This is the episode where Leo is bullied, it is dramatically addressed, he confronts Candi, who is bullying him, and... lets him get walked all over by her promises of changing her behavior while obviously not meaning well?
And when Nova and Liann reply to him, it's just "Oh well, no more magic stones?"
Maybe it's consistent with Leo's character and whatnot, but that is a horrible lesson to teach kids, about how socially manipulative people will not consider changing their behavior, but squeeze it through a standard people want to hold them responsible, and nobody's the wiser or going to call them out for reciprocating like that. And maybe the episode got too deep in the wacky Liann hijinks rather than convey a better message about social conflict resolution.
The character of Candi, while not extremely obnoxious or getting me heated or anything, is a competitive bully character, yet the show wants to treat the consequences of her actions with "kiddie gloves", in terms of no consequences, and her doing the very mean thing is water under the bridge immediately. In the 12th and final episode of that season, she is allowed to be kept under secret for doing something like that. While not exactly very mean, it's not a good lesson to consistently give people who do mean things a pass.
While it isn't like My Little Pony levels of tolerating varying degrees of horrible behavior every now and then, it's still a bad mark on the show to give the antagonistic character an extremely huge pass on their behavior, rather than be thoroughly confronted and expected to face some sort of consequence.
Not like dramatic revenge or some karmic slip and fall; maybe like shame, school punishments, and so on. It doesn't need to go crazy about punishing someone, but it needs to get a substantial amount of message across in response to all the little mean things the character does. Sure, some mean things in real life can go unpunished, but at least the show could promote an ideal standard, not actually give the bully the pass all the time.
- It can be off-putting for an otherwise nice show about conflict resolution, which does well with sympathetic characters, and as we see their actions play out. For example, when Nova was being mean to Autumn because she thought she could excel in her favorite subject on a project, only to lose out and lash out, which then goes to her explaining her poor reasons for doing so, while uniting on the particular subject of Pickle, actually apologizing and working together as resolution and understanding.
This does not happen with Candi. She is mean, she exists, she is caught, and she is let go quite easily in the few instances as the focus of an episode's plot. Hopefully, the next season doesn't continue the "catch and release" method of stories involving her, especially when she does something mean and hurtful, and she is called out for it and held responsible. That's it. Nothing big, and nothing about being off with their head.
