The Despicable Me films are known for its incredibly sweet relationships - whether
it be the father/daughter relationship between Gru and his girls or the romance
between him and Lucy. It only seems natural that its spinoff series - “Minions” - would
also take the time to focus on relationships - whether they be good or not-so-good. So,
we’re going to take the time to look at some of them!
I’m Kyle with WickedBinge, and this is Minions 2 Relationships: Healthy to Toxic.
Before we start, we just want to give you all a warning that there are going to be MAJOR spoilers
for “Minions:Rise of Gru” in this video. So maybe give the film a watch if you haven’t already.
As always, we’re going to be looking at the positive side
of things before working our way down. These relationships are The Healthy.
Getting the Gold Medal of Healthiness is a familiar relationship - Gru and Dr. Nefario. Now,
this may be a bit surprising to anyone who’s watched the other Despicable Me movies. In
those films, Gru and Nefario didn’t seem all that close, having more of a professional relationship
than anything else - with Nefario even doing some pretty questionable things to Gru, like calling
the orphanage behind his back and getting the girls taken away or going to work for El Macho.
But even with these not-so-great moments, the two never had a ton of animosity towards each other,
and this film may just give a bit of an explanation why. From the moment they met,
Nefario was incredibly friendly to young Gru, not looking down on him for being a kid
and even giving him a brand new gadget with no strings attached! Even after Gru stole from the
people who were essentially his bosses, Nefario didn’t hesitate to give Gru a chance to escape.
At the end of the film, we see Gru offering Nefario a job as his personal mad scientist,
and although it takes a bit of convincing, Nefario still seems pretty excited about working with Gru.
While this relationship may be somewhat bittersweet - given how the two ended up
growing apart somewhat in the main series of films - it was still nice to see that,
at the very least, they started their relationship off on the right foot.
For the Silver Medal of Healthiness, we have the Main Minion Trio - Kevin, Bob and Stuart. As the
stars of this spin-off series, they make a pretty good team! Sure, like all friends,
they can sometimes squabble or mess with each other, but they also look out for each other
and can work together extremely well. Kevin and Stuart may argue or get into small slap fights,
but when push comes to shove they can still work together. As for Bob and Kevin,
the latter almost seems like an older brother to Bob - especially in the first Minions film,
where we saw him comforting Bob occasionally. Looking at both films,
you never really get any huge arguments or falling out scenes between these three characters.
Even if they don’t get along perfectly, you never feel like there’s any real bad blood
between them, allowing them to feel like a natural trio of friends and brothers.
It’s no wonder these three were chosen out of a crowd of literally hundreds of Minions.
Finishing off the Healthy Relationships, we wanted to give a quick shoutout to
Otto and the Motorcyclist. This is a pretty minor relationship, all things considered,
but an incredibly sweet one nonetheless. When the motorcyclist is given the Zodiac Stone by
his nephew, Otto follows him for miles on end in the hopes of getting it back.
When the two do finally meet up, the motorcyclist is nothing but friendly to him! Not only does he
give Otto the stone back, but he offers him a ride to San Francisco. On the way there,
the two of them bond through road-trip shenanigans - like stopping at the World’s Largest Banana.
It’s certainly an unexpected friendship, but it’s one that we had a fun time watching.
Now we move onto the relationships that could use just a bit of work.
These are the Grey Relationships.
Starting this tier off, we have Gru and the Minions trio. It’s no secret that when it came to
being the Minions’ ‘mini boss’, Gru wasn’t all too interested in the role, resulting in him trying to
keep his distance from them. Over time though, Gru was able to soften up to the Minions. When
it comes to the main trio specifically, we see the three of them playing with Gru after school,
cheering him up after an annoying day. Although Gru is embarrassed by their parental disguises,
it’s clear that he still enjoys playing with them. Though he may sometimes be annoyed or frustrated
by the Minions, he treats them with respect for the most part. He even lets the trio sleep
in his bed when they claim to have nightmares. D’awww… The only low part in their relationship
is when he fires all of the Minions for Otto’s mistake, claiming that he’s better off alone
and that the Minions aren’t ready for the ‘big leagues’. But even after this brief falling out,
the Minions still go after Gru to try and save him, showing how much they care - and in the end,
Gru is able to truly return these feelings, seeing the Minions as not just henchmen but family.
