What do I know about this series going into it?
I have watched the first two Kung Fu Panda movies, but I barely remember them. I would be hard-pressed to tell you more than the basic personalities of the main characters and the overall plot.
Recap
An army of metal creatures is on the march. They are attacking anthropomorphic animals, including one I recognize from the movies as Po’s father. But suddenly they stop, float into the air, and disappear through portals in the sky. The animals are surprised, disappointed, and relieved.
But the relief doesn’t last long. Lightning strikes! Earthquakes! Wind! Snow! “They didn’t make it,” says a deer. “And now the world is folding in on itself.” There is generalized wailing and panic, and the title appears.
We see a castle on a set of islands floating in the air. A ferret-looking creature is running scared through the castle, and fails to calm himself by saying “Be a teacup”.
Portals open above the castle and the metal army comes out of it. They are being controlled by a bear named Alfie, who calls them Sentinels. Po the Panda is there, with and a diverse multi-species group of warriors. He tells the other animals that they need to keep the army and Alfie busy so that Klaus, the ferret from earlier who I now think is actually an otter, can do something to save the world.
But Alfie finds Klaus. He has Klaus at swordpoint and is about to strike, when another bear leaps in the way to save him. “No! To defend him?” Alfie asks. The other bear replies that she knows what side she’s on. This gives Klaus the chance to flee, and the female bear won’t let Alfie get to him. So Alfie commands the Sentinels to ignore Po and his friends and get Klaus.
At this point I discover that Alfie is English. And I don’t mean his accent.
He has the female bear dead to rights, but Po saves her by sneak-attacking him - during which he steals the thumb off of Alfie’s Infinity Gauntlet so he can’t use it anymore.
Meanwhile, one of the Sentinels finds Klaus. It’s a replica of his older sister, Veruca.
Klaus takes a while to realize, but eventually joins the other animals in fleeing. But the Sentinels catch them and are about to kill them all.
Suddenly, something somebody does – I don’t know if it was Po or Klaus – releases the army from Alfie’s control. And I’m starting to think they’re mind-controlled ghosts rather than evil replicas, because when this happens all the Sentinels let the animals go and Veruca is on Klaus’s side.
Klaus needs to summon the Ancient Masters to save the world. Veruca helps him focus and reach inner peace so he can do it, telling him the secret: he has no innate power, he needs to get power from around him.
Meanwhile, Po has stolen Alfie’s sword, which the female bear (established now as Alfie’s sister) says Po is bad at using. In lieu of the sword, Alfie pulls out a glowing fire whip and Xena-like throwing circlet. More fighting, during which Po using the magic in the gauntlet’s thumb to pull the rest of the gauntlet towards him. Since Alfie is wearing the gauntlet, this pulls Alfie towards him as well, so Po can kick him in the face.
But a kick to the face is not enough! Alfie soon gets back the missing finger and reconnects it to the gauntlet. He’s about to kill his sister when their mother intervenes – and Alfie angrily throws her aside to get at his sister. This action breaks through to him a bit: he attacked his own mother? He suddenly looks unsure of what he’s doing. His sister, whom captions finally identify as being named Blade, seizes the opportunity to get through to him emotionally.
In the meantime, Klaus has succeeded in summoning the Ancient Masters. They reach the Po/Alfie fight and tell Alfie that his collecting the “weapons” is causing the entire world, named Pangea, to collapse. The elements are in chaos and there’s nothing they can do to stop it.
Alfie is despondent. He collapses to his knees and says, “Lulu, what have I done?” I thought his sister was named Blade? Maybe Lulu is some lost love interest.
Po comes up with an idea: If the world is collapsing in on itself, and the continents are crashing into each other, then maybe they can use the magic weapons to deliberately split the continents back apart. But it will take all the power of the magic weapons and the Dragon Knights and the Ancient Masters and the army of Sentinels together.
Worse, when they do this the ghosts of the Ancient Masters and Sentinels will all move on to the afterlife, which includes Veruca (who it turns is a weasel, not an otter) and Alfie.
So they return to Earth Pangea, and one at a time each of the Dragon Knights uses their magic weapon to impart power into a sigil on the ground. The Ancient Masters guide the energy coming out of the sigil, then pull the weapons into the energy beam, then enter the energy beam themselves. They all dissolve, and the world is saved!
Ending montage:
Turns out Blade’s full name is The Wandering Blade (I assume because Mr. Blade and his wife Ms. Wandering named their daughter “The”). The returns to England and is going to be named Head Knight but gives the title to a one-eyed reindeer instead.
Akna the Toucan goes back to making toys.
Rukhmini the macaque becomes a pirate queen.
Po and The go into retirement and decide no more adventures, I assume until the movie comes out.
Unresolved questions
None. The story was simplistic to an extreme.
Ratings
Story: 2/10. Bog-standard save-the-world story with nothing to make it stand out. The majority of the episode was taken up by fight scenes, not plot.
Writing: 5/10. Pretty average for a cartoon of this genre.
Production: 6/10. Generic music, generic acting. The animation is high quality, though when I rewatched it to get the screenshots I could see the seams.
Characterization: 1/10. In an episode entirely built around swordfights and laser beams, there was no room for characterization. I couldn’t tell you a single thing about any of the characters’ personalities.
Clarity: 3/10. Beyond the fact that the world was ending (for some reason) and that you had to physically attack the world to save it (what?) I have no idea what was going on.
Closure: 10/10. The world was going to end, the bad guy was going to win, and the good guys stopped it. It’s an episode with only one thread, so when it got resolved there were no loose threads remaining.