Garden of Evil

Garden of Evil
Season 2, Episode 5
Air date	September 14, 1994
Written by	Mirith J. Colao
Directed by	Rob LaDuca
Episode guide
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Summary

Twenty years ago, a much younger Sultan heard of a magnificent, magical garden and plucked a flower to take home to his new bride. This aroused the anger of the garden's master, an enchanter named Arbutus, who sees himself as an artist and creates beautiful living things, but despises man for seemingly carelessly destroying his work. The only way he allows the Sultan to leave alive is the promise of the Sultan's most valuable treasure twenty years later... which turns out to be Jasmine.

Plot

Twenty years ago, the young Sultan heard of a magical garden in the desert. Visiting it, and seeing the garden's beauty, he plucked a flower to take it home to his new bride. The destruction arouses the anger of the enchanter Arbutus, but the Sultan begs for his life, explaining that he meant no harm, and heard that the most beautiful of flowers were grown here. Seeing that the Sultan clearly appreciates his art, Arbutus lets him go on the condition that in twenty years, he will return for the Sultan's most valuable treasure.

Today, Aladdin promises the Sultan that he will guard the treasure room so Arbutus will not steal them. But the Sultan tosses and turns that night, suddenly realising that Arbutus does not care for hard, cold gold or lifeless jewels - and his most valuable treasure is Jasmine herself.

Elsewhere in the palace, Arbutus kidnaps the beautiful princess and takes her to his garden. Aladdin and the gang follow Arbutus to rescue Jasmine.

Arbutus shows Jasmine his art and tells her how much he loves his garden. He creates a new piece, with her on display beside the flowers, complimenting her as also being living art. Jasmine has no intention of remaining in the garden, but starts to understand. In the meantime, the angry Aladdin cuts his way into the garden, and before Jasmine can convince Arbutus to let her go home, enters into battle with him.

Unfortunately, Aladdin finds that Arbutus is an incredibly powerful sorcerer, controlling every plant in the garden, and it seems there is nothing he can do. Jasmine begs them to stop fighting, but they refuse to listen. Just as Arbutus is about to crush Aladdin, Aladdin kills the sorcerer through pure luck, his sword slicing off the rose on Arbutus' chest.

All around them, the magical garden withers and dies with the sorcerer who created it.

Dismayed, Jasmine tells him that Arbutus loved his garden as much as they love each other - he wasn't evil, but only different.

Together, they carefully replant and water water the rose in hopes that Arbutus may someday bloom again.

Character debut

• Arbutus

Goof

• The Sultan is briefly wearing his regular clothes instead of his pajamas when Arbutus reveals himself in Jasmine's bedroom.
• Aladdin is seen showing his belly button.

Trivia

• When the Sultan tells the story at the beginning of the episode, it turns out that he is telling it to Jasmine, foreshadowing that she is his most precious treasure.
• Jasmine's mother is indirectly mentioned.
• Arbutus is very similar to the monster from the original fairytale version of "Beauty and the Beast"; he is a vicious but kind monster living alone in his magic domain, and demands the daughter of a man who stole one of his flowers, and bonds with the girl before her suitor comes to kill him; unlike in the fairytale, Arbutus dies and Aladdin survives. Coincidentally, Ron Perlman - Arbutus' voice actor - also played Vincent in the 1987 TV version of Beauty and the Beast.
• Fittingly enough for a plant spirit, Arbutus shares his name with a genus of plant that grows around the Mediterranean Basin.
  • There is a species of the Arbutus plant that is known to grow in parts of Jordan, which is where Agrabah is located, between the Jordan river and the Aqaba gulf.