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Written by: Jake Goldman, Haley Mancini

Written & Storyboarded by: Benjamin P. Carow, Caitlin Vanarsdale

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

It may be 4/20, but the fog isn't from that.

One of the sad things about the reboot is that newer audiences may associate The Powerpuff Girls with some terrible cartoon that aired in 2016 to 2019. One of the other sad things is that there are moments when the reboot almost gets something actually funny, but is ruined by either a bad performance or just poor timing. This opening joke with Discount Jojo opening his mail is an example of both.

Discount Jojo: Ugh, junk, junk, junk, letter from Aunt Janine? …junk.

It took me three times to actually see that this was supposed to be a joke, and I can tell because he gets this wide eyed expression once he gets to it. I am sure it was supposed to be Jojo almost looking like he had some sort of soft spot for his aunt that we never heard of, but the line is read just as monotonously as the rest.

It could be likely that Roger L. Jackson is just getting through his lines to get this reboot over with. However, Jojo immediately disproves that as soon as he gets a special letter.

Discount Jojo got a free boat! Yeah, this is just the opening segment of Lisa the Skeptic. They couldn't even be bothered to come up with a different prize than the one Homer was lured in with. All he has to do is go to a hotel called the Doomflower. He walks in, and he falls into a trap door into a conference room, where he meets some other villains who were lured in by this obvious ruse.

He meets the Gnat, who laments that even with his great genius, he was fooled by this too. According to him, he's the greatest foe of the Powerpuff Girls, he should know! Yeah, I guess there's a joke here since Discount is supposed to be their arch enemy, and the Gnat is just…the Gnat. The other villains that will show up are not nearly as fitting as him or, sadly, Discount Jojo, but they're welcome anyway.

The Fashionistas show up, and I'm surprised to say there's a minor bit of continuity here. They actually remembered that Barbarus, the giant pink gorilla, is his ex-girlfriend. It's a plot thread that started in Monkey Love, and, unlike most potential plot threads in this reboot, managed to survive for another episode. Not much else is made of this outside of the one scene, which is a point in this episode's favor, but it was neat to see nonetheless.

Oh yeah, there's also these other guys that we never seen before. Not to say they have bad designs or anything, in fact, I could see potential in that ball of yarn villain, but they barely do anything to even be named in this review. Sorry if you wanted to see anything on the realm of Meet The Beat-Alls, and, if you did, welcome to the reboot. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. In fact, calling this a "big villain team-up" episode would be an overstatement, as they don't really actually do any team moves.

As they're all wondering where the boat is, the mastermind behind this fake boat scam reveals themselves. It's The Sultan of Steam! The Villain of Vapor! The Cloud of Crime!

…The Fog, a cloud with glowing yellow eyes. This fog wants only one thing: the destruction of the Powerpuff Girls, and this villain is offering a bounty of one million dollars. This gets everyone interested, because they all wanted to do that anyway.

The anvil guy, it doesn't matter what his name is, protests, as he has never heard of this fog villain before. Speak for yourself. The fog then takes him down very easily just by enveloping him in the vapor and beating him up. This instantly gets all the villains to respect this new guy as their new leader. Even Jojo, which is kind of out of character for him. Maybe if it was Him or even Silico, maybe.

Suddenly, The Fog gets interrupted. This episode's running gag is Marsha of the Doomflower, showing up to make sure everything is going great. She's always acting all cheerful no matter what she's seeing. While I don't remember laughing at this, I certainly would know if I did, I at least find it kind of charming. It actually tying into the plot at one point helps a lot.

Meanwhile, the Powerpuff Girls are enjoying a nice sunny day with their sprinkler from Painbow. Thankfully, this is the only resemblance this episode has with Painbow outside of being a Buttercup-focused episode. Glad to see that the title card colored accordingly, a sad rarity in Season 3.

While the other two are enjoying playing around with the sprinkler, Buttercup is mad that she's not fighting bad guys and rescuing the people. Apparently, this has been one very slow month in Townsville. Thankfully, her wishes come true, as one-by-one, a villain shows up to try to defeat them once and for all.

The Gnat comes first, using a giant boot. He must have connections to that store that sold the giant terrarium and the giant jar, because that's the only place he could have got it. That's my headcanon. Unfortunately, for the Gnat, Buttercup easily punches him out, making him a rotating JPEG in the sky. Wow, that was easy!

The Fashionistas show up next, showing off their fall fashion line. Before they could do much of anything, they too become a rotating JPEG in the sky before long, this time by Bubbles! She actually gives reason to why they're beating her up aside from their threatening bling knuckles and beauty blasters.

Bianca Bikini: Fur coats!

Bubbles: No! (Makes fox aura) Fur is not fashion!

I mean, I'm not against this characterization for Bubbles. The one person who could talk to animals would be more conscious of such things. At least, I think she can still talk to animals, I wish we could have a reminder!

Discount Jojo shows up, too, with a helicopter hat. Blossom doesn't even need to come in to throw a punch, because Discount Jojo's hat ends up taking him to the sky for her. Why didn't I get a screenshot of this? Because it makes me sad.

