Hoppers Has Two Great Villains — But Only One Of Them Gets Real Comeuppance

The following contains spoilers for HoppersHoppers has two villains, but only one of them really gets any real comeuppance. Pixar’s latest film is rooted in an exploration of empathy and community, with human outcast Mabel struggling to use the “hopper” technology to communicate with the local wildlife so she can save a local glade.

At the heart of the film is her dynamic with King George, leader of the mammal kingdom, in contrast to her frustrations with the local mayor. Jerry is the initial antagonist of the film, but the Insect King Titus also becomes a major threat. By the end of Hoppers, the latter pays for his crimes, even as Jerry never does.

Jerry And Titus Are Very Different (And Fairly Effective) Villains In Hoppers

In Hoppers, there are two central antagonists, Jerry and Titus — but only the latter really pays for his crimes in any meaningful way. Mabel’s initial enemy in the film is Mayor Jerry, whose encroachment of the local wildlife with construction projects has earned the young woman’s ire.

Jerry is presented as an almost comically straightlaced rival for Mabel, with a clean-cut public persona that quickly gives way to childish arguments whenever he and Mabel end up in the same room. His efforts to turn use her beloved glade for his highway project infuriate her, and his dismissals of her just make it worse.

However, Jerry is still very much a person. He’s shown to be a doting son to his elderly mother and a popular politician within the community. In fact, the largely positive perception that the town has of him suggests that he’s actually been a very effective leader for the local town, making her frustrations more complex.

By contrast, Titus is a far more straightforward villain. The insect prince who becomes king when Mabel accidentally squishes his mother, Titus reveals a loathing for humanity that leads him to convince the other animal kingdoms to help try to kill Jerry. Titus takes it a step further, revealing a scheme to kill scores of innocent humans, too.

Titus lashes out at the humans for their perceived slights against him and his kingdom, giving him a thematic reflection of Mabel’s own frustrations with being overlooked and ignored. However, while Mabel learns to empathize with others, Titus plans to subjugate all others to his whims or kill them.

By the end of the film, Jerry is forced to work with Mabel to save the day, and the pair end the film on much better terms while cleaning up the glade. He even cancels the highway project, reinforcing Hopper‘s themes of understanding and empathy. By contrast, Titus screams in defeat and is unceremoniously eaten by the Frog King.

Jerry getting a softer ending than Titus makes sense, given the themes of the film and the ways Hoppers shows the softer side of the character. However, given the way that Jerry was secretly forcing the animals to leave the glade so he could legally move ahead with his plan, audiences would likely expect Jerry to also get comeuppance.

Why Jerry’s Lack Of Comeuppance Feels Weird In Hoppers

Given his actions and plans in the film, it’s little surprise to see Titus killed by the end of Hoppers. However, it’s a little surprising that Jerry faces little actual consequence for his own actions. Mabel discovers from Dr. Sam that Jerry got the allowance to bulldoze the glades because the wildlife had naturally fled.

If the animals had remained, Jerry wouldn’t have been able to cut through the protected land. It’s eventually revealed this was actually Jerry’s doing, as he installed speakers disguised as trees around the pond. This allowed him to ward off animals with a frequency that humans couldn’t hear.

Jerry’s actions forced the local animals out of their home, and he showed little regret over his actions even after finding out how sentient the animals really were. Best-case scenario, this should be a scandal that could open him up to lawsuits from the ecological community and the government.

Given the way Titus used a robotic copy of Jerry to try and kill everyone, it wouldn’t have been surprising to see the public blame Jerry for the chaos and subsequent fire that almost destroyed the town. Instead, the ending doesn’t offer any clear comeuppance for Jerry, despite his natural claim to the glade being undone by that revelation.

Instead, it’s Dr. Sam and her colleagues who are forced to move on, with their groundbreaking research being shut down by the local college. On the one hand, Jerry’s capacity for change and growth is important. It highlights Mabel’s own arc, and their eventual scene helping each other is a sweet one.

On the other hand, it’s frustrating to see that Jerry doesn’t seem to actually pay any consequence for his actions, which at the very least constitute fraud on a massive scale. While he certainly didn’t cross the lines that Titus did, it remains one of the odder lingering threads of Hoppers.