Luz (and the show itself) struggles to find her footing.

Naturally, when Luz wakes up in the morning, she has a horrible suspicion that the last episode was all a strange, wonderful dream.

Luz: It wasn’t a dream! Good morning terrifying fantasy world! […] Good morning you little cutie pie!

King: I am not your cutie pie!

Luz: Yes you are!

King: I know…

The household includes this demon, Hooty, who is mostly the door, but sometimes he gets lonely and pops in at other places around the Owl House.

Luz is eager to begin her witch apprenticeship, but that requires getting Eda up and ready for the day, which takes much longer than the kid wants, and with somewhat underwhelming results.

Luz: Teach me some spells! When do I get a magic staff? Was I supposed to bring my own runes? Do you have a dangerous magical quest for me?

Yeah, I wouldn’t want to deal with a hyper tween before I had my coffee, either.

Eda: Witches are awarded their staffs from school. With me as your teacher, you’ll be taking a different approach. You’ll have to work for it.

Luz did agree to working in exchange for her witch training in the first episode, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Eda wants to make her do her part of the deal before she starts teaching her (let alone sending her on a quest which she would inevitably be unprepared for).

Thus, Eda sends her off to deliver/sell potions in town with King.

Luz: I’ve only seen places like this in my dreams. It’s incredible! And I’m the only human here?

King: Haven’t seen any others.

Luz: Wow. There must be a reason for that, right? Why am I here? What if I, Luz Noceda, average teen, actually had a predetermined path of greatness? Just like Azura!

A few hours of interacting with the citizens of Bonesborough leaves her disillusioned about this “cesspool of delight”.

Luz: I thought being the only human in a magical world would make me special, but apparently it just makes everyone want to scream at me or eat me.

Then she meets this Dumbledore/Gandalf character in her last delivery, and it doesn’t take much for her to tell him all her troubles (even though both King and Eda have expressed a very low opinion of wizards).

Luz: Can I be honest, Mr. Adagast? When I decided to stay in this magical world, I thought I was meant for something special. But Eda thinks I’m meant for chores, and I’m afraid I came to the wrong place.

THIS IS YOUR FIRST DAY! Even if Eda were the responsible type (a big if), she’d still need time to plan a lesson or something.

Anyhow, Adagast tempts her with a fun mystical world-saving quest (complete with Chosen One narrative), and she buys it all.

When she goes home to pack for her epic quest, Eda and King both laugh at her for believing the wizard, but as soon as she finds this “secret writing” on the map (she just had to hold it up under sunlight – what kind of lame trick is THAT for a map that’s supposed to lead to a powerful magical artifact?).

And thus she runs off without anyone else’s advice on the matter.

This is where the episode starts to go off the rails. This may be a nitpick, but it bothers me that she would abandon her Owl Family to take up with some hot guy with a tragic backstory. Or, to be more exact, that she would be attracted to said hot guy when she didn’t even know him.

It’s popular fanon that Luz is asexual/demisexual, and that’s typically borne out by the writing – even her color scheme is based on the ace pride flag. I personally identify as ace, too, and the thing about aces is not that we can’t fall in love or be sexually attracted to anyone – we just aren’t sexually attracted to people we don’t know. For example, I was never attracted to any actors, because I didn’t feel like I knew them, but I did experience attraction to certain characters that I felt like I “knew”.

This discrepancy (and another, treating King like a dog that can sniff people out) might be attributed to the fact that Dana Terrace didn’t work on the script for this episode like she typically does.

Anyway, back to the story, such as it is. All is going smoothly, she acquires a merry band of companions, and everyone is just being extremely helpful to the “Chosen One”.

Luz: Yes! I am the chosen one! I knew it! I always suspected there was a reason nobody understood my wacky antics back at home!

Then the staff vanishes. And all the pretty scenery.

Adegast: Your hubris has failed you, witch apprentice! […] I’m no wizard, and you’re no chosen one!

I get what they were going for here – Luz needs to learn that a whole other world isn’t going to revolve around her, despite what she may or may not have learned from isekai anime (she totally watches anime, she even makes AMVs!). The problem is that in the first episode (the only one we have to compare this with), she seemed happy just living with a bunch of weirdos in a strange world, and there was no indication that she would be so arrogant as to believe that the fate of this world would rest on her shoulders.

Aside from the weird characterization, I dislike the episode for slightly petty reasons: This is clearly parodying Narnia. The Chronicles of Narnia might be problematic in this day and age, but it was my childhood!

Long story short, Eda eats the creep.

Luz: This place is nothing like I imagined…

Eda: Maybe not here, but come with me. I got something to show you.

Eda: The bones of the isles. Up close the isles can be slimy […] and gross But if you look at it from a different perspective…

Luz: It’s beautiful.

Eda: Look, kid. Everyone wants to believe they’re “chosen”. But if we all waited around for a prophecy to make us special, we’d die waiting. That’s why you need to choose yourself.

I don’t entirely disbelieve in “fate”, but I also believe in doing your best to make the world around you a more pleasant place to live in.

Until next time…