Retromorphs: Animorphs #12: The Reaction

Does everybody know what time it is? Animorphs time! And we have one I actually remember quite well as we deal with another Rachel story, more weirdness involving morphing and even a look at a beloved 90s family sitcom. It's time to react to The Reaction.

Post-preamble, we see that Rachel and Cassie are on a field trip to The Gardens, the zoo where Cassie's mom works and where the Animorphs have gotten many of their morphs before. Cassie is dreading it in classic "embarrassing mom" fashion when their discussion is interrupted as a young boy ends up falling over the railing of the crocodile pit. Rachel, not willing to watch a kid become croc chow and, you know, being Rachel, she leaps into the pit to help the boy. She gets encountered by one of the crocs, but manages to acquire its morph in time, which gives us at least one calmed crocodile. However, this acquisition feels different than the others as Rachel feels violently ill while doing so. 

Rachel morphs the crocodile and fights off the others, saving the boy in the process. She demorphs, escapes the pit and just goes on like she didn't just have to tear other crocodiles to pieces. Of course, Jake and Marco chastise Rachel for, you know, morphing in public. That seems to happen a lot in these Rachel books. Whether saving a kid or, defending herself from a possible rapist. Like, it makes sense given the Yeerks and such, and like, in a 2021 sense and not 1997, this would be a bigger issue given more things like phones or drones, where Rachel could have been more easily caught. But, again, there's that ethics issue on if she should have just let a kid die. Would Jake and Marco have been able to make that same call?

Anyway, the conversation is changed as Jake mentions The Sharing is looking to get a spokesperson from that popular 90s sitcom about the dad who has his own power tool TV show and his sons, one who is in some lion movie. Yes, it's Home Improvement, but it's called Power House in this book and the Jonathan Taylor Thomas is instead Jeremy Jason McCole. I guess the book can mention Baywatch and Yasmine Bleeth without concern of litigation, but it'd be trickier to say that Tim Allen is being controlled by an alien brain slug. Well, maybe not so much in 2021. While Jake and Marco see nothing special, Cassie and Rachel gush all over Jeremy Jason McCole. I mean, despite the multiple near death incidents, they are still teen girls of the 1990s after all.

But the biggest issue here, as Rachel learns by even mentioning that Jeremy Jason would be endorsing anything, is that if he reps for The Sharing, that will lure more teens for the Yeerks. Rachel also learns that Jeremy Jason will be on the Barry and Cindy Sue show (Regis and Kathy Lee I guess is also verboten). She tries to sleep when she notices her hand is turning scaly and green. She starts to morph into a crocodile beyond her control. And trying to morph human just makes her morph ant instead, which is weird given that you can't morph into another animal like that. And then she goes from fly to elephant, which sends her floor crashing to the kitchen below. 

Rachel manages to morph back human as her mother and sisters see the damage. She gets interviewed by the news, and since she was also the girl who fell in the crocodile pit, she get a lot of interest from the reporters. While her lawyer mother thinks of the lawsuits she can get from the contractors and her reporter father wards off the media, Rachel ends up staying with Cassie for a while. But Rachel asks her dad to get her booked for Barry and Cindy Sue so she can at least take this chance to meet Jeremy Jason. 

Rachel tells Cassie about the incident involving her out of control morphing and Cassie suggests talking to Ax. Rachel agrees, but also says she isn't telling Jake given the lecture earlier. Back on the topic of Jeremy Jason, he's going to be on a yacht with a movie producer who is also a likely controller, so they need to put a stop to that. The next day, Rachel is called to Chapman's office as the assistant principal suggests that she joins The Sharing. As he pitches it to her, suddenly Rachel's shoes tear apart as her feet turn into bear paws. But Chapman just think's it's wacky kids clothing and nothing more. Couldn't possibly be those silly andalite bandits that Visser Three is in hysterics over. 

