by Emily Maesar, Associate TV Editor

Fantasy High: Junior Year
Episode 4 “Under Pressure”
With Brennan Lee Mulligan, Emily Axford, Zac Oyama, Siobhan Thompson, Lou Wilson, Ally Beardsley, and Brian Murphy
Streaming now on Dropout.tv

“Everybody’s invited. Even the fucking freshman.” - Fabian Seacaster (Lou Wilson)

It is clear that music is going to be a big part, or at least a very fun and quirky part, of this season’s story. Between the show getting a very rad opening credit sequence with an equally cool song (“Teenage Rebellion” by fan of the show Sarah Barrios) and Fig (Emily Axford) needing to get her sophomore album done. Not to mention that the song of summer “In Space, No One Can Hear You Dying” was from Ruben, the bard of the new agonistic adventuring party. What part it will actually play remains to be seen, but I have no doubt it’s gonna be a hoot.

We begin the episode with Kristen (Ally Beardsley), Cassandra, and Kalina, where we left them in the cleric chambers. Kalina is in a proper cat form, not her Tabaxi and humanoid form—not yet anyway. Kalina is Cassandra’s familiar from before and she’s been reconstituted. Understandably, Kristen doesn’t believe her when Kalina simply tells her, “I’m not bad anymore.” Yeah… we’ll see about that!

Ultimately, this is a “come to Jesus” meeting about Kristen getting more people to follow Cassandra. If something were to happen to Kristen and Craig (the only other follower of Cassandra who is really just into whatever Kristen’s doing), then Cassandra would truly and fully die. She does have other offers, though. She could stop being a god and become an arch fey, for instance. Kristin says she understands, and she’s working on it. I think she kind of understands the consequences of her inaction, but she’s a teenager. Not only that, but she’s a teenager who has saved the world multiple times. Her priorities are a bit skewed. 

Fabian finally calls about his trust before lunch on the first day, like his mother told him to. KVX Bank holds his trust, and they are still KVX. Except their logo is blue, instead of red. Classic! Love when something terrible happens (like the head of a bank is actually a dragon trying take over the world) that they just paper over it. Brennan loves to sneak in very true things about capitalism and the world like that, which are both fun and also depressing! Anyway, Fabian’s getting 5k gold pieces a month out of his 20 million gold piece trust. He’d love to take it all out, but his father thought about that, and we get the great bit that if he does take it out, then the majority of it will actually go to his enemies. (Including Chungledown Bim who, very famously, wants to shit in his mouth for what happened during their sophomore year on the pirate haven of Leviathan.)

At lunch, Riz (Brian Murphy) tells everybody what he found out about Kipperlilly. He knows that she didn’t find the rogue teacher, but that the rogue teacher found her—what that will mean… who can say. The party asks around about the Rat Grinders at lunch—specifically they ask Fig’s dad, Gortholax. He’s teaching at the school and coaching the bloodrush team, which is very cool and I’m obsessed. One of the Rat Grinders is also trying out for the team, but we don’t meet them until tryouts.

All of their adventures have taken place in the Far Haven Woods. Rats, spiders, and twig gremlins are the only creatures they’ve killed. They’re literally just grinding for levels. Which gives us Siobhan’s great realization: “The bad guy this season is XP leveling.” Something I really love about not just Brennan, but about DMs in actual plays is how you can tell which mechanics they love and which ones they hate, based on the world they create when they’re doing something original. Like how in The Adventure Zone, Griffin McElroy doesn’t make his players (aka his dad and brothers) deal with rations. (Agreed!)

Fig asks Adaine (Siobhan Thompson) to pull out pins that look like the Rat Grinder pins out of her Jacket of Useful Things. Instead of being authentic, they have two hoes and say, “XP Farmers.” Emily Axford is, once again, one of the funniest improv D&D players to ever exist. And, considering the way that Brennan uses off the cuff jokes to be major plot development… let’s just say it never gets boring. Also, Adaine never says Kipperlilly’s name correctly and it’s amazing. It’s very much giving the Benedict Cumberbatch name meme, but somehow still funny.

Before the first day ends Gorgug (Zac Oyama) goes to see the artificer teacher, Henry Hopclap. Since Porter won’t let Gorgug multiclass, even though Henry would, the only real way for him to become an artificer is to drop being a barbarian officially. Which means he’d have to take all the artificer classes he’s missed. He could keep with barbarian classes, but this is the only way to actually multiclass without doing an MCAT—not to mention Porter can’t say shit about it.

