a bit more... with 5 episodes left.
I REALLY like Cassandra's betrayal but I felt like... they didn't know what to do with it once it was done too. They need to get Rapunzel away from Cassandra to keep the conflict going but then don't know what to do with her to keep the conflict going, but also prevent it from being resolved.
I liked what they did with her father and it kept Cassandra in the plot enough with out her ACTUALLY being there. But I think it also turns into this thing where Cassandra has to act like a freaking psychopath (leaving MULTIPLE characters to die with no reason to think they could survive among other events) just to stay relevant in the episode-to-episode drama. And that makes her Redemption MUCH harder to swallow with how quick it is in the finale. I think it also lost focus on her motivation a bit; She claims the moonstone is 'Her destiny' but doesn't seem to know what to do with it once she has it.
I think they needed to find a way to get Zhan Tiri to be an independent entity earlier who could carry out a lot more antagonistic actions without relying on Cassandra to do them. Keep her more sympathetic.
I think an interesting episode concept would be where the troubles of the week facing some town... Cassandra is one step ahead of them on her own solo adventure?
I know at this point I'm starting to talk about restructuring the entire season, but I kinda think that's what might have needed to happen to make Cass' arc work better.
Watching the third season again, I've come to realize I don't like the direction they went with the Captain?
"Rapunzel's Return" gives us the specific reason why Cassandra is Captain's adoptive daughter and I remember people speculating either A) his reaction when the main characters tell him what happened Cassandra or B) them meeting again after Cassandra's turned to villainy.
"Islands Apart" was a good episode and ended with the implications that Captain's going to play a role in the whole 'Cassandra conflict', but then we don't see him in "Cassandra's Revenge", which he should've been, considering it's his daughter presenting an ultimatum to Rapunzel threatening Corona's destruction and this would be the first time Captain and Cassandra met since the flashback in "Islands Apart".
It also seemed like the show was diminishing is role as Cassandra's dad to focus on Gothel in return? Yes, it makes sense because how torn up Cassandra was about the revelation, but not once does anyone go, "Y'know Cass, he's not perfect but at least Captain was there for you and loves you". I kind of was waiting for Rapunzel to reference him or "Islands Apart" in "A Tale of Two Sisters" but that never happened.
Then "Flynnposter" gives us the apparent reason for his absence, then has him retire and give his position to Eugene at the beginning and never appears again for the rest of the episode. I know a lot of people frame this as character development for Captain and his relationship with Eugene in particular, but it feels so incomplete?
Before "Flynnposter" the only time interactions we get between Captain and Eugene is in the first season, which is mostly antagonistic (heavy on Captain's end) and they don't interact until "Islands Apart". Over a year or more in the show's universe, Captain suddenly has the most trust and confidence in Eugene to make him the next Captain of the Guard?
To me, it feels like there should've been more episodes or time developing their relationship so that Captain's decision sounded like natural progress and not like Eugene was "handed" to him (which, I've seen several fans argue against Eugene being Captain after the episode aired).
This post is long enough, but in general and the series finale, Captain being absent was a disappointment, especially when a couple of plot points felt like he needed to be there.
And I actually had a lot of issues with that scene. To the point of kind of hating it. I really don't get why she's pissed off at him. He didn't really... hide anything from her? Like, she was seemingly old enough to talk and be a precociously cute child when it all happened so it seems more like Cassandra FORGOT than he actively hid it from her.
And her dropping a roof on him and leaving him to, for all she knows, die seems a bit... unforgivable.
I had similar issues with her interruption of Eugene's birthday.
I kind of think Cassandra needed a lot more nuance to her arc to have her play both an antagonistic but sympathetic force. Cutting that scene would have helped, for starters.
They also clearly needed to decide on what Cassandra's destiny was exactly. She screams about it a lot, but it never really gets defined with any specificity and weight to it. You could make a drinking game out of it. A work around to this would be to give her something to do while separated from Rapunzel and co and gives us a frame for what she wanted or made of all this before she goes further off the rails into a more antagonistic role via Zhan Tiri's manipulations.
I don't think Cassandra's destiny is a real thing. She herself isn't really sure what it's meant to entail, and fears that she straight-up doesn't have a destiny.
The reason it came up is that in season 2, they put a lot of emphasis on it being Rapunzel's "destiny" to find the moonstone in order to reunite it with her innate sundrop. Cassandra's faulty logic is that because Rapunzel usurped her rightful place as Gothel's daughter, the supposed destiny of claiming the moonstone is rightfully hers and not Rapunzel's.