Rachel, Cassie, Jake, Ax and Marco morph seagull and head to the yacht where they see Jeremy Jason talking with a man. That man being Visser Three in his human morph, talking to Jeremy Jason about endorsing The Sharing to help his movie career, which appears to be all Jeremy Jason really cares about. As she heads back, the morphing happens again. Rachel morphs elephant and crashes into the water, then morphs into an ant, then crocodile. But all this did was gain the attention of Visser Three who turns into some sort of javelin fish that shoots spears. Rachel bites the Visser, sending him in retreat for now.

Later, Ax tells Rachel that she has an allergy. Acquiring the DNA of the crocodile gave her an allergy of sorts and these random morphs are a form of sneezing. Only a thing called an hereth illint can fix her. It's a form essentially burping out the morph. No timetable when, it just happens when it happens. It's also deduced that it's her fixation on Jeremy Jason that causes this to happen. Jake tells Rachel to keep a low profile and to especially not go to the Barry and Cindy Sue show. Rachel protests, saying it's their only chance to get stop the endorsement, but Jake is more annoyed that she didn't tell him about what's going on, and yeah. The incidents with Rachel in the past have been easier to defend, but this muck up is totally on her this time.

So Rachel just lies to Jake and the others and claims that the hereth illint is over with. She burped out the morph, so she's good to go on the mission. But as Rachel and Cassie are backstage for the show, Rachel's hair begins to go gray like a wolf, so that cover got blown super quick. She calms down, but also meets Jeremy Jason, but she stays calm enough not to morph. Marco, in llama morph, learns about Rachel not doing the hereth illint, meaning things are going to go bad. And they indeed to as the hereth illint begins. Rachel begins to uncontrollably act like a crocodile, even going after Jeremy Jason. She rushes off stage and sees something growing out her back. That being a full grown crocodile.

Rachel runs to the bathroom and morphs grizzly as the crocodile finally exits her body. Cassie morphs squirrel for some reason. So now we have a grizzly bear fighting a crocodile backstage at a talk show. Thankfully the hosts this it's the animals of "Not Jack Hanna" animal man Bart Jacobs, but even he has no clue what's going on. The lights go down and the others begin to leave, not before noticing the yeerk has left Jeremy Jason's head. And the squishing sound means it didn't make it too far. Cassie morphs Rachel and runs into a producer who says "Andalite", meaning "And a light" due to the darkness. Finally we're getting punny. 

Everyone is at the hotel where Rachel is staying due to having no house for a while and learn that due to the whole chaos on the talk show, Jeremy Jason McCole has quit Power House and has left the country to Uzbekistan. I'd say partly from the fracas and mostly for being slave to a brain slug. The teens watch some Xena, since that's Rachel's nickname and all.

The Reaction is a total filler book. Probably the most filler book to date. Its plot isn't really super deep and the final act feels a bit too chaotic for its own good. But that doesn't mean it's a bad book. It just feels like after two strong looks at Rachel, this doesn't get a chance to do much with her. No extra looks into her psyche, or how her life is. Just her having to deal with a bizarre morphing anomaly with the allergy, which does make for some good moments of tension and freaky imagery, especially morphing from croc to fly to elephant. 

What I think works for this book is again letting these kids feel like normal teenagers despite their current situation. Having Rachel and Cassie be boy crazed to the disgust of Marco and Jake. That weird celebrity crush we've all had at least once in our lives. And it plays for an interesting plot involving dealing with a controller celebrity who was very close to having the Yeerks succeed in one of their biggest recruitment plans yet. And the book, while rushed in places, still gives us our standard Visser Three action scene, some morph moments and a crazy climax. One I feel works a little better than our last book. Although with the whole hereth illint thing, did she just create a second version of the same crocodile? Like same DNA and all? Well, it's not the creepiest thing in these books, but it's one of the weirder things so far.

So in the end, The Reaction is just fine, but again, a filler book in every sense of the word. Not the worst book ever, and has one of the more interesting concepts, but has to rush those concepts to make the 152 page quota. If it had more time to breathe, it would have been a bit more memorable, but is ultimately inoffensive. Not every book has to be high stakes and this one is a fine enough example of that. The Reaction gets a B-.