Daria (TV Series) Boxing Daria (2001) User Reviews

A great but rather depressing final regular episode...

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 15 March 2011]

If you are looking for a funny way to say goodbye to this series, you may just want to skip this episode. Now I am NOT saying it's a bad one all--but it's terribly depressing and may catch you by surprise.

Daria has an existential crisis. It's finally hit her that she has NOT been a terribly easy daughter to raise--with her cynicism and dark personality. It's all stirred up by, of all things, memories that come flooding back when she sees a refrigerator box! However, after moping about and appearing in STRONG need of antidepressants, she has a heart-warming talk with her parents--and this, as well as a traffic accident, snap her out of her crisis.

This was an odd episode for me to watch, as I had a very different reaction the second time I saw it. The first time, I thought it was dreadfully depressing...period. However, a decade later AND after having raised my own version of Daria, the episode really hit home. Being an extremely bright kid can make fitting in really tough--and for anyone in this situations, this episode is a must-see. Clever and very well written despite its dark tone.

Good episode but very sad

[epa101 · 10/10 · 16 July 2013]

I love the series Daria, but one of its problems is that it darts around a lot. Some episodes are just zany antics and are not trying to be based in reality. Other episodes deal with serious social issues and stir emotions. This episode stands above all the others as the darkest.

It seems to have a slow start, with a new fridge being installed and a lot of talk about a cardboard box left in the garden. Daria remembers playing in a box as a kid. She gets upset when her mum says that she doesn't remember Daria doing much playing at all. Bit by bit, Daria remembers how she put stress upon her parents' marriage by her unusual behaviour and her difficulties with making friends.

There are two parts of this episode where I felt Daria's pain. The first came when Quinn remembers the same story about their parents' fight. The second was when Daria hugs Jane, which did not happen in any other episode.

It's a good story, and provides more information on Daria's childhood and inner turmoil. This was the last in the series of regular episodes, but there was a light-headed TV film to wrap everything up. I can't help but wonder whether they only made the TV film because they decided that this episode was just too morbid a note to end on.

The Box

[Rectangular_businessman · 9/10 · 16 May 2013]

I found "Boxing Daria" to be a particularly interesting episode, since it shows an important part of Daria's past, which somehow explains why she constantly acts in the way that she does in the series.

I have to say that, while I liked watching this series from the beginning, I had some problems with the main character. At first, I didn't like her, and I thought that she was just an embittered girl who acted in a cynical manner for no reason. Then, after I saw more episodes, I started to have more sympathy towards her and I found her behavior to be more understandable.

This episode, the last one before the movie "Is It College Yet?" (Which is the Grand Finale of the whole series) makes things clearer, showing that Daria is actually a much more vulnerable character than one would think at first sight, and that despite all her apparent cynicism, she has a much more complex human side.

"Boxing Daria" is a great of character development for the protagonist of this animated series, and serves as a perfect prelude for the definitive conclusion of the show in "Is It College Yet?". The Daria that we see in this episode is different than the one we see in "Esteemsters", and that change is for better, in my opinion.

Upsetting memories for Daria

[Tweekums · 9/10 · 25 January 2013]

When the Morgendorffers get a new fridge Helen is somewhat annoyed that the deliveryman left the cardboard box in came in, in the garden; Daria has an altogether different reaction; she is reminded of an almost forgotten event in her childhood that also involved a refrigerator box. It was so long ago she isn't sure if it is even a real memory and her mother has no recollection of it. It has clearly had an effect on her though as she refuses to through the box away and eventually ends up sitting in it refusing to come out. Surprisingly Quinn remembers the events that were troubling Daria. Things aren't made any easier by the fact that Tom is away.

This certainly doesn't feel like the final episode of the series; one would expect that to involve finishing school or at least end on a high note... it rather suits the series that it actually ends with a very downbeat episode. Daria has always been a bit of an outsider but until now she has never come across as depressed. As we learn more about what she is remembering the more depressing things get; thankfully by the end things get sorted although not before she almost has a traffic accident and had a good talk with her friend Jane. The fact that the episode is fairly downbeat doesn't mean it is entirely devoid of laughs; the final scene where Daria and Jane show prospective pupils round the school was particularly funny.

This isn't Boxing Helena...a very, very special and emotionally searing episode of Daria

[safenoe · 10/10 · 4 November 2016]

The fact this is one of the few Daria episodes that rates at least 9 in IMDb, has over 100 IMDb votes, and has about more than twice the user reviews than the usual Daria episode, says something about this special episode.

Boxing Daria is the final episode of Daria, and soon after the movie length "Is it College Yet?" wrapped up the series for good.

Daria's quirks, monotone dialogues, weirdness, and downbeat individualism is confronted head on in this episode - I'd say the writers knock the stuffing out of the persona where we as the viewers are thankful Daria has to face head-on what makes her Daria, and the impact this had on her family. The presence of a refrigerator box in the backyard causes Daria to recall how her misfit attitude as a child caused friction and arguing between her parents. Much trauma. Jake was very frustrated big time at Daria's social misfitness as a 6 year old child, and Daria as a child curled up in a fridge box in her own.

Daria has a car accident at the end when she runs off after realizing she was "torturing" her parents as a child. Interestingly, if Tom was on hand during Daria's trauma, then maybe they could have consummated their passion which was left unresolved in the previous episode "My Night at Daria's".