Mother Knows Best (song) own gains. Falco continued, "The audience knows what Gothel wants with Rapunzel, but the fact that we are unable to protect the naïve princess results in further hatred for the witch." Falco also concluded that Gothel's "sinister reprise at the end of "Tangled" allows for these horrifying undertones to emerge, which makes 'Mother Knows Best' one of the most sinister villain songs in the Disney library." Similarly, Elissa Smith of Paper Droids wrote that while the audience is fully aware of Gothel's evil intentions, Rapunzel is denied "the outsider's point of view." Glen Chapman of Den of Geek wrote that
Mother Gothel Gothel warns her daughter "all about the evils out to get Rapunzel," and "Mother Knows Best (Reprise)," both written by composer Alan Menken and lyricist Glenn Slater. While making Rapunzel's music more modern in the vein of a singer-songwriter, "young and contemporary and fresh," Menken decided to make Gothel's songs "more classic Broadway," described as more of "a big stage diva type" of music. Critics have observed similarities between "Mother Knows Best" and "Out There" from Disney's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame "(1996), on which Menken also served as a composer. Musically, the filmmakers "were open ... to ideas that