Netflix Retrospective - Dragons: Race to the Edge Season 3 episodes 7-9

Much like the first half of the second season of Race to the Edge, very little in terms of plot progression happens, I understand the need to do one-and-done type episodes for syndicated television but with Neflix sharing the budget, you’d figure they could try for some more long term stuff too.

To Heather or Not to Heather

We open with Snotlout and the twins chasing a Terrible Terror, the mail delivery choice of dragon riders. It manages to outrun them and heads into Fishlegs’ hut but they head in after, pinning him down and stealing the letter. Astrid and Hiccup come to put an end to it, but he confesses that he’s been communicating with Heather in secret since her last appearance.

They read through her letters, which she sent to Fishlegs presumably in confidence, and conclude that she’s somewhat lost and confused, and it’s hard to fault that given everything we’ve seen so far. Hiccup offers out the idea of making her an official Dragon Rider and invite her to join them at the edge. Fishlegs is very excited about the idea, especially since she could help with an upcoming migration of Nadders, but Tuffnut objects under some rather vague grounds and Hiccup acquiesces, instead she’s being invited for a few days but nothing permanent happens until they all agree.

Astrid taunts Snotlout about his supposed relationship with Heather. Heather arrives, and gets the greeting by everyone except Snotlout (Ruffnut is also suspiciously absent) Astrid helps her to her quarters and they begin to chat about how she’s feeling. She’s worried that sharing blood ties to Dagur means she has some Bezerker insanity inside her as well. Given what’s happened with Dagur this could mean a very different thing soon.

Now, they’ve past the Bechdel test by having 2 girls talk about something that isn’t men, be a shame not to talk about them altogether, so the topic turns to Astrid and Hiccup. Later that evening, Heather’s prepared them dinner, could use some accompaniments, but the Nadder migration interrupts. Their usual route would take them right to Viggo, so they’ve been diverting them along a longer route.

Heather declines helping, saying Windshear and her are too tired, yeah, right. Fishlegs stays behind to keep her company as the others head off to deal with the Nadders. He takes her for a tour of the Edge and she looks very uncomfortable when Fishlegs shows her a location for a hut. They hear Windshear roaring and find that Meatlug and Windshear are fighting, they get their respective dragons to back off as Astrid and Tuffnut arrive. Tuffnut believes Meatlug might be jealous.

They head out, this time with Heather, to deal with another Nadder pack but Windshear is acting off, and throws some of its spikes at Tuffnut, luckily his helmet takes the spikes doing him no damage. Heather breaks off as the others continue with the Nadders. Hiccup believes that this behaviour is a result in Windsheer not really being a team player and believes that with some training they might be able get her in line, Heather isn’t so sure, so Hiccup brings up the idea of her being a Dragon Rider

They try it his way, but when Windshear is forced not to be the lead, it rams Hiccup off Toothless, sending them both falling. Heather catches Hiccup but he has to get after Toothless, deploying his next gen glide suit for the first time to catch up with him. After that debacle, Heather decides its best if she leaves, over Hiccup’s objections.

Fishlegs comes over to beg her not to go, but Heather has worked out that Windshear is acting this way out of a sense of protectiveness and doesn’t want to put the others at risk. Fishlegs has an idea; the others head out to herd some more Nadders but 3 Dragon Hunter ships arrive, each with 3 guys on them. Heather and Fishlegs arrive to help, but riding each other’s dragons, figuring that Windshear’s protectiveness of her will work irrespective or what Dragon she’s riding.  With that, they manage to dispatch the ships, including the 4^th one that suddenly showed up.

Heather joins the Dragon riders, but the celebration is short-lived, as they receive word from Dagur that he’s searching for her, and wants their help. Heather isn’t happy and Hiccup assures her that will help her hide if that’s what she wants.

It’s a strong episode with the next step in the narrative of Heather.

Rating 7.5/10

Stryke Out

We open at a dragon battle arena, the few spectators they could afford to animate are looking disgruntled and bored. Ryker has provided a champion dragon, but because it wins fights so easily, spectators aren’t interested and takings are down, they need a champion contender.

