#pupsicle

First off, what the heck is up with them? There are four main villains, and all of them are some kind of anthropomorphic animal, yet every other animal we've seen has been nonanthropomorphic, even if they have human levels of intelligence. (Which animals talk and which don't is a whole 'nother can of worms that I'm not opening. The only rule seems to be that they get to talk if the plot requires it, that's all.) So where did they come from? Is there some MetroPet Island science lab we haven't seen yet? Or is there some other explanation? Maybe season two will explain, but somehow I doubt it.

As I've mentioned, the villain that got me to watch the show is The Slink, and she's still the best villain. In fact, that's her usual MO: to be the best! At what? Doesn't matter. If she hears that someone is the best at something, she'll stop at nothing to prove that she's actually the best, and it's only her clumsiness that keeps her from succeeding most of the time. The rest of the time it's the pet of the week learning a lesson that happens to tie into her defeat. The main reason I started watching her episodes (and then the rest of the season) was that I planned to rewrite The Ballad of the Sneak to be about her, but I tried my hand at it and it just wasn't happening. You should listen to it anyway and imagine it's about her:

She’s dastardly She loves catastrophe Her schemes are masterly Takes tea at half past three That slinky slinker’s slinkin’ all over town!

The worst villain is also the most anthropomorpic: Pupsicle. Terrible villain name, just terrible. Yes, he loves ice and snow, but he is clearly a full grown dogman, not a puppy. The only thing he loves more than ice is being alone, which means he shows up the least out of all the villains. It's just hard to build an episode around that. I originally thought this would be true of The Slink as well, especially since they're both voiced by Broadway stars, but I did the math, and she shows up exactly as often as the other two villains.

Speaking of the other villains, Mönkey Wrënch is the most mysterious of the villains, since he has reality warping powers that he manifests using his guitar, yet he's also the most simple, as his endgame is just to cause as much chaos as possible. This also makes him the hardest villain to defeat, since it's not enough just to stop him, they also have to undo everything he did. Also, as his name might indicate, his main gimmick is being a rock star, which makes the casting of Jess Harnell inspired, but they only gave him one song! Such a wasted opportunity! It was a pretty good song, at least.

And it's a Sofia the First sorcerer reunion here, as the final villain, Gimme Pig, is voiced by Mitchell Whitfield, who also voiced Greylock. And I have to commend the writers for not just using the exact some plot every time he shows up, because it would be so easy to go with 'Gimme Pig steals something and then the rest of the episode is just getting it back, utilizing whatever the lesson of the day is to do so', but they find ways to mix it up.

Anyway, I don't have a good way to end things, so here are some of the villain songs: