When it comes to Layla’s behavior throughout the first half, she plays off of Ava (the only one staying behind since her mothers aren’t here yet) well. The dynamic is similar to how Sophia and Ava’s dynamic is written, with Layla being more gung ho and not thinking straight while Ava is the more open hearted and sensitive one, but with enough that’s different to make it feel like its own thing. You have Layla focusing more on how she could make potential discoveries that she either doesn’t put enough effort into her job or wants to do them with Ava. A good example comes from how Ava tries to get her to relax and not just jump into everything, but Layla just convinces her to pick out flowers with her. Then when they basically see a dark cloud, she decides to check it out despite Ava’s wishes. This would make seem dumb or unlikable, but it works here. They at least highlight how she’s smart enough to have extra help, and is just letting her curiosity and desire to please others cloud her better judgement. She’s desperate, but not stupid. Ava definitely makes a great foil for her in how she does encourage her to stop and not be this risk taking. It’s particularly shown in how Layla tells her not to tell her teachers about the mistakes, and she technically does this by sending messages from Fate Fairies to get the rest of Sapphire Dorm onboard. She clearly took her lesson in not being too intrusive of others while also knowing when to intervene to heart. And then when the characters get into Ravenzella’s lair, she sees the flower and decides to pick it despite it obviously looking bad. This would again make her seem dumb, but they at least lean towards the idea of how there’s always some kind of risk involved. There’s a least some logic to her decisions even if you don’t agree with them. Unsurprisingly, the flower spreads everywhere, and causes magical creatures to lose their music, though this takes time. We even briefly see the real world be affected with how the skies turn gray.

Now things get interesting. For a good chunk of the special, Layla keeps trying to hide the fact that she took the flower when creepy vines start spreading their roots everywhere. When she gets really desperate, she actually decides to ask Ravenzella for help. Yes, she’s actually going through with this idea. This is probably the dumbest thing she’s ever done, but the writing makes it work. She’s at least hesitant to ask her, thus knowing about potential risk. Plus, as she says, she and her minions Crimsette and Ash (voiced by Ana Sani and Ian Ronnigen) are trapped in a cage without magic. She’s at least putting some thought into this. I’ll talk more about Ravenzella later when talking about villains, but just know that she tricks Layla into helping her. Things definitely get taken up to 11 when everyone returns to Grimoria. As Layla tries to stop the root of the problem, she accidentally unleashes Tabaditha, who proceeds to steal Glacier’s magic and do the rest to all of Unicorn Island. Unsurprisingly, Ava, Glacier, and later Miss Primrose call her out for messing up badly. Their responses are interesting. While Ava and Ms. Primrose do show her sympathy when she starts to tear up, which makes sense given the mistakes they’ve also made, Glacier doesn’t trust her, and goes off without her. This really gets to Layla, and you honestly feel bad for her. Yes, she basically doomed everyone by taking something that didn’t belong to her because she wanted to be like her hero. However, she also cares for Glacier. Bringing up “Legacies” again, she becomes sincerely sad when she thought that Glacier wanted to leave her for an alumnus named Sam Crawford (voiced by Carlos Diaz). As such, if it seems like her bonded unicorn and best friend doesn’t want to be around her anymore, you honestly feel bad for her.

Now I want to talk about how Layla comes around to solving the problem. She talks with Mr. Tansy about what to do, and says how Faraday wouldn’t have done anything like this. Since he knew her, he says how she also made a lot of mistakes since she accidentally made some bad Winklewash shampoo because of some incident involving itchy berries. This is honestly good to hear. Even adults, especially your idols, can make mistakes. Don’t just see them for what they did well, but also in how they messed up, and accept that everyone does it. This helps motivate Layla to really step up and save the day. She uses Tabaditha’s magic from the flower, and uses ice powers against her since she found a way to apply her science skills to the flower. It’s pretty awesome. Of course, before everyone goes to take down Tabaditha, Layla gives Glacier her magic back, and says how she can’t live without her. This causes her to forgive her, which I’m onboard with since she did apologize, and went out of her way to fix her mistakes. That’s worth acknowledging if I do say so myself. Layla and Glacier go up against Tabaditha, and freeze the roots so that she won’t be able to move. Everyone blasts her with magic, and she turns into flowers, basically meaning she died. Everyone gets their magic back and Layla still has to help Mr. Tansy as punishment. At least she gets a page in the sparklebook, which again works given the strong emphasis on her fixing her mistakes.

Now let’s talk about the villains here. Tabaditha is the main villain here while Ravenzella is more the secondary villain that’s plotting something bigger, especially with the ending. Both work well in their roles. Tabaditha is a character who has a very slick design and seemingly sweet yet also clearly sadistic voice that makes her really fun to watch. I mean, she’s introduced coming out of the flower while seeming innocent and naive. The way she cruelly steals magic with her vines and without flinching makes her quite the threat. Her defeat is definitely satisfying because of how she genuinely didn’t see it coming due to being wrapped up in her own hubris. As for Ravenzella, even though she appears less, she still shands out. When Layla asks her for help, she says how the plant stored magic, but didn’t take it away. Of course, she wants to be free, and sinisterly says how she’ll give her advice when she just wants Tabaditha to free her. It’s honestly pretty crafty of her to feign mutual support. Of course, we see that she didn’t really think this through. Ravenzella thinks that she can get Tabaditha to give her back her magic, but she instead traps her since she only takes magic. Yeah, this is definitely not a good look for her given how she became too overconfident. We do get an exciting ending scene where she, Crimsette, and Ash get back to their lair without the heroes knowing. We haven’t seen the last of them.

The final thing I want to talk about is the music. The music in the series is primarily done by Vapor Music (who I’m not too familiar with) with additional contributions by The Math Club (known for DC Superhero Girls 2015, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman, and numerous Barbie projects since Barbie Dreamhouse Adventures). They always deliver on creating an impressive score and songs, which carries over to here. This special has two songs, “Legendary” and “Guiding Light”, both sung by Layla, and are both equally good. “Legendary” emphasizes how Layla really emphasizes how she wants to make the most of herself, and be a hero like Faraday. Even if you can tell she’s getting a bit in over her head, you can really sympathize with her because they highlight how she has somewhat of a wide eyed idealism. “Guiding Light” emphasizes how Layla lost herself because of how she went to far in trying to make a name for herself. You can tell she’s sincere because of how she sings her heart out and stressed how she’s hurt those that she loves. Kamaia Fairburn is great as Layla, and she definitely proves it with how downright cinematic these songs are.

And that’s all I have on the Unicorn Academy special “Legendary Summer”. It’s definitely pretty amazing. What do you think of the special?

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