Over the Garden Wall: A Strange, Spiritual Epic
“In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray.”
Over the Garden Wall is hard to pin down. It's delightful, but whenever I try to come up with some grand unified theory for what it's about, loose threads dangle as in an unfinished tapestry. Over the Garden Wall is a ten episode miniseries that you can watch right now on Hulu. For far too long, people kept telling me to watch it and I’d ignore them. But when I watched it, I found out why people kept recommending it. It only takes like two hours, and it's great. It’s charming yet creepy, cheery and sad, absurd but moving.
It's an old timey Americana, picaresque, Halloween epic following brothers Greg and Wirt through the Unknown. Like any good epic, it begins en media res, in the middle of the action. The narrator says, “Somewhere lost in the clouded annals of history lies a place that few have seen—a mysterious place called the Unknown, where long forgotten stories are revealed to those who travel through the wood,” and the two boys revealed, lost in the woods. Wirt, the tall thin worry wart of an older brother, is inexplicably wearing a civil war looking cape and a red dunce cap. Greg, the short, stout, carefree, younger brother, just as inexplicably wearing a tea kettle on his head and holding a frog named at various times George Washington, Kitty, Benjamin Franklin, Wirt, Jason Funderberker, among others. Like Dante, they find themselves lost in a dark forest, the Unknown, and the pair try to find their way through the forest and home.
The structure is somewhat reminiscent of the Odyssey. We find Odysseus stranded on the island of Calypso, longing to return to his home. Like Odysseus, Greg and Wirt encounter monsters and trials, new friends and betrayals on their return journey. The Woodsman, seeking to save his daughter's soul from death, keeps a lantern burning, haunted by the Beast. Beatrice, a talking bluebird, serves as a guide. And Wirt's Penelope is not Beatrice, as is Dante's Penelope, but a girl named Sarah he can't bring himself to ask out.
Because the story is a series of semi-related episodes, many themes are introduced. In the second episode, when Beatrice becomes their guide to lead them out of the unknown, it seems the show is about the inescapability of death, as the brothers and Beatrice encounter a village of living pumpkins. Later on their journey, when the three enter a tavern, it feels like the show is about the pressure for adolescents to find their place in the world as the other patrons seem to have a compulsive need to categorize Wirt in an occupation. When Beatrice first meet Greg and Wirt she also emphasizes this placelessness, “so, um, you two are lost kids with no purpose in life, right?” Eventually, the two are inadvertently betrayed by Beatrice. She had planned to use them to free her family from the curse that turned them into bluebirds, but decided against it after getting to know them. Here it seems the point may be the importance of being responsible to others. Overarching all of these episodes, though, is a recognizable hero's journey, with Greg and Wirt leaving the familiar, descending literally into the unknown, and returning as heroes to their former places.
However, Greg and Wirt are critically different from Odysseus. The Odyssey is about homecoming; it's about nostalgia. The godlike Odysseus, is the best of the Greeks. He inherits Achilles armor over the mighty Ajax, his stratagem leads to total victory over Troy. Odysseus doesn't need to improve, he needs to restore and reclaim his land, his people, and his faithful wife, Penelope. He needs to return to his home, and to return his home to its former glory. Wirt and Greg on the other hand, cannot simply return and all will be well. They also need to change. Wirt can't take responsibility for himself and blames his failures on the dumb pluck of Greg. Greg also needs to consider how his actions affect Wirt. The boys are more like Dante than Odysseus. They are pilgrims, on a spiritual quest. It’s not about nostalgia, because the past isn’t a golden era for Greg and Wirt. They cannot afford to merely return. They must improve and ascend.
In the weirdest and wildest episode of the series we follow Greg in a dream sequence or vision quest. After the perceived betrayal by Beatrice, Wirt loses all hope of ever escaping the unknown. Wirt lies down to sleep underneath a tree, and the Beast begins to claim him. Meanwhile, Greg falls asleep and we follow his subconscious mind into the 1940s cartoon dreamscape where he dances with the fairies and other bizarre creatures that inhabit his mind. The dance is interrupted by the appearance of the North Wind. Greg defeats him, and, as a reward for his gallantry, the Queen of the Clouds grants him a wish. Greg wishes to leave the unknown, but the Queen of the Clouds says Wirt cannot, he is lost to the Beast. In his most heroic moment, Greg wishes to trade places with Wirt so he can go free. Back in the waking world, the Beast takes Greg. Wirt then awakens and finds Greg gone.
As Odysseus recalls the events that brought him to the Island of Calypso, the second to last episode circles back to the beginning, showing Greg and Wirt in the ‘normal world’ on Halloween. Wirt makes a mixtape for Sarah (full of poetry and clarent) but before he can give it to her, Wirt hears that Jason Funderberker has already asked her out. Greg tries to ask out Sarah for Wirt anyway, ultimately humiliating him. Eventually, Greg and Wirt fall into a river and after they sink to the bottom, the events of Over the Garden Wall take place.
In choosing to take Wirt’s place, Greg overcomes his naive selfishness. And in choosing to save Greg from the beast, Wirt overcomes his crippling self doubt and takes responsibility for his own actions. Unlike Odysseus, they change and become the heroes they needed to be at the beginning of the story. It’s unclear what did and didn’t happen, but it’s implied that everything is real for Greg, Wirt, and Beatrice.
What I love about Over the Garden Wall is its mixture of clarity and uncertainty. It’s hard to tell what the message of Over the Garden Wall is. The progress that Wirt and Greg make in their journey is unsteady and sometimes forward steps are really backward steps and visa versa. At times it’s very isolating. Greg says at one point he doesn’t know who he is, “[He’s] just lost.” Other times it’s hilarious: “We came here to burgle your turts!” is always funny. But, the structure of heroic change is strikingly clear, and very familiar to me. Like Wirt, I feel like a pilgrim, on a spiritual journey. And the uncertainty is how life is lived day to day, year to year. Some things that I’d never want to go through again have proved invaluable. Lots of things I’m sure were good at the time, I’ve completely forgotten. Somethings that were bad are still bad. Somethings that were good I’ll always remember. And every once in a while, that structure of change and growth becomes strikingly clear. This past Sunday at church was one of those times, and I could plainly see the difference between where I was and where I am, and I can only thank He who is changing me.
