"Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow" is the fifth episode of the first season of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, and the fifth episode overall.
It premiered early on February 15, 2023, on Disney+, and officially premiered on February 25, 2023, alongside "The Beyonder".[1] A picture book based on the episode was released on August 1, 2023.
Synopsis[]
When Lunella creates a chemical to change her hair, she accidentally turns her mane into a vengeful villain that vows to ruin her.[1]
Plot[]
At night, Moon Girl kissed Devil as she got back in her room after a long day of patrolling the Lower East Side. Lunella haphazardly puts away her superhero suit, and is too tired and lazy to properly take care of her hair.
The next morning, Adria chastises Lunella for not maintaining her hair while she sleeps. She tells her daughter that it is time she took proper care of it. However, Lunella tries to say that is what she has her mom for because she loves doing it for her. However, Adria points out that Lunella is 13 now, which makes her old enough to love her hair, and love herself too.
At Intermediate School 833, Coach Hrbek asks Lunella to help him out by teaching the lesson to the rest of the class. Casey shows off and, even though she's not in this science class, to get advice on what outfit she should wear for picture day. Lunella doesn't see what the big fuss is about picture day; much less her hair. Then, a girl named Chloé ignorantly critiques Lunella's hair, telling her that Lunella's hair always looks like a mess. Which in turn causes her to feel self-conscious about it.
Later, Casey is adamant that she loves Lunella's natural hair, but volunteers to give her friend a new hairdo. Unfortunately, due to the Lunella's extra curly hair, she just ends up with extra poofy hair. Casey suggests Lunella use a relaxer, but she strikes that down, saying her mom wouldn't allow it for some reason. Wanting to "fix" it, Lunella creates a compound that will straighten her hair.
Sadly, something goes wrong, and shortly after her hair is straightened while Lunella is imagining how she will look during picture day, her hair falls out, leaving her bald. Unbeknownst to her, her hair gains sentience, grabs a pair of shades and escapes her lab.
Distraught, Lunella confides in Casey about what happened and Lunella explains that she supercharged her own hair compound, which somehow, changed the molecular structure. In short, she used too much juice, which resulted in this hair fiasco. Casey tries to be positive, saying bald is not a bad look on Lunella because it brings out her eyes. But Lunella is adamant that her family cannot find out what happened to her hair. Eventually, Casey reveals how at one point she went through a wig phase and proceeds to show Lunella her wig collection, which includes Crista, Melva, Roxy, Tish, and Veruca, and Lunella finally settles on a hairstyle Casey named Sheba. Lunella then gets an alert and rushes out for some superhero work, thereby testing out her wig.
Unbeknownst to her that outside, her sentient hair, now sporting a brown hat and purple trench coat, is watching her every move.
In the streets, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur chase Rockin' Rudy, one of her latest villains, who is driving away with some stolen jewels. Her superhero exploits are marred by her wig, which doesn't fit right under her helmet and gets in the way of her seeing things. Afterward, her sentient hair elongates herself and causes Devil to trip and hurt his tail in the fall, whom Lunella is unaware of save for the hair samples she begins to find. The first sample is in between Devil's toes after he fell. The second was found after her robot is destroyed. Her sentient hair then drowns Sheba in a pot of stew and subsequently destroys all of Casey's wig collection.
Lunella is surprised to see her hair come to life, and now calls herself Mane. She confronts Lunella saying how she just decided out of the blue that she wasn't good enough. Mane then goes on to say how Lunella turned her into a monster. Thus, she will steal the compound Lunella created and in turn create monsters of her own. Which she vows will destroy the city.
Distraught, Lunella finally comes clean to her family about what happened to her hair. Both Adria and Mimi reveal similar events that happened to them in their youth. Adria points out that they live in a society that doesn't appreciate nor value their natural hair. While Mimi mentions that people tend to criticize what they don't understand, so they tell them how their natural hair is sloppy, unkempt, unprofessional, or even ugly. Adria however, says that those people are wrong, because their hair is versatile, textured, beautiful, political, powerful and bold. More importantly, it reflects their culture and who they are, and what they have been through. In talking with her mom and grandmother, Lunella realizes that in creating her hair compound, she also skipped an important key ingredient. This being the neutralizer.