Fabian gets his MCAT paperwork signed by Corsica. She brings up Seacaster Manor as the party house, which brings us to the second half of the episode, where the lead up to the first party of the year, at the end of the week, is gonna be a blow out… but it’s also gonna be a campaign party for Kristen. Friendship!!!

Riz helps Kristen fill out her paperwork to say that Cassandra is her new god, while Riz is signing up for every club (including doing bloodrush tryouts). While all this is happening, a knight comes up to Fig—Daven, of the Sacred Scroll—and gives her the Sacred Scroll in question. This is a letter from Ayda in the past and I absolutely screamed with the power of true love when it happened!

When Gorgug goes to Porter, to tell him that he’s doing artificer and that he will be doing this so please still let me take the barbarian classes, Porter finally relents. His only caveat is that someone in the Bad Kids needs to audit the barbarian classes. Fig volunteers, despite truly not having the time. She’s the archdevil of rebellion, though, so what can you do?!

Adaine had tried to call Aelwyn about the wizard components before lunch, but she was busy at work. Aelwyn finally calls her back and they start trying to formulate a plan for getting Adaine money for school. What if we killed our mother and we could get our inheritance? That could work. But also, maybe not? But maybe Adaine just has to suck it up and get a job?

After school means that it’s time for bloodrush tryouts! Max Durden is there too, a Drow warlock and younger of the Durden brothers. He’s wiry, but Brennan rolled a nat 20 for his dexterity and he absolutely rules at bloodrush. Mary Ann Skuttle, a kobalt barbarian, is there too. She’s a member of the Rat Grinders, though the gang at the tryouts can’t quite figure out what her angle is in being there. She absolutely fucked the guys up, though, despite being 2 feet tall. Riz figures out that she has been enhanced by something, something that’s not against the rules.

As the school day totally ends, Bucky, Kristen’s little brother, is waiting out front. Kristen says hello to her brother, and we discover he’s gonna be a paladin. They make plans to do an actual catch up, since they haven’t really seen each other since Kristen moved out freshman year. Bucky hasn’t told their parents about the gold that Kristen sent them sophomore year, either. Bucky also gives Kristen the important information that the new Helio cleric (which is what Kristen was freshman year) is a Rat Grinder! This also brings up the conversation about if the Rat Grinders are the literal foils to the Bad Kids. Like, are there also six of them and they all share the original party’s classes? It certainly seems like it—very cool of Brennan, if so!

The Bad Kids all go to Seacaster Manor to do a study party. Riz looks through everybody’s schedules while everybody actually plans for the party on Friday night. Well, except for Adaine who goes out for a job at the wizard mall that might give her a discount on materials as well as giving her the money to eventually buy them. Also, Kristen tells everybody that Kalina is back. Additionally, Brennan drops the idea that students whose party changed after junior year (like a member dies or they simply leave the party for whatever reason, means that the rest of the party moved into pass/fail.

Adaine does get a job at a place called Oodles of Strudels, which she’ll be doing right after school basically every single day. Fig leaves the party and goes to warlock class but gets absolutely bodied. Again. Obviously, none of the students recognize her and Zara realizes something is amiss. Emily rolls a nat 20 on an arcana roll to see how well she understands the class—which means Fig absolutely rules at warlock stuff! She aims to actually multiclass and let the school know about it. She’s doing an MCAT, baby!

The gang truly has no downtime activities during their first week, until the party kicks off at Fabian’s. This party is gonna be fucking huge. I mean, Kristen Applebees is doing a shrimp jump, after all. She’s gonna use the Hangman and go off the Seacaster roof and into the pool, filled with tartar sauce.

Adaine ends up having to work during the party. She texts Fabian… no response. I’m very interested to see if this will be a whole thing with them. Kalina and Cassandra come to the mall to hand out pamphlets to wizards, an event Kristen is supposed to be part of, but she’s doing party stuff. Cassandra is disappointed and starts to have a real, physical issue. She shatters a little bit, and a red light shoots through her before it flies from her and starts possessing people throughout the mall.

Adaine opens a portal to the mall and the entire party has to make a decision about if they’re gonna stay at Seacaster Manor for the party or go to the mall and deal with the return of the Nightmare King by way of Cassandra. Everybody jumps through the portal, though somewhat reluctantly.

I am reminded, however intentionally, of the arcade fight during the first season of Fantasy High, as the party gears up for what will clearly be a battle at the mall, given the promo for the next episode. It remains to be seen if the Bad Kids will stop the Nightmare King from coming again, or if Kristen’s faith (or lack of faith) will send them spiraling as quickly as it saved them during Sophomore Year.