Summary (TL;DR)
For this week’s episode of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Lunella faces her greatest challenge yet — accepting an invitation to a slumber party. She struggles with social awkwardness but decides to go anyway. Unfortunately, a remote that reads minds causes Lunella to switch bodies with Devil. Eventually, Lunella gets her body back as she learns to accept herself, and her friends appreciate her for who she is.
In the course of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Lunella Lafayette has faced many dangers such as evil science teachers, deranged AI, mischievous cosmic entities. However, in this week’s episode, her greatest challenge is accepting an invitation to a slumber party.
The star volleyball team of the school has invited Lunella and her best friend Casey Calderon to a sleepover at Brooklyn’s apartment. Despite Casey accepting on Lunella’s behalf, Lunella struggles with social awkwardness and past bad experiences with sleepovers due to her nervousness. She invents a remote that can read minds, but eventually leaves it at home at Casey’s persuasion.
Upon arriving at Brooklyn’s apartment, Lunella remains nervous and fails to connect with Brooklyn’s younger brother, TJ. Although Lunella is at her best when she’s talking science, she misinterprets Brooklyn’s reaction as disinterest. Meanwhile, back at home, Lunella’s grandfather Pops mistakes the mind-reading remote for a regular TV remote, causing Lunella to switch brains with her T. rex Devil Dinosaur due to a glitch in the device.
The Lafayette family begins to fight over the remote, causing the body-switching to become more frequent. Casey figures out what’s going on, while Lunella (in Devil’s body) is searching for the remote, and Devil (in Lunella’s body) becomes the star of the sleepover. Eventually, Lunella gets her hands on the device, but she’s hurt to see how everyone likes Devil as Lunella.
After taking care of TJ, Lunella apologizes for not being “normal”, but Brooklyn points out that none of them are normal and that she enjoys Lunella’s science talk. Throughout the sleepover, Lunella learns to accept herself and realizes her friends appreciate her intelligence. The next morning, she turns a can of whipped cream into a whipped cream cannon and rebuilds TJ’s model city to make amends. Fawzia even asks her for advice on how to supercharge a race car engine.
However, everything takes a turn when Devil uses the remote to switch bodies so he can eat Lunella’s pancakes.
Highlights and Easter Eggs from season 1, episode 7:
- The plot of this episode is a reference to Lunella’s original powers in the comics, as she had the ability to switch minds with Devil due to her Inhuman abilities, rather than an invention malfunctioning.
- The girls justify their beat down of TJ by saying he deserved it for messing with Moon Girl. It’s clear they’ve been waiting for an excuse.
- Casey couldn’t resist saying “I told you so” after Lunella’s device backfired on her.
- Lunella’s whipped cream cannon would have been perfect for Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” music video.
- “Goodnight, Moon Girl” is the true seventh episode of season 1, while “Moon Girl’s Day Off” aired early on Disney Channel due to a last-minute schedule change.
- The episode title is a nod to the popular children’s book “Goodnight Moon” by Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd.
Song(s) of the Week: “Out My Mind” by Michelle Zarlenga and “Neon City” by Chantry Johnson.