Using a sample left behind of Mane's hair, Moon Girl has Devil Dinosaur smell it, in order to locate the sentient hair with his great sense of smell. It takes a while, but eventually Moon Girl find's Mane's hideout, aptly named The Hair Lair, which is currently empty because it hasn't been rented yet.
She takes on a form similar to Lunella and the two battle it out. However, Lunella realizes that they are too similar to one another and stops, admitting that she was wrong to take her for granted and wants to take better care of her from now on. Mane accepts and neutralizes herself back onto Lunella's head. Lunella proudly goes into picture day with her natural curly hair. Lunella promises to take better care of her hair as she sleeps. Casey asks what happened to Sheba, with Lunella realizing that she did not tell her of the wig's fate.
Cast[]
- Diamond White as Lunella Lafayette
- Fred Tatasciore as Devil Dinosaur, Coach Hrbek (uncredited)
- Libe Barer as Casey
- Sasheer Zamata as Adria Lafayette
- Jermaine Fowler as James Lafayette Jr.
- Alfre Woodard as Mimi Lafayette
- Gary Anthony Williams as Pops Lafayette, Rockin' Rudy (uncredited)
- Laurence Fishburne as Backstory Man
- Jennifer Hudson as Mane[1]
- Alanna Ubach as Chloé
Song[]
- "Can't Find My Way" by Raemo-P & T-Lace
- "My Hair Is a Mood" by Jane Handcock
Trivia[]
- As Lunella and Casey are walking home from school, Lunella turns around, moves up slightly and extends her left leg but continues moving backwards smoothly on one foot. A few seconds later, she drops in height slightly and she begins walking backwards before turning around again. The two changes in height and smoothly moving backwards on one leg indicate Lunella had incorporated the same kind of deployable roller skates into her sneakers as she had in her combat boots.
- Casey owned 67 wigs, each with their own name, during her "wig phase". By the end of the episode, they are all destroyed.
- The scene from the opening were Adria tells Lunella to take better care of her hair is an homage to an scene from Issue #15 of the original comic book.
- To hide her baldness, Lunella uses a green-and-purple jester hat. This is similar to the one worn by a Daredevil villain known as "The Jester".
Allusions[]
- Adria says "The curls are strong with this one", a Star Wars reference to the phrase "The Force is strong with this one".
- When Lunella says she's going to "search every warehouse, farmhouse, hen house, outhouse and dog house in this city...", she's referencing Sam Gerard's speech from the 1993 film, The Fugitive.
- Lunella finding the Sheba wig being boiled is a reference to the bunny boiling scene from the 1987 film, Fatal Attraction.
- Casey addresses Chloé unintentionally criticizing Lunella's hair as "Clueless", a reference to the movie Clueless. The reference is reinforced by the closed captioning showing "Clueless" instead of a more generic description of "clueless".
Production Notes[]
- Although this episode premiered in 2023, it was actually produced in 2022 according to the credits, like the rest of season 1.
- This episode was inspired by a conversation Diamond White had with the showrunner, where she described her struggles as a young girl with how others viewed her hair.
Videos[]
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "February 2023 Programming Highlights". Disney General Entertainment. (January 20, 2023).
| v • e Episodes | |
| Season 1 | "Moon Girl Landing" • "The Borough Bully" • "Run the Rink" • "Check Yourself" • "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow" • "The Beyonder" • "Goodnight, Moon Girl" • "Teacher's Pet" • "Skip This Ad...olescence" • "Moon Girl's Day Off" • "Like Mother, Like Moon Girl" • "Today, I Am a Woman" • "Devil on Her Shoulder" • "Coney Island, Baby!" • "OMG Issue #1" • "OMG Issue #2" |
|---|---|
| Season 2 | "The Great Beyond-er!" • "Suit Up!" • "Belly of the Beast" • "Ride or Die" • "Kid Kree" • "Wish-Tar" • "Make It, Don't Break It!" • "The Devil You Know" • "In The Heist" • "Dog Day Mid-Afternoon" • "Roller Jam!" • "Dancing With Myself" • "Family Matters" • "The Molecular Level" |