Wizards Beyond Waverly Place Season 1, Episode 8: ‘You Can’t Handle The Tooth’

We can remember growing up and our parents saying that wisdom teeth held all of our wisdom. Now, do we know that they didn’t? Yes. But as a kid, we didn’t know better and all we thought of was that we needed to be wise. So yes, you can bet that we didn’t want them out.

Wisdom teeth that is.

But when they did come out, there wasn’t a sadness per se. There was a lot of pain. Wisdom teeth are painful and the procedure to get them removed is no joke. Would have avoided that for as long as possible, so can definitely understand why in this episode of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place Justin Russo did just that.

There is no pain in the world like tooth pain – who would have known that they held so many nerves? They do. Cranky Justin Russo and afraid of the dentist Justin Russo, can 100% relate to that. Also can understand all of the people around him doing their best to avoid him and his crankiness.

As with every episode of this show, there is a lesson to be learned. This lesson – precision. In Justin’s crankiness, he becomes upset with Billie that she’s not focusing on the precision of her magic. She doesn’t get the point, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything to her. Nothing that she wants to listen to anyway.

She decides to use magic to remove his wisdom teeth, but in the process, also removes his wisdom.

Seeing a Justin who is carefree and not focusing on the implications of using magic so freely is quite different. From the time he was a child – he’s always been the same – uptight and focused on always being the best at everything. However, with his wisdom removed, what we’re experiencing is a different Justin. We’re experiencing a Justin that doesn’t think.

While I have to admit that I do love Wizards Beyond Waverly Place, part of my issue with episodes like this one is that they take away the spirit of what the show once was. Then again, I also have to recognize that part of the issue is people like me, who thrive off of the nostalgia of things, is that there are times when I have difficulty removing myself from the nostalgia. I know that I have to recognize that with age, people grow and change and that is something that is definitely happening here.

Justin Russo isn’t the person we once knew. He’s grown now.

And he’s teaching three children how to grow up.

Billie extracting Justin’s teeth and incidentally taking the “wisdom” he possessed – it’s an Alex Russo move, which is nostalgic. The thing is that Billie is breathing fresh air into the family and making us see the separation. The Russo’s of old and the Russo’s of new. It’s necessary to maintain a brand new show – have the separation.

And that’s where this episode excelled. It gave us the differences between the past and the present. It showed us that people can grow and change, but our ideals can still stay the same.

It reminds us of the flexibility that is needed to grow as a person, but it also reminds us of walking a mile in another person’s shoes. Billie walks a mile in Justins – cleaning up his mess the same way he’s always having to clean up hers and she’s over it. But it teaches her that she needs to pay attention to the things she does and the way that she treats Justin.

He may be annoying – but his precision is for a reason.