Hello all! Welcome back to my weekly reviews of Hilda. This week we move on to the fourth episode of Season 1 – ‘Chapter 4: The Sparrow Scouts’.
‘Chapter 4: The Sparrow Scouts’, Season 1, Episode 4 (Release Date: September 21, 2018)
Synopsis – Hilda is inducted into the Sparrow Scouts, a scouting organization Johanna was part of when she was a kid. Excited at the prospect of getting her first badge, the Friends of the Park badge, she teams up with fellow scouts Frida and David to clean up an area of park adjacent to the Trolberg wall. Frida, excited at the prospect of getting one of the last badges that she needs, takes charge with a highly organized binder full of plans. The project gets off to a good start, as the trio is quickly able to clean up the area and drive some stakes into the ground to map out the places they will begin planting the next day. Carting off mounds of dirt and plants to the mulching machine to be mulched later, they call it a night.
Hilda, Frida, and David arrive the next day to find that all their work has been undone. They are suddenly attacked by a little plant-like man, who reveals himself to be a Vittra. Woken from his hibernation when Hilda accidentally drove a stake into his head, he was aghast to find some of his friends missing. Angry and wanting revenge on the trio, he steals Frida’s badge sash and jumps down into a set of Vittra tunnels that span the area under the wall. Frida jumps down to chase after the creature, and Hilda follows in hot pursuit. Hilda catches up to the Vittra and realizes that the Vittra’s friends must have been in the dirt they deposited at the mulching machine. She strikes a deal with the creature, and it promises that if they help it get its friends back it will return Frida’s sash to her.
Hilda and Co. arrive to find the mulching machine already doing its work. Desperate, they are able to save all of the Vittra’s friends just in time. Mostly satisfied, the Vittra gives Frida her sash back and returns to its hibernation. Out of time for the project, Hilda, Frida, and David are forced to admit to their scout leader that they were unsuccessful. That night, as David falls asleep, a small, suspiciously troll-shaped rock that he had found near the Vittra tunnel begins to tremble on his nightstand.
My Thoughts – As with the previous episode, this is another fun but somewhat slight outing. This one suffers a bit more in the plot and character development department, lacking the cool twist of the Great Raven’s backstory or Hilda’s interactions with her mother, but it does have its moments. The action scenes were well-made, with the chase through the Vittra tunnels being a particular standout. The main Vittra’s grouchy personality contrasted well with Hilda and her friends, and I also loved some of the more surreal aspects of the episode like the tiny cows.
The episode also provides some intriguing depth regarding Trolberg’s relationship with wild, fantastical creatures. The city’s wall features prominently in the episode, separating the townsfolk from the wilderness and the trolls that roam there. If David is anything to go by, there is a lot of fear regarding the trolls even with the city’s defenses. Despite the barrier, which also separates Hilda from everything she grew up with, we receive confirmation through the existence of the Vittra that there are fantastical creatures right there in the city. Not only does this create more opportunities for Hilda to go on adventures, but it also acts as a kind of statement – no matter how many walls you put up, nature will find a way.
The most prominent feature of the episode, though, is the formal introduction of Hilda’s new friends, fellow Sparrow Scout members Frida and David. The show does a good job of establishing their personalities right off the bat. Frida is ambitious, intelligent, and organized, sometimes to a fault as seen here. David is kind and loyal but easily distracted and easily scared. We get more depth here for Frida than we do for David, but we will see much more of both of them in the following episodes. What’s important for now is that they have good chemistry with Hilda and provide a new support system for her in her unfamiliar new surroundings.
Episode MVP – Frida. She proves to be an able leader and ultimately a good friend to Hilda, and although the encounter with the Vittra showed her the limits of her organizational skills she adapted well to both that and the disappointment of not getting the badge.
Folklore Connections – In Swedish folklore, Vittra are humanoid nature spirits who live underground. They care for their own cattle – which are invisible – and sometimes the cattle of nearby humans if they feel like it. They have a tendency to become enraged if not treated respectfully. Based on this information, the Vittra in the episode are quite accurate, right down to the cows that they kept in their tunnels (even if the cows weren’t invisible).
My Totally Arbitrary Episode Ranking – An okay B-. Probably one of the weaker episodes of the season, it does still have some fun action sequences and introduces some important new characters.
Trivia/Stray Observations –
- “Guess I’ll have to wear this one.” “Hey, I knitted you that sweater!”
- “I need twenty more points to win my ‘Friendly and Helpful’ badge, and you’re worth at least five.”
- “It looks like nobody’s set foot here in years.” “Nobody human, anyway.”
- “Was she raised by elves?” “Definitely.”
- “That baby can mulch anything into a thousand tiny pieces. And I do mean, anything.”
- “Caring is my main extracurricular activity.”
- “You handle the rope, I’ll handle the meaningless distractions.”
- “Hey, Mister, I found someone weird.” “…Okay…”
- “There’s not much that can wake a sleeping Vittra…except pounding a stake in its head.”
- The casual diversity of the Sparrow Scout troop is great to see.
- I’ve always found it funny that David is one of the few characters with dots for eyes. It fits his personality, though.
- Twig is as adorable as always.
- That ‘Mulcho Man’ mug was perfect.
- I’m pretty sure that the Vittra’s voice actor was doing a Gilbert Gottfried impression the whole time.
That’s it for this week! Next week we will continue with ‘Chapter 5: The Troll Rock’.
Please share any thoughts about the episode below. Make sure to spoiler tag any references to future events in the series in case anybody is stumbling across the show for the first time, and follow all of the Avocado’s rules and guidelines.
Thanks for reading!