Justin becomes fed up with Alex constantly going through his stuff and creates a female monster to guard his room and to think like Alex. However, after Alex shuts the computer-operated monster down, Justin switches things up on her by putting a spell on Franken-girl to make her Alex’s new friend.
Folks, Season 3 of Wizards of Waverly Place started last night, but “Franken-girl” did not really provide the bang I was looking for in Season 3. Before we get into the actual episode, a few things to note about Season 3 so far. Alex, Justin, and Max all are sporting different haircuts for the season, and they are actually working. Also the kids are a year older; Alex is already looking at college applications, my how time flies.
The premise of the episode is the continued conflict of Alex taking advantage of the book-smart Justin. She constantly takes thing out of his room to help facilitate her plans of being a slacker, but Justin is not going to stand for it anymore. Justin takes a page out of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and decides to build Franken-girl to protect his room against Alex. Max, who constantly switches sides of the Alex and Justin arguments, is put in charge of getting the brain from the wizard store. He gets distracted by a keychain that says Dan on it, but to Max it is close enough to his name to make it worthwhile to purchase. Justin then, being quite the resourceful one, uses an old laptop to give the Franken-girl monster at brain. Alex, while not book-smart, as we know is quite the street-smart girl, and she figures out a way to shut Franken-girl down, which I thought was the geeky, nerd highlight of the episode. Justin, still wanting to teach Alex a lesson for stealing a trophy out of his room to help faciliate a lie to their parents about an after-school activity, puts a spell on Franken-girl to make her Alex’s BFF. Franken-girl also gets a spell put on her by Justin that makes her want to become a cheerleader, and we come to learn that Harper has always been a cheerleader, just under Alex’s nose.
Seemed like a bit of a throw-away episode to start the season off with, especially after the last few episodes of last season that were a mini-arc, Wizards vs. Vampires. It seems, though, that the mini-arc of vampires will come back into play again in future Season 3 episodes. So not really much happens besides the fact that we learn that Harper is a cheerleader and get us re-introduced to the characters for the next season. What seemed a bit out of place was the fact that Justin was using magic all over the place for every which thing. I didn’t think that their dad, Jerry, would allow such a thing, and it did seem a bit out of place for the goodie-goodie Justin. Alex seemed quite in character, though, with her scheming, and Max played his usual space-case. I like the comedy that Max brings to the show, especially in one like this where Jerry and Theresa (the parents) play a minimal role. The writers really put together three distinct personality types to play off of each other. The show works best when the Justin and Alex conflict either has a bigger picture or when it brings in a few other character. I think that was the big issue this episode and why it felt like the writers were not really trying. Give us some more external conflict or a storyline that brings the kids together. I am not worried though, Wizards of Waverly Place always brings some magic with it during each new season, this one just needs a quick jump-start of the wands.
