Syfy’s new show’s quality ticks up a bit during the second outing.
Astrid & Lilly Save the World Season 1 Episode 2 sees our heroes face off against another well-executed monster.
Razor, a monster who can only shapeshift into women, feeds off of Astrid and Lilly’s classmates’ testosterone, turning them into piles of goo (possibly skin?).
Gross monster goo has appeared in both episodes so far, and we wouldn’t mind if that would become a recurring thing.
The design of the goo always does its job: it grosses us out.
The grotesqueness also distracts from the limited-budget effects (and it works pretty well).
Sadly, Astrid and Lilly don’t like dealing with the gross stuff, but we love it as viewers.
The monster-of-the-week format works well for these characters.
That format combined with the over-arching storyline of closing a portal (Buffy, anyone?) isn’t anything new, but their execution works.
The aspect that helps this wild show work is the performances.
The two actresses playing Astrid and Lilly ace their roles, and their strength and dedication elevate the show significantly.
But it’s not just Astrid and Lilly: The entire cast dedicates themselves to these roles.
Throughout Astrid and Lilly Save The World Season 1 Episode 1, we doubted the necessity of other characters, especially Brutus.
Luckily, Brutus proved to be useful throughout “Teeth”: helping the girls with their current monster and with a bit of love advice.
Brutus seems to be a man that heavily believes in love.
Brutus: True love is the most important thing in any dimension. So what you need to do is ask him out! Nothing crazy, just see if he wants to leap a few craters, skin a zordnuk: basic first date stuff… Right. Humans. I’m assuming human boys like confidence just as much as monster girls, so grab the Brutus by the horns!
Lilly: Why are you so into this stuff?
Brutus: Because love is a battlefield.
He guided Astrid with some pretty sound advice regarding her crush on Sparrow, a boy in her school.
He also guided the girls in some confidence-boosting exercises.
Brutus finally proved his worth, but not in the way we expected.
He did help the girls with Razor, their many-toothed monster, but he also helped when the girls doubted their abilities.
Lilly: So the monster’s name is Razor? That doesn’t sound safe.
Brutus: It’s not. It refers to its 23,371 teeth, which coincidentally is the monster part you need to retrieve.
Our heroes were down on their luck and seriously questioning how effective they’ll be as monster hunters.
Brutus immediately jumped into action to console the girls, and he helped them gain some of their confidence back.
This side of Brutus came out of nowhere, but we could not be more grateful for this development.
Brutus went from seeming to be pretty darn useless to pretty darn helpful.
The girls’ renewed confidence didn’t come from him, and he helped them see it within themselves.
The monster disguises herself as an average human, so they had to use their unique skills to help solve the mystery.
Their patrolling (what they call their past time, which is essentially stalking their classmates) skills helped them find their current target.
However, another issue arose when they found the monster, questioning their role as monster hunters.
Their doubt didn’t last long, as Astrid played the extraordinary anti-Razor oboe melting the monster into goo (also possibly a blob of skin).
The doubt stemmed from the monster’s goals.
She fed herself with the biggest bullies from Astrid and Lilly’s school.
The muscular jocks bully everyone different from them at school, and they make the perfect meal for the testosterone-hungry Razor.
Astrid and Lilly got bullied by these jocks and doubted if they should conquer this monster.
Wouldn’t getting rid of the bullies be a good thing?
Razor: Think about it. Those boys? Those cruel, muscle-ridden boys? Do they really make the world a kinder place?
Lilly: That’s not the point.
Razor: Isn’t it? wouldn’t we be better off without bullies like that?
Their doubt didn’t last long.
They realized that even though these jocks were terrible bullies, they didn’t deserve to be fed off of and turned into gooey piles of skin.
Brutus: True love is the most important thing in any dimension. So what you need to do is ask him out! Nothing crazy, just see if he wants to leap a few craters, skin a zordnuk: basic first date stuff… Right. Humans. I’m assuming human boys like confidence just as much as monster girls, so grab the Brutus by the horns!
Lilly: Why are you so into this stuff?
Brutus: Because love is a battlefield.
Before Astrid and Lilly save the day, she managed to feed off two of their classmates days before, introducing one of the show’s most significant flaws.
No one talks about the dead/missing kids!
Hopefully, somewhere in the rest of the season, some of the deaths/disappearances will be discussed, but as of right now, no one seems to care past a slight worry.
No one asked what happened to them, just believing that some random rock climbing incident caused the jock to go missing.
The only other person who understood that the recent disappearance wasn’t ordinary was Tate because he helped the girls retrieve their monster-vanquishing oboe.
Speaking of the oboe, what’s with the oboe?
This unique oboe makes an ear-splitting sound that took out Razor, but we can’t help but wonder (again): how did Brutus have this item?
Brutus always (at least, these past two times) seems to have the necessary tools to take down the monsters.
How does he have these items? What is he hiding?
Although helpful this time, Brutus continues to be the source of many unanswered questions.
The girls finally began to question Brutus and vowed to discuss all of the information he knows.
Another mystery introduced itself during “Teeth”: one of their classmates confronted the girls.
The astronomy-loving boy approached Astrid and Lilly right after learning that Jonas’s yearbook/photography teacher didn’t show up to work.
He accused them of knowing things others don’t and told them about a weird anomaly in the stars that he witnessed, along with the coordinates.
This raises an important question: how long will people be unaware of the monsters in their town?
The girls also are forced to deal with the repercussions of their actions with the principal and their parents.
Astrid’s mother grounded Astrid, leaving Lilly to do a lot of the investigating independently.
Even though this monster wasn’t on camera (in monster form) as much as Tearjerker was, the threat of her felt incredibly real.
Brutus’ description of her, along with the flashes of hundreds of teeth as she fed, managed to make for an effective monster.
The mystery of Christine’s angel monster still radiates strongly.
As mentioned, the girls learn that Jonas didn’t show up to school that day at the end of the hour.
The last few seconds make for the creepiest part of the series so far.
Jonas, the photography teacher Christine had wanted to get rid of, lay on a table, getting his blood drained from him into the monster.
This monster got more mysterious and gruesome as we saw body parts growing due to Jonas’s blood.
This hour proved to be a step in the right direction for Astrid and Lilly Save The World.
The secondary characters improved, the monsters continued to be creepy, and the girls continued to be strong leads.
While everything continues to be cheesy and over-the-top, the quality improved as it took itself a bit more seriously.
The show needs to continue in this direction.
As more people are dying, the campiness is being counterbalanced by the serious stakes.
Hopefully, they managed to improve even beyond this because this was a serious quality improvement.
So Fanatics, what did you think of “Teeth”?
Did you enjoy the monster as much as we did?
Let us know in the comments below, and remember to catch up and watch Astrid & Lilly Save the World online on TV Fanatic!
Michael Stack is a staff writer for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.