"The Borough Bully" is the second episode of the Disney Channel and Marvel Animation series Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur.
Synopsis[]
When Lunella finds a nasty comment on her Moon Girl social media page, her fixation on the troll threatens to take over her life.
Plot[]
A boy named Angelo is in the park trying to get people to sign his petition about opossums, only to get interrupted by Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur battling the cyborg Devos. They are successful, but Angelo's set up is destroyed, though Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur fail to notice this. Later, Casey informs Lunella that their website is a success, but as Lunella reads through the comments she reads one from "Syphon8r" that mocks her forehead with the hash tags #fivehead and #moonheadgirl. Casey tells her to ignore the comments, but Lunella is too distracted and creates a video with Devil to showcase how her head is "scientifically" not big. The next day, Casey is upset that she did not run by her the video and is further humiliated when Syphon8r turns it into a remix.
Casey blocks Syphon8r from the site, but Lunella unblocks him to get back at him, resulting in Casey locking her out of the site. Lunella becomes depressed when her mother plays the remix at Run the Rink. A talk with Mimi convinces Lunella to confront the internet troll face to face. Despite Casey's warnings, Lunella creates a device to hunt down Syphonater and she and Devil locate him underneath the Washington Bridge where, to their surprise, Syphonater is revealed to be a multi-armed, tentacle-legged troll who feeds off of negative emotions. Lunella realizes that he is a symbiote and tries to defeat him with sound, but he uses his ooze to trap Lunella and Devil while he decides to destroy the Washington Bridge.
Casey, who was interrupted from her television show due to the fight, comes to Lunella's aid. Lunella apologizes for letting things get out of hand, but comes to the realization on how to fix things. She and Devil confront Syphonater, but when he tries to troll her again, they proceed to ignore or compliment him, resulting in Syphon8r shrinking down. The symbiote is removed and escapes into the bay where the troll is revealed to be Angelo, who was upset over getting ignored and fused with the symbiote. He apologizes for how things got and Lunella offers to help him out with his activism, this time about bullying. The new campaign is a success as Lunella and Casey teach Mimi the new dance after she gets fed up with a troll online.
Cast[]
Main[]
- Diamond White as Lunella Lafayette/Moon Girl
- Fred Tatasciore as Devil Dinosaur, Devos the Devastator
- Libe Barer as Casey Calderon
- Sasheer Zamata as Adria Lafayette
- Alfre Woodard as Mimi Lafayette
- Josh Keaton as Angelo/Syphonater
- Michael Cimino as Eduardo
- Omid Abtahi as Ahmed
- Laurence Fishburne as Backstory Man
Additional voices[]
- Kimberly Brooks as News Anchor, Bystander
Song[]
- "Borough Bully Rap" by Moon Girl, Angelo and Devil Dinosaur (Diamond White, Josh Keaton, Fred Tatasciore)
Trivia[]
- Morals:
- Don't pick fights with trolls, because it will only encourage them to cause more problems.
- Also, don't let jealousy cloud your judgment. Everyone is still human with their own emotions.
- The episode features Angelo, who is voiced by Josh Keaton, being possessed by a symbiote. This is a possible reference to Keaton's tenure voicing Spider-Man, particularly in The Spectacular Spider-Man.
- Upon seeing Syphon8r in giant form, Lunella exclaims "Oh. My. Gamma rays", this being the energy that turned Bruce Banner into the Hulk. This could also be a nod to Devil's voice actor, Fred Tatasciore, who is known for providing the Hulk's voice in most animated Marvel projects.
- Lunella already knew sound vibrations being a symbiote's weakness when she found out Syphon8r is one, implying there had been symbiotes on Earth before. Whether this means characters such as Venom and Carnage exist in this universe, however, is unknown.
- Devos the Devastator is a villain who originated in Fantastic Four and has a connections with the Inhumans, a possible nod to the fact that Moon Girl is an Inhuman in the comic.
- The character's voice is uncredited, but Steve Loter confirmed that he is voiced by Fred Tatasciore.[1]
- Casey calls Devil Dinosaur "Barney", in reference to the famous children's character and series Barney the Dinosaur.
- This episode was made avalible for free on Disney Channel's Youtube channels in Portugal, Spain, France and Germany. The episode is however subjected to geoblocking depending on the country.
International premieres[]
- March 1, 2023 (United Kingdom, Ireland; Disney+)
- March 11, 2023 (Spain, Portugal)
- March 15, 2023 (Latin America, Brazil; Disney+)
- March 18, 2023 (Germany)
- April 10, 2023 (France)
Gallery[]
