Most sitcoms typically contain an A-B story structure in each episode, consisting of a main plot and a subplot. Solar Opposites, while an animated series, follows these same rules, but also takes advantage of them by choosing a unique approach to tell its stories within an episodic format. While the show's core plot follows the Shlorpians trying to adjust to Earth’s customs in a comedic fashion with little continuity between the episodes, a subplot featuring shrunken humans living in the Wall is told in an unexpectedly dramatic way with its own sequential story. What was once thought to be a quirky running gag in the cartoon instead turns out to be an entirely serialized story of its own, detailing how the Wall’s prisoners have attempted to cope with their new lives by transforming it into its own secluded utopia.
At first glance, the Wall doesn’t look like there’s much to it beyond its purpose of being a decoration in the replicants’ bedroom. The inhabitants of the Wall were originally put there by the replicant Yumyulack as his way of punishing adults who crossed him, mostly for petty reasons such as mispronouncing words or simply wearing a red shirt. It’s revealed as the series progresses that the Wall has transformed from merely a human ant farm to a rapidly developing society where the inhabitants have mostly accepted their fate as shrunken humans, complete with a government, military, and even religion. Despite these developments, the Wall functions as a post-apocalyptic dystopia ruled by a man known as The Duke. To counter his ruling, a resistance group is formed by Tim, an ordinary man before getting shrunk, who aims to overthrow The Duke’s tyranny after writing letters to the citizens of the wall during his imprisonment, with his lover Cherie accompanying him to further his cause.
The penultimate episode of the first season titled “Terry and Korvo Steal a Bear” is a bait-and-switch in that it exclusively focuses on the inhabitants of the Wall and the events of the “Great Wall War,” starting a trend that continues in the following seasons and serves as a sort of “season finale” to the subplot that ties up all of the loose ends, with the Shlorpians being relegated to being background characters and having no audible dialogue. The episode reveals that The Duke’s office had a hole that allowed him to escape to the outside world. While Cherie is ecstatic to find out that everyone has an opportunity to escape the Wall, Tim stands his ground that the Wall has to evolve into a utopia free from the mediocrity he had to endure in the outside world, seemingly killing her in retaliation.
The second season demonstrates how the Wall operates as a utopia under Tim’s regime as the other inhabitants are blissfully unaware of an escape hole in the office. Plant life has been growing alongside improved housing with a nutritionist named Steve who comes by the neighborhood to give people fresh fruit, who were previously given candy courtesy of the replicant Jesse. However, things take a turn for the worse when Steve’s dead body is found, leading to some of the Wall’s residents believing a serial killer is on the loose, despite others being convinced it was a cricket. Halk, who became a war hero after the events of the Great Wall War, finds out that the serial killer is Ethan, a rock climber with murderous tendencies whose life was saved by Halk after starting an avalanche made from Nerds candy. As a result of Halk’s heroic acts, Ethan develops a god complex that enables his endeavors as a serial killer. This ultimately suggests that even if someone does good deeds to ensure a utopia will come to pass, they can also indirectly cause it to go right back into inevitable corruption, making the resistance’s efforts to bring an end to The Duke’s reign of terror all for naught and subsequently repeating the cycle of authoritarianism.
As the episode “The Apple Pencil Pro” indicates, even though Tim overthrew The Duke to combat his dictatorship, he ultimately didn’t change any of the fundamentals that were the root of the corruption and ruled the Wall as a manipulative leader, playing off people's empathy and convinces Halk to lie about the killer's identity. This cemented Tim's position as the Wall’s main antagonist in stark contrast to his protagonist role in the previous season, a freedom fighter who changed nothing for the better when put into a position of power. When Cherie is revealed to have survived Tim’s attack, she returns to the Wall after taking refuge with The Duke in the backyard and giving birth to Tim’s daughter, the first miniature-born baby. Cherie allies herself with Halk to bring Tim to justice, only to find him psychically deteriorating due to drinking out of a Burger King glass that causes lead poisoning. After Tim's death, Cherie reveals to the Wall's residents that a hole to escape exists in Tim's office. As a response to this revelation, the church nuns try to appoint her as a leader, with Cherie suggesting that the Wall should be run by a democracy with elected leaders instead of adhering to dictatorship.
Solar Opposites offers more than just a quirky subplot regarding the Wall, it becomes a critique of utopian imagination. As the Shlorpians go about their day by embarking on comical hijinks and causing destruction in the outside world, the Wall depicts a serialized drama about social structures and collective responsibility. It also suggests the probable consequences of fighting for a cause, as it may end up going right back to square one and solving nothing in the long run.
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(Credits: Scribe/Social Media Manager: Manuel Alvarez; Writer: Charles Tucker; Photo/Video Editor: Hunter Degioanni; Producer: Brody Bush)
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