I would talk about those other villains if they actually did anything. No really, they just forgot about them outside of the conference room moments. As an aside, it's a wonder how all these villains know where the Powerpuff Girls live; it's not like The Fog gave them directions.

Speaking of which, The Fog is not too happy with how none of them even landed a single punch on them. How did this Fog guy even know that they didn't? Hint #2 that something is up.

Bianca: At least our hair stayed in place. (hi-fives Barbarus)

They haven't done that many of those "gags so funny that they have to add in a fistbump as a makeshift laugh track" in season 3, so it took me a while to realize that is indeed a fistbump gag. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe it is not. What I can say is that Bianca's hair isn't even in place, so the joke does not even work.

As this villainous fog turns the crab man, it doesn't matter what his name is, into a Maine crab dinner, The Fog decides to forgo the entire "million dollar" and commands them to defeat the Powerpuff Girls or else. The Fog then gets another interruption from Marsha from the Doomflower Hotel, and we get hint #3 on something being up: she refers to The Fog as Ms. Fog. Well, maybe there's nothing saying The Fog couldn't be female, but as soon as the villains leave, we get our big reveal.

Oh yeah, hint #1 is that The Fog's voice just sounds like Bart Simpson with an even worse cold.

Yeah, The Fog is Buttercup, who was doing this just to get away from all of that boring sprinkler fun! Yes, Buttercup, a girl from a family that needs to shop at discount costume shop, managed to rent a giant conference room with a trap door. I could imagine a hotel called the Doomflower would have cheap rates, but there's no indication whatsoever that their service is poor or that their hotel has an abundance of spiders.

Buttercup knows this ruse will lead to a lot of action, and it sure did and sure will, even if it was far too one-sided. Buttercup says to herself if only Blossom could see her now, even if she knows that she would be in massive trouble if she did.

Blossom: She can.

Whoops! It turns out that Marsha has been giving some house calls to get The Fog to rate their quality service, and Buttercup decided to use the home phone number instead of using her cell phone. See, the running gag ties into the plot! If only more of them did. Buttercup gives her reasoning.

Buttercup: I'm bored! We haven't had a good fight in weeks!

Wow, even Buttercup is aware of how terrible the fight scenes are; it's been at least 15 years since the last really good one. The two get concerned that these shenanigans will get them into trouble, because even they're aware that these plots just lead them to becoming the damsels in distress for the tomboy of the group to save. Buttercup just brushes them off, as it's not like anything bad is going to happen!

It turns out, the Destructo-Saur knows that there's a million dollars on the heads of those tiny little sugar pumpkins, and he wants it all! He says that The Fog sent him, even though Buttercup has never heard of this villain nor did she invite him with a boat that would be too small for him to enjoy. Something is up already, but there's no time to suspect anything.

Blossom starts the battle by doing what she does best: use her ice breath. Sure, the reboot has made some terrible decisions, but at least it knows Blossom's the only one who could do that! She also says a line that channels the spirit of Mr. Freeze from Batman & Robin. They may as well have done a direct quote; that movie is one of the few things this reboot could compare favorably to!

It doesn't work, of course. After seeing this dinosaur resist Blossom's ice breath, and not even making a single attempt to punch him, Bubbles comes to the obvious conclusion.

Bubbles: This guy's unstoppable!

Yeah, if only Erica The Red was still around! Thankfully for this episode, she's not here.

After Buttercup fails to defeat him with a crossbow aura and her sisters get hit by a truck full of barbells, she gets stuck in a alleyway. Buttercup begs for mercy, and then another twist happens. It's actually a good twist here; it's one of the few decent moments out of a character that I usually dislike.

However, it does raise a few questions. I will spoil that the Powerpuff Girls end up being okay, even though they got hit by a truck full of barbells. I find it hard to just accept that they could survive getting hit by it, considering how easily they get defeated by things far less capable of defeating ordinary people.

Still in their bandages, the villains show up to finally do a team-up beatdown against the Powerpuff Girls for that sweet cash they were promised, and Buttercup ends the episode with this line:

Buttercup: If you start something…you have to end it!

This does makes me wonder if this episode was actually meant to be a season finale. I mean, we have a partial villain team-up, and the final shot is the Powerpuff Girls flying towards the villains. Well, I don't know what Bubbles is doing there, but I'd imagine the Gnat would get defeated by a stick.

Does the title fit?

Out of all the "name of a character" episodes, this one could at least represent that The Fog was this mysterious entity that nobody knew.

How does it stack up?

I was taken aback by this episode at first, but the less I saw this as a villain team-up and more of a Buttercup lesson episode, the more I grew to appreciate it. It's definitely one of the better Buttercup lesson episodes. It helps that this doesn't exactly turn into a "Buttercup has to save her sisters from a scheme she made", even if that's what it seems to imply at first.

I do wish they could have put in better fight scenes and actually did anything with those throwaway villains, but that's just a general feeling with the reboot. Other than that, a decent second twist, a running gag that fits in with the episode, and some potentially funny moments make this one of the better episodes in general. it's a fog I'm actually not unhappy to be in.

Next, a crucifixion. Seriously.

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Source: https://fly-pow-bye.tumblr.com/post/184319276707/powerpuff-girls-2016-the-fog

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