That's nonsense logic, of course. All it ultimately boils down to is raging against the idea that she's inherently less special than Rapunzel, i.e. that "some of us are stars, and some are just in the way".
I think the idea was that. Cass didn't know what she wanted for herself or what her destiny was. Cass wanted to hurt Rapunzel, prove her value, and make something for herself. She didn't know how she wanted to get that as she only had herself and Zhan Tiri as guidance. Cassandra had to keep saying everything she was doing was for a destiny or else she would have to empathize with those she was hurting that weren't Rapunzel and reach My God, What Have I Done? status. Don't forget that even though Cassandra made terrible choices she had a horrible life coach beside her in Zhan Tiri.
Right. I get that. But that kind of vague motivation works better in a moment of passion and angst rather than drawn out over a longer period of time where the characters have to have thought out and considered their wants and motives more critically.
Cassandra grabbing the moonstone at last moment and betraying Rapunzel and her first motion is to just run off in a rush of stress (as she looks when Crossing the Line starts)? Good. Totally fine. She did it in the heat of the moment. Ranting about "my destiny" for three-six months while wandering the countryside and being a regular antagonist with no clear motive? Kind of... weaksause.
Like, even Doomsday villain Zhan Tiri had a clearer endgame of 'Destroy Carona as posthemus revenge on Demanitus'. She has a direct motive that leads to her goal.
I feel like Cassandra worked in the sense that Zhan Tiri was whispering in her ear, but pretty much every time Cassandra came face to face with Rapunzel her resolve kept faltering until Diabolus ex Machina strikes.
I can see your point, but I think Cassandra not having a clear end goal was what the show was going for. Her initial end goal was just to steal the moonstone and take its power for herself. She didn't have a plan beyond that, and she says as much:
It's Zhan Tiri who nudges Cassandra in the direction of continuing to antagonize Rapunzel by telling her that Rapunzel still holds part of the Moonstone's power. Cassandra's ultimate goal after that point is consistently to acquire the sundrop's power so she can properly control her own power. I imagine she ''still' doesn't really have any plan beyond that except to feel validated.
On a positive note, can I say how much I love the music in this show? The cast are great singers, and you rarely get a fully orchestrated soundtrack in a cable cartoon.
After watching the disappointing live action Beauty and the Beast (2017) I watched the first episode of TtS, and it was night and day. I like Emma Watson, but she just can't sing. Hearing Mandy Moore belt out "Wind In My Hair" was such a contrast.
BTW, Disney has released compilations of the music from all three seasons on streaming services. These are studio versions without sound effects etc. Album titles are
- Tangled the Series
- Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure
- Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure: Plus Est En Vous
Chris Sonnenburg took part in an interview. In this section, he elaborated n Cassandra. I haven't seen the full thing yet, but I found something interesting at 1:56. Everything involving Cassandra was planned out way ahead in advance. By that, he means at least a year and a half before there was even a show.
Not quite everything - in the preceding video ("Part 3: Zhan Tiri"), it was said that Zhan Tiri did not exist during the original draft of the story when the show was pitched to the network, and Cass was just Evil All Along, knowing she was Gothel's daughter from the start and manipulating Rapunzel (whom she pretended to like but actually resented) from taking her to the black rocks all the way to stealing the Moon Stone; it was all part of her plan. She would end up Becoming the Mask in regards to her friendship with Raps and be redeemed, though. When the show was greenlit and they began actually developing Cass, they realized this wouldn't work and so Zhan Tiri was created so that Cass would turn on Rapunzel rather than always be plotting against her.
Nor should you. Those episodes aren't filler in the first place.
Absolutely. A good many of the Slice of Life episodes of Season 1 actually come back into play in the main "epic" plot, whether by the end of that season or in the other two. They are not filler in any way. I think the only true 100% filler episode the show ever had was the time travel one.
Edited by Isaac_Heller on Mar 29th 2020 at 6:04:06 AM
What they went with is definitely better. The original plan would get even more criticism than what we have now since it'd be another "twist villain" for Disney (in that it's a seeming good guy who was Evil All Along, not a good guy who pulls a Face–Heel Turn) in a time where they're kind of oversaturated with them, plus Zhan Tiri is a fantastic vile villain for the series that I'm glad to have in existence. So I am absolutely supportive of them changing the original plan like they did.
Edited by Isaac_Heller on Mar 29th 2020 at 6:16:45 AM

I definitely thought that Varian's story was cut short. His redemption was pretty quick, and the message from his father was never really followed up on, just handwaved as a So Proud of You message.