I didn’t really like it all that much, here’s why:

• for me, hilda felt like a marry sue in this season. She was constantly disobeying commands from people that SHOULD be more experienced and knowledgeable than her and she’s right in her disobedience EVERY SINGLE TIME. I recognize that she’s supposed to be a rebellious, free spirited character. It’s satisfying to see her succeed by defying norms and doing things her way at first. But it got to the point where no other character is allowed to stick to their ideas/be right because hilda always gets her way. It honestly felt cathartic when astrid tried to separate her from young johanna because it would finally establish that hilda isn’t above everyone. This really frustrates me because if i remember correctly there WERE instances where hilda’s rebellious nature caused problems and she was ultimately in the wrong in previous seasons, she even was CAPABLE OF FAILURE, like in the marra episode. Even in the movie her naiveness and will to help is used against her and that was honestly brilliant, she was previously presented as a flawed character but with her heart in the right place. In this season her biggest flaw was that she couldn’t play an instrument

• anders was a wasted character, he had so much promise and so much potential complexity and it just went nowhere. He never gets to explain why EXACTLY he left (johanna’s vague ass explanation doesn’t count) it is NEVER explained why astrid held a grudge towards him BEFORE he left his family, we never find out what brought johanna and anders together and they barely interact thorough the season which makes the whole „reconcilliation” feel very unnatural and rushed. Even when he TRIES to explain essentially leaving his family behind he gets TURNED DOWN BY HILDA. He really got the adrien treatment in a sense that the writers had a perfect opportunity to make him play a big role in the finale (maybe have him and joanna be sent into fairy realm instead of van gale returning for no reason) and have a very interesting episode but instead they had him doing among us tasks

• Lois didn’t amount to anything despite her being made out to be the 4th member of the friend group, she was forgotten about for the rest of the show and i barely remember her name

• The ending was really dissapointing for me, i never expected this show to go for an edgy „everyone dies” ending but we could at least have it bittersweet. I would dig it if hilda stayed on that fairy island but got closure with her friends and dad before leaving forever. I would like if they didn’t contrive their way out of astrid sacrificing herself for her family. If adventure time was written by the team behind hilda, we would have betty turn out fine due to some contrived asspull like „your tears were so powerful they destroyed golb forever” if johanna really died it would be the gut punch of a century, i was honestly wondering at that point if they had the balls to do it but guess they didn’t. And no i’m not a hater of happy endings, i don’t relish in fictional characters misery but i like when a good ending feels truly earned instead of stuff just randomly happening, because tbh there wasn’t really a lot more struggle to earn the victory than in any other episode, like i’m legit convinced that hilda had a harder time with the jorts incident than during the SERIES FINALE. Which is strange because s2 and the movie NAILED the feeling of „playtime’s over” and were genuienly tense endings which despite ending with no downsides still had a satisfying conclusion.

• wtf was the deal with the fairy island anyway? Why was it corrupt? The entity that made those deals didn’t seem like the ruler of the island and it’s never much explained what’s causing the decay. I would love if those cloaked figures were related to that (maybe they could be some kind of a curse that devours worlds and tries to get to earth through hilda) instead of that lame „it’s hilda’s grandpa!” Trope that doesn’t offer anything interesting and engaging to think about, This is honestly on disney’s „wish” level of playing it safe with your story, a good reveal makes you WANT to rewatch the entire show in order to find any clues/foreshadowing but honestly i don’t find the actual meat of the reveal interesting enough to go out of my way to look for foreshadowing.

• this really hurts me because such a plot twist CAN work but there was no plot to twist to begin with. The way this show does it just comes out of nowhere, there was not a single scene where hilda wonders „i wonder who my grandpa was”, there was no proper buildup to the theme of long lost family, it doesn’t feel like there was a gradual revealing of information to keep intrigue, for the entire show we knew nothing about these cloaked figures and in a second we get the most dissapointing reveal ever, which doesn’t even make sense if you take into consideration previous scenes like hilda outright asking if there is anything behind those cloaks. If these were her family why they didn’t just say that? Why the cloaks? Why be so dramatic about it? This plot point just makes less sense the more i think about it

• But honestly considering how netflix treats animation i guess that they weren’t given enough budget to go loud and bombastic for a finale. Glad they went all out on eugene tho, he was unironically my favorite character this season and it’s the only one that hilda decides to be an asshole to, which is crazy considering that a couple episodes later she corrected her mom on pronouns of a mutate that mercilessly chased them, tormented johanna from a young age and the only reason why she’s still alive is because that fucker found their meat to be nasty. It somehow deserves more respect in hilda’s eyes than an awesome fish entertainer who gives a stellar performance and has an actual reason for his behavior instead of being like „hey i know i tried to eat u but i dont want to anymore. But we’re cool right?”

• still salty that there was no ACTUAL villain in the season, not a misguided one like ahlberg, i mean a genuine villain that has a goal that actively opposes that one of hilda’s, i was honestly down for astrid being an antagonist, i would actually like if anders turned out to act like a coward and try to harm hilda as a part of a deal or smth. I was hyped after seeing giantslayer in the trailer but he was honestly such a letdown, one of the better shots turned out to be one of a filler episode with minimal significance.

• the season could definitely use more episodes to flesh out all new characters and plot points. As i said, that would be impossible because of execs but it’s also on the showrunners because they were given a smaller than usual amount of episodes and they still found a way to squeeze in pointless filler, i don’t think we needed an entire episode dedicated hilda making an amulet, as much as i love eugene he really just took space that would be better used for more fleshed out story, and the radio signal thing could have been a 3 minute scene instead of an entire episode made around it. That’s 3 episodes that could be used more efficiently

Tl;dr - the finale didnt feel earned, hilda was a character who cannot be wrong under any circumstance, anders and luise were useless, the season should have been longer or have its runtime better utilized, there’s plenty of unanswered questions with minimal clues to actually find an answer to, the season was clearly rushed and would really use those 5 extra episodes. Despite everything i’m still glad that i got to spend more time with the show and eugene carried it on his back. 6/10