Wizards of Waverly Place – “Monster Hunter” Review – with Selena Gomez

Justin signs up for Monster Hunting to complete his wizard training; Max performs a spell that separates his conscience from himself.

I love when shows have some story line progression to them, and this week on Wizards of Waverly Place we get Justin finishing up his basic wizard training.  He is now allowed to pick an independant study course, and he picks “Monster Hunting.”  Justin’s father Jerry is really excited and wants to get in on the act, but after not being able to discern what the objects are that come in the Monster Hunting kit, Justin decides to go it by himself.  Alex and Max are concerned that Justin is getting so far ahead of them that they need to do something to even the playing field.  Alex reaches out to Harper, who knows everything Justin does.  Harper shows Alex that by setting every spell to music like Justin does, she can learn a bit easier.  Max, though, is going to take the easy way out with magic.  First he pulls his conscience out of himself (Moises Arias from Hannah Montana plays the part), and then, against Conscience’s judgement, he releases a spell on the city that puts the most wanted monsters in New York.  Max figures that if Justin fails at Monster Hunting it will be better for him and Alex.  Kind of a reversal of roles, as we would have thought Alex would do something like that, and I thought just a bit out of character for Max.

This was actually one of the funniest episodes of Wizards of Waverly Place that I have seen in a long time, as well.  The quips between Justin and Alex at the beginning were great.  The back and forth between Justin and his father about what monster to try and catch first had the best line of the week, which I can summarize as something about a monster that squeezes the farts out of you.  Max and Conscience provide some normal Max-not-paying-attention type humor, which works even better with the new character of Conscience playing the other character trying to talk Max straight.  Fred Willard also guest stars as Stuffleby from the magic world, who comes to congratulate Justin on finishing his basic wizard training and to make some comments about comparing Alex and Max to a chair in the wizard lair, which was funny.  Especially when Max then pulls change out of the chair.

Overall I thought “Monster Hunters” had a lot going for it, the progression of the story, the humor and some guest stars all rolled up into a nice package.  Alex trying her hand at being Justin was a nice touch, especially by having her rescue him for a change.