Hiccup and Snotlout approach a Dragon Hunter base, the design of which I’m pretty sure is ripped from Riders/Defenders of Berk. Snotlout pulls a lever to try and release the dragons but it ends up trapping Hiccup and Toothless, when he pulls the lever the other way to raise the cage, purple gas is released, knocking the two out. Snotlout falls back to get help.

He quickly arrives with backup but Hiccup’s been moved on, the twins decide to go sleuthing which results in supposed hilarity as Heather reveals she has inside knowledge of the Dragon Hunter ports which could be helpful. Hiccup awakens in the Dragon Fight backstage area with Toothless, as the announcer says tomorrow night, Toothless will be fighting against a Razorwhip. Still got an audience of about 5.

The other riders attack the port, taking one of the men captive. The twins try and interrogate him and it goes about as well as you’d expect. Astrid tells them another man gave them up, given that Astrid is by far better suited to interrogation than the twins, I would believe that but it’s a trick. The captee escapes and sends a Terror mail to warn about the attack, the riders then follow the Terrible Terror.

It’s night, though someone forgot to animate it as night, and time for the showdown between Toothless and the Razorwhip. Toothless uses cunning to defeat it, still in less than 5 minutes but his next opponent is shown as the Triple Strike. The riders intercept the terror mail before it lands, and find out that they’re heading towards a dragon fighting arena.

Hiccup begins making friends with the dragons as Toothless is put against the Triple Stryke and it is good fight, in that it lasts for a couple of seconds, we also see the riders fighting their way to the arena and Ryker not all that happy that the Night Fury’s life is at risk given his orders to capture it alive. Toothless is triumphant but stops short of killing the Triple Stryke. Thankfully, the riders allow Hiccup to free himself and the other dragons as the Hunters prepare to capture Toothless. It’s a quick battle that forces their retreat, along with the half dozen members of the audience.

The Triple Stryke doesn’t really know how to be free so follows the Riders back to the edge, we have some more of him to see.

It’s an episode limited by budget as the contrast in audience size really needed to be on display for this to be convincing.

Rating 7/10

Tone Death

The Riders make an attack on a group of hunters stealing a very particular egg in the dead of night, overmatched they eventually fire the egg from a catapult to cover their escape. The riders manage to catch it and take it back to the edge, they don’t know what egg it is, but given the title I think I can guess.

Chicken, in one of its more adorable moments tries to hatch the egg. The egg begins to hatch, revealing an adorable but familiar dragon that Hiccup can’t quite place. It screams a lot until Chicken tries to mother it, the dragon spits an amber blast the encases it, confirming that it’s a baby Deathsong.

They don’t know that a Deathsong can bond with Dragon that isn’t its own, combined with their past Deathsong experience means that Melody Island is out. They have no choice but to keep him. Heather manages to calm it down again by singing, it’s a decent performance but could’ve done with just a bit of background music to compliment it.

Now in order to train it, they all need to sing, Hiccup gets background music that’s honestly a little too loud, I think his voice actor may have broken character right at the end. Fishlegs plays a pan flute, Snotlout sings whilst on Hookfang for some reason, it’s a song about his ego because of course it is, the twins sing an operatic duet and Astrid… moving on, it doesn’t seem to work as all of them have amber on them. Hiccup’s testing out an idea from earlier, creating a blazing knife with nightmare gel.

With options now out, they decide to take him to Melody Island. Hiccup has designed moss earplugs to prevent the Deathsong luring in their dragons. Fishlegs manages to use Dragon-nip to knock the baby out for the trip. They introduce them, although are all cased in amber for their troubles, but when they try and sing to each other, the adult doesn’t like the songs and bats it away with his tail. Hiccup suggests they keep trying, and find a song the Deathsong may like.

And now we do hear Astrid and maybe it’s for the best she didn’t get a solo, anyway, it seems to work, as Garff (the baby deathsong) manages to finally bond with the adult and the two fly away. Hiccup manages to get his knife again and frees the others from the Amber, Astrid suggests it’d make a pretty cool sword

Interesting origin for the sword but offers little else of note, kinda fun to watch them all sing, or at least try.

Rating 7/10