by Coop Bicknell, guest contributor

Just over a year after Knights of Guinevere's pilot hit YouTube, the series' second episode has arrived, the first since KoG received the full-season greenlight back in February. Why exactly is this important? It's just another YouTube cartoon series right? Wrong. Glitch Productions, the studio behind the wildly successful The Amazing Digital Circus and KoG, has been provoking conversations left and right for providing a platform for animated series that'd likely never see the light of day elsewhere, often focusing on the studio's financing structure with bespoke merchandise sales that are poured right back into production.

For a once little-known talent like TADC creator Gooseworx, this strategy propelled her work into the digital stratosphere, but what if it was applied to an established trio who'd been in the jaws of the almighty mouse? Well, you'd have another huge success on your hands. Knights of Guinevere co-creators (and The Owl House alumni) Dana Terrace, Zach Marcus, and John Bailey Owen, have more than a little experience working at a corporate animation studio and navigating all the superfluous red tape that comes with it.

As I explored last year, the trio's horror-filled jump into the independent animation space felt like a well-deserved middle finger to the corporate dystopia we all live in. And oh boy, it's been one hell of a rough year since the pilot's airing. Continued layoffs in all sectors of entertainment, studio consolidation, and dwindling work opportunities are just the tip of the shitty iceberg. While navigating the "unprecedented times" we live in, I've found myself thinking about Knights of Guinevere on a regular basis—specifically its emphasis on empathy in the face of our day-to-day horrors.

That's probably because the pilot reads as a cathartic shotgun blast from its creatives; it had to be. It usually takes a while to pick out all that emotional buckshot, and that kind of lingering engagement is key for any project to get the greenlight. Coming into episode two, it feels as if the team has been able to breathe a little since clearing that initial hurdle. In fact, that breather has made an already strong production present as effortlessly confident in its return. There's nothing left to prove, so they're just letting it rip.

The team's confidence is perhaps best exemplified by the bloody, no-holds-barred brawl in the episode's climax. After a nearly fatal encounter with the newly reactivated (and deeply traumatized) Gwen, a high-out-of-his-mind park cop (called by the pejorative "crownie") starts shooting up an underground mahjong parlor to draw her out. She's quickly discovered, but Frankie's there to open up a can of whoop-ass on the dude. Each of Frankie's punches is animated with unmatched self-assurance in the weight and speed they're being thrown with. The viewer intuitively understands that she knows how to fight, as does the animator who drew those cuts. That's the effortless confidence I'm talking about, and it flows through the entire episode.

There's a much greater emphasis on action and viscera here, but it's cathartic as well as horrifying, once the viewer steps into Gwen's mismatched shoes. Following a seemingly violent reactivation, our princess isn't doing too hot. She's missing a few body parts, some skin, has sprouted tentacles, and is dealing with intense hallucinations. Frankie, Andi, and especially Sparky, are dismayed to learn that Gwen isn't the prim and proper princess-themed product they'd all expected. She is simply not the princess she's "supposed to be."

Aside from a few scant moments, Gwen is seen as a malfunctioning product that needs to be "fixed" before she can be resold. Frankie and Andi seemingly start nearing the conclusion that Gwen needs help, but it's not going to be the simple fix they're expecting as she's going to be carrying some scars for the rest of her existence. Her violent outbursts, flashbacks, and hallucinations are proof that our princess has been through some shit, and it's now ( understandably) difficult for her to separate the past from the present.

While most of the critique present in KoG is centered on the lingering wounds from working for a gigantic corporation (an experience many of us have), I'd be lying if thoughts of the ongoing Cornell case and recent developments in the media criticism space didn't pop into my mind. AFAB (assigned female at birth) people are frighteningly familiar with the societal pressures impressed upon them everyday: having to package themselves in a certain way for their own safety, whether it's fitting into that mold or eschewing it with baggy clothing. In situations where they're expected to be the perfect spitting image of femininity, there's a chance that they'll be in danger if they're just one eyelash off from that image.

Gwen faces a heightened version of these pressures because she's essentially a Disney Princess—packaged and promoted to incredibly rigid specifications. The aforementioned cop even mentions that she's supposed to have a "canon" age. This makes the gang's earlier plays toward Gwen being a "malfunctioning product" sting in a way perhaps no one in the conversation had considered. That reaction also stems from the fact that Gwen's the fact of the company; she's an employee.

She might not be directly in the cogs of the machine now, but she's still inextricably tied to it, and if she's not functioning at maximum efficiency, she could always be thrown out for a copy that's just like her...which seemingly happened. I had experience like this working for larger insurance companies in the late 2010s, being chewed up and spit out. I remember having panic attacks so intense that I might as well have been growing blue sinewy tentacles and going on a rampage. Naturally, it's not a stretch to say that similarly intense feelings have circled around the animation world for ages, and on both hemispheres of the globe. So when you're expected to be the perfectly-packaged princess (or employee, or animator, or insurance rep) everyday of your life, and you're not, it can get horrifying fast, and even more so when there's an abuser involved. The few flashbacks of Gwen's life at the park make that crystal clear.

Speaking of the park, the episode's opening moments demonstrate that the same vindictiveness is the engine that keeps it all going. The park's aging chairwoman (and Gwen's primary abuser) beats the remains of a hulking, knight-esque guard to pulp despite seemingly mourning him just moments before. The silence of those around her indicate that this is a common sight, but once she's carted off, the metaphorical middle fingers start coming out. Needless to say, everyone under this woman appears to have cruelly suffered in one way or another.

With all in mind, it's no wonder that Gwen gave that crownie cop a ferocious farewell. There's no way in hell that she's going back to that, especially when her old wounds are still open and haven't been given the chance to scar over at all. It's only when Andi gets the chance to calm down the princess that she's allowed to breathe out a little, to know that she's safe and perhaps with a pair of friends who remind her of a small moment of joy she had amid all the darkness. Though I will admit, there is a little catharsis that comes with getting a claw arm too.

I'm thrilled to see the bruised yet loudly thumping, empathy-filled heart from the pilot still beating away after the jump to production on a full series. Wherever Knights of Guinevere goes from here, I'm in. The series is just as confident about its ability to dive into harrowing, often traumatizingly relatable subject matter as it is its dynamic fight scenes.

I'd wager that most audiences will be sucked in by the slick production and the names attached, but it's the fact that it can sit down with those same viewers and say "Hey, we've all been through some shit the last few years. Who knows if it's going to get better? Probably will get way worse before that. But it's okay to scream, sob, or do whatever you've gotta do to persist. Even if our experiences wildly vary, just know that you're not in it alone." That's what is really going to keep Knights of Guinevere spinning in viewers' heads throughout the series' run and years to come.