So anyway, Scar tells Simba about this really cool forbidden elephant graveyard (kind of a misnomer—really more of an “elephant just-lay-down-and-die-wherever-yard”), so Simba asks his best friend, Nala, if she wants to “GO TO THE WATER HOLE” [WINK]. Nala’s mom is like, “Fine, but take that wet blanket toucan along.” On the way, wet blanket toucan casually mentions that Simba and Nala are in an arranged marriage and are definitely going to do penis-in-vagina someday. Reeling from the news, Simba sings one of the film’s most popular songs: “I Just Can’t Wait to Be King (So I Can Make a Law that Says NO TOUCAN CAN EVER MAKE ME HAVE SEX).”
Then the toucan accidentally flies into a rhino’s asshole and the kids ditch him.
At the elephant graveyard, the kids start playing around on the bones (dood, those are people’s moms!) and are cornered by Scar’s three hench-hyenas. The hyenas are about to eat them until Mufasa shows up and bites the hyenas until they go away. I guess nobody explained to Mufasa that when a hyena eats a baby lion, the hyena turns into grass, and then the antelopes eat the grass!
The circle of life is way more complicated when everyone can talk.
Mufasa’s like, “Simba, I am very disappointed in you,” and Simba’s like, “I was just trying to be brave like you!” and Mufasa’s like, “Oh, I can’t stay mad at you (for violating all the laws of our nation and placing yourself and Nala in mortal peril and desecrating Jeff’s grandma’s grave and almost making Scar the fucking king!),” and then bestows upon Simba the royal noogie.
No offense, Mufasa, but that went really quickly from punishment to noogie. Like, you need to have some follow-through here, man! If you don’t want your kid to turn into a weird bug-eating recluse who lives with a warthog, you’ve got to enforce some rules. Real question. Does Mufasa actually exhibit any genuine parenting skills, besides having a deep voice?
Back at the cave, Scar hops out of his iron lung for a sec to be like, “WTF is you guys’s problem? You were supposed to eat my nephew,” and the hyenas are like, “Well, yeah, we were going to, but…” Then Scar sings the “Kill Mufasa” song, and it’s probably the most boring part of the movie, including the part where Rafiki is just doodling in his magic tree.
Scar lures Simba to this ravine and has the hyenas kick off a wildebeest stampede. I feel like here’s how long a baby lion could outrun a wildebeest stampede: “Oh no, it’s a st—”
Instead, Simba climbs a little tree and waits for Mufasa to come rescue him. But as soon as he’s pulled to safety, Scar throws Mufasa off this cliff like a total dildo and he gets squished by wildebeests!!! And then Simba is all down in the dust cloud like, “Daaaaaaaad!”
Dad? Are you my dad?
NOPE, WILDEBEEST. CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP CLOP.
Scar tells Simba that it’s his fault Mufasa died and everyone’s going to be mad at him, so he needs to “run away and never return.” And Simba’s like, “That seems reasonable.” And then Scar is like, “Okay, new government. Hyenas are lions now.”
Simba wanders out into the desert and is about to become a buzzard’s snack when he’s rescued by Timon and Pumbaa, a pair of confirmed bachelors who only care about two things: denial and bugs. They’re like, “Listen, kid. We know that you just witnessed your father’s murder and snuggled with his corpse and then were framed by your uncle and subsequently became a homeless youth and were almost eaten alive by vultures as you wandered in the desert, but you should have a positive attitude! Similarly, Pumbaa farts a lot, but you don’t see him moping around. WHAT’S A-MOTTO WITH YOU????”
Also, Timon is just constantly sticking his entire forearm into Pumbaa’s nostril.
Simba grows into an adult, lovin’ life, somehow eating enough bugs to sustain an entire lion, until one day when this other lion shows up. Oh, shit! It’s Nala! And she’s a hottie with a naughty body! And she’s like, “Simba! You’re the king!” and Timon and Pumbaa are like, “WHAT IS A MONARCHY WE ARE ANIMALS.”
As Simba and Nala erotically lap water from a stagnant bog, their eyes meet and it’s LIIIIIOOOOON ROOOOOOMAAAAAANCE!!!!!
Nala tries to convince Simba to come back to the Pridelands and fix all the shit that Scar douched, but he’s like, “Nah,” and she’s like, “K.” Timon and Pumbaa are all, “YAAAAASSS!!! BACHELORZ 4 LYFE! MGTOW!” and Simba gets ready to kick back and eat bugs until death.
Then Rafiki the krazy baboon shows up and tells Simba that his dad is still alive—which, I don’t know how many of you have a dead dad, but it’s a pretty fraught issue—and then when Simba gets all excited, he just points to Simba’s fucking reflection in a pond and gives a speech about how dead people live forever in our hearts. Yeah, I know my dead relatives live on inside me, but fuck you, man! That’s really not the same as being able to hug your dad! This is emotional monkey abuse!!
Luckily for Rafiki, who is about to get punched in his fucking tooth, Ghost Mufasa picks that exact moment to show up in the sky and lecture Simba like a dick. “Simba,” he says, “you’re a fuckup. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the circle of life. Stop eating bugs, you loser. Remember who you are. You are my son and the one true king.” Then he goes back up to lion heaven to play two-on-two basketball with Confucius, Anne Frank, and James Gandolfini.
Simba decides to go challenge Scar and reclaim his throne.