Following that, we have Gru and Otto. With Otto being the only other Minion Gru has significant
interactions with outside of the trio, we felt that we had to give it a specific mention. With
Otto being somewhat of a motor-mouth, Gru seems to be especially annoyed with him at times.
We see him tell Otto that they’re going to play the “quiet game”, and then ignoring Otto once
he’s silenced himself. There’s also, of course, the anger Gru shows towards Otto after he loses
the Zodiac Stone - and while we can’t blame him for being angry, it’s still a knock against
their relationship. However, Gru is able to forgive Otto after he gets the stone back,
showing that even in the case of a huge screw up, he doesn’t necessarily dislike Otto enough
to hold a grudge. As for Otto, while he may be easily distracted by things like pet rocks,
he still cares about Gru just as much as the other Minions do. During the final battle,
Otto puts his own life at risk to save Gru, and Gru returns the favor by saving Otto from falling.
It’s just a really nice moment, and it helps keep this relationship in the upper half of Grey.
Going back to our three yellow stars of the show, we have the Minion Trio and Master Chow’s
relationship next. In all essence, this is your typical master and student relationship - with
Chow even protecting the trio from enemies before agreeing to train them, which is a bit of a kung
fu movie cliche at this point. What’s sometimes lacking in this master/student relationship,
however, is the respect. Stuart especially is shown goofing off during their lessons
and even trying to flirt with Chow at one point. For Chow’s part, she can also sometimes be a bit
harsher than necessary, often hitting the Minions to get them back in line. Still, she’s shown
caring about the Minions enough to want them to succeed in their mission to save their mini boss,
and thus is able to be patient and even somewhat encouraging at times too. Although they only
get about 10 minutes of screentime together - not all of which is positive - we still feel
like the Minions and Chow have enough good moments to warrant not being put any lower.
Finishing off our Minion-focused relationships, we have Otto and the Minion Trio. This one will
be brief, as they really don’t share a ton of moments together. Much like Gru, the trio - Kevin,
especially - seem to mostly be annoyed with Otto’s motor-mouth. When Otto wants to join them when
they decide to follow Gru to his interview, Kevin tells Otto that they’re playing hide ‘n seek,
and then tells the others to sneak away while Otto is counting. Harsh… Later on,
after Otto takes them to the house where he traded away the Zodiac Stone, the trio are naturally more
focused on saving their boss than they are on Otto. As such, when Otto disappears to go
follow the motorcyclist, they barely even care and just move on without even trying to search
for him. While we can’t blame the trio for this since, again, they were on a mission to save Gru,
it still says a lot about their relationship with Otto - but we suppose that in a sea of Minions,
there’s bound to be at least a few that aren’t super close with each other.
Entering into the lower half of Grey, we have the relationship of Wild Knuckles and Gru. For Gru,
Wild Knuckes was his absolute favorite supervillain. For Knuckles, well… Gru
was just a means to an end. At first, the two were nothing more but kidnapper and kidnappee,
with Knuckles not really caring much about Gru. But, after Gru ends up saving his life,
Knuckles starts to warm up to the kid. The two quickly form a friendship,
bonding as they pull a bank heist together. How… sweet? But what’s truly sweet is how much the two
end up caring for each other. Even when Knuckles is at his lowest, Gru still admires him and wants
to try and help him get back on his feet. Although Wild Knuckles struggles to accept the help, in the
end he’s still willing to put his own life at risk to protect Gru from the Vicious 6. Considering he
went from threatening to kill the kid himself to protecting him with everything he had, it’s
a pretty meaningful moment. At the end of the film, we see Wild Knuckles promising to teach Gru
more of what he knows, the two of them getting to spend just a bit more time together and Knuckles
essentially becoming a surrogate grandpa to Gru. While we couldn’t put this relationship
any higher due to its rough start - we really can’t overlook kidnapping and threats of torture
- we would still love to see more adventures and sweet moments with these two characters.
