#weaknesses

We learn that Zach overate clams and became ill at the finding your inner villain seminar: Overindulgence.

Zach stole the Arctic Pearl and wanted more pearls for financial gain: Overindulgence.

And who is directly connected to these revelations…Donita Donata. She is part of the reason why Zach wants to collect pearls in the first place, and she points out that he became ill after the clam incident.

It may be a stretch to say this, but her connection to these revelations makes me think she knows that overindulgence is one of Zach’s weaknesses. Although this is one of their first episodes together, they obviously have enough of a history that Donita knew she could pull this out as ammunition against him. She knew it would make him take pause, giving her an advantage over him so to say. And she took the chance when it presented itself.

And the fact that Eva Almos, Donita’s voice actress, wrote this episode…It makes me think she might even know or sense this weakness of Zach, namely, that overindulgence is one of the keys to defeating him. And by extension she, the other writers, directors, the Kratts, etc. also know this weakness of Zach.

We often see Zach being defeated after he has “overindulged” himself. In this episode, we clearly see how his need for pearls, his overindulgence in these material objects for financial gain, resulted in the Kratts victory and him being strung up like drying laundry.

And this is just one example of the negative impacts of his overindulgence in the show. For instance: He wanted a black table in a Huge Orange Problem, leading him to cut down more and more trees…cue him being thrown into a river.

In Choose Your Swordfish, Zach wanted to collect all the fish in the oceans so he could sell them and make zillions of dollars. But as he overindulged and collected more and more fish he ends up being confronted by Aviva in the fencing match and nearly becoming the mako’s lunch.

Throughout the series this trend continues. But it’s the interaction between Zach and Donita and Zach’s goals within MOTWLW that just makes it so much more apparent to me. It’s like the writers and Kratts know this is a key weakness of his and they want the audience to know this. Zach can be stopped, he can be stalled and defeated if his penchant for overindulgence is entertained.