User blog comment:LuluTDFan/The Dakotazoid/@comment-1756703-20140516073301

In my honest opinion, the mutation was totally unnecessary. In the last episode Dakota had with Sam before her mutation (“Runaway Model”, the episode in which Sam was eliminated), she and Sam began to bond more closely than before; she was absolutely happy when Sam came up to her asking for fashion advice, since before that, she believed that people only cared about her looks or her wealth. It was such a sweet moment, and it showed that Sam cared about her for more than how she looked like; he actually valued her mind and her thoughts.

Several peeps in the fandom have pointed out that the mutation wasn’t completely pointless, since it reinforced the message that Sam loved her regardless of her looks. And I somewhat agree with that. If there’s one good thing I can say about Dakotazoid, it’s that her relationship with Sam remained strong, which is actually pretty sweet to see. But in my opinion, it was a message that was already established due to the events of “Runaway Model”.

And I would love to see her come back in future episodes, but now that the writers have mutated her, how would they even accomplish that without turning her back into normal? I mean, as Dakotazoid, she not only looks too bizarre for the show, she also can’t even speak properly or be portrayed without some sort of reference to her mutation. And when you think about it, doesn’t that kind of go against the message of accepting her for who she is? She may have been secretly unhappy and lonely prior to being on the show, but thanks to Sam, she was well on her way to taking care of that issue. So having her become a mutant in spite of that progress implies that she needed a complete overhaul of who she once was — a fashionable and starstruck girl — in order to find happiness and acceptance, which is a notion I’m definitely not comfortable with. That’s what really bugs me about the writers’ decision to turn her into a mutant.

There was nothing wrong with non-mutated Dakota. Thus how can anyone justify the decision to mutate her? Did she really need to be mutated just to prove a point about accepting someone in spite of appearances? Because when you look at the Samkota relationship prior to the mutation, that was already happening! Sam isn’t all that attractive, yet Dakota was falling in love with him in spite of his appearance because he was accepting her for who she was. And she was reciprocating the feeling in return.

Long story short? Dakota’s mutation was hokey, unnecessary, and personally heartbreaking.