Finishing off the Grey, we have the Vicious 6 (or rather, 5). It’s implied that the five of
them have a decent amount of history together and that, on some level, they’re friends as well as
teammates. Unfortunately, we don’t see a ton of examples of this. Sure, they’re not constantly
arguing or insulting each other or anything like that, but we don’t really get those ‘family’
vibes like we do with Gru and the Minions or Wild Knuckles and Gru either. At their core,
it seems like it’s all business with them. What truly puts them this low, however, is
their hidden willingness to double-cross each other for personal gain. After all,
if they were each willing to betray Wild Knuckles - their leader who hadn’t done
anything to them and had only helped them - just so they could get some ‘fresh blood’ in the group…
What exactly is stopping anyone else in the group from starting another coup against one of the
other members? As far as we can tell, there are no deep connections within this group - and thus,
no loyalties. The only reason why they don’t fall into the Toxic Tier is due to
them still being able to get along decently well outside of this potential for betrayal.
Finally, we’ve reached the absolute worst relationships of the bunch. These are The Toxic.
Earning the Bronze Medal of Toxicity is, of course, Gru and his mother, Marlena. Yeahhh,
this is pretty much the opposite of Gru and Nefario’s relationship. While we saw that
relationship at its best in this film, this relationship is pretty much at its worst.
For Marlena, calling her a neglectful mother is a bit of an understatement.
She doesn’t keep track of Gru and what he’s doing, nor does she even bother picking him up
from school and is instead more focused on her personal life and her dating life. As for Gru,
he doesn’t seem to respect Marlena much - though at this point, we can’t really blame
him at all for essentially giving up on a good relationship with her. Throughout the film,
these two never have a positive interaction with each other. We can’t even say for sure
if Marlena ever knew - or cared about - just how much danger her son was in. Honestly, the
only reason why this relationship manages to stay a couple spots away from the very bottom
is simply because they never try to actually kill each other. Oh, but speaking of which…
For our Silver Medal of Toxicity, we’re giving it to Wild Knuckles and the rest of the Vicious 6.
It really is a shame how these guys ended up. On Knuckles’ side of things, he saw the other members
as his buddies and legitimately wanted to rule the world with them by his side. Unfortunately,
the rest of the Vicious 6 only saw him as a washed-up old man, not caring if he still had any
skills or talents left (which he clearly did) and ultimately trying to kill him just so they could
replace him. Even after all Wild Knuckles did for them, the rest of the Vicious 6 just can’t seem to
care one little bit about him. To add insult to injury, they even destroy his whole home while
looking for him and Gru, essentially breaking Knuckles’ heart all over again. Essentially,
this was a one-sided friendship that ended in probably the worst way possible.
Finally, getting our Gold Medal of Toxicity is the relationship between Gru and the Vicious 6. Soooo,
you know the phrase ‘never meet your heroes’? Well, Gru unfortunately had to learn that lesson
the hard way. For as much as he tried to impress his fellow villains, all the Vicious 6 could see
was a ‘puny child’ who couldn’t hope to be a REAL villain and thus were perfectly fine
with belittling him for their own amusement. Even after Gru showed that he had talent,
being able to steal the Zodiac Stone from right under their noses, the Vicious 6 didn’t exactly
come around to see him for his evil potential. Instead, they wanted nothing more than revenge.
Even after getting the stone back, the Vicious 6 - Belle Bottom, especially - still wanted to kill
Gru in the cruelest way possible, showing off just how evil and petty they were. All in all,
idolization can be a dangerous thing, and between Gru’s brief hero worship of the team and the
Vicious 6’s willingness to go completely overboard just to get back at some kid that wronged them,
we feel that this relationship is 100% toxic and deserves to be at the very bottom.
But let us know in the comment section if you agree with our ranking,
and tell us what we should cover next! Remember to hit that notification bell
and binge more of our videos. But more importantly, stay wicked!