Amphibia: Civil Wart

August 21, 2021 7:58 PM - Season 1, Episode 23

From the boundless memory card of Anne's phone comes something called a movie, that splits Wartwood into two camps, each stanning one of the romantic leads. Sprig and Polly end up heading the rival factions, even though Hop Pop begs Sprig to let Polly win due to her being younger.

• Hop Pop: "Theater night! The one night a month we come together, watch our stories, and forget all our horrible, horrible troubles. Who wants popcorn?"
• In the pan over the crowd there is a stack of three pollywogs. These are little-seen regular characters, Maddie's three sisters. They appear in the intro, in the shot with Anne and the other residents of Wartwood, but they are rapidly covered by the ring of frogs around the edges of the screen before the title card. They show up in an episode in Season Two. Also in the crowd is Wally, a trio consisting of Maddie, Ivy and an unknown other frog, Soggy Joe and Sadie Croaker. Loggle and Felicia Sundew are right in front of the stage. Toadie is opposite from Anne around the rotten stump Hop Pop directs Sprig to. In the angry crowd shot, Stumpy can also be seen.
• Mayor Maire Toadstool's administration may involve a good amount of embezzlement, but he keeps the social life of Wartwood hopping, so to speak. Dance Night, other formal events, Grubhog Day, Frog Of The Year, and here, Theater Night.
• Maire Toadstool: "All right now, everybody settle down. I have some bad news. The acting troupe had to cancel on account of, well, being eaten on the way here."
• Anne introduces Wartwood to American-style movies. They set up a sheet of magnifying glass in front of Anne's cellphone (propped against her one shoe).
• "Thanks Tad, local glass artisan!" "Yep!"
• The movie is "Love Choice," a Twilight-esque story about two men chasing a woman lead. "In the not-so-distant future, three grounded-yet-supernatural teens must navigate their feelings if they hope to survive." The two men are Hunter (apparently a lumberjack cyborg) and Alastair, an anthropomorphic deer in a hoodie. It rapidly devolves into a meatspace version of Joel vs. Mike.
• Team Hunter: Polly, Felicia, Loggle, Toadie, Wally. Team Alastair: Sprig, Sadie Croaker, Stumpy, Maddie, Maire Toadstool.
• "So I named my kid 'Alastair' last night!" "Wow, you're a good dad!"
• Toadstool has a fruit-firing mortar. There's a fruit-firing machine gun too, whose owner can be heard to say "Glad I finally got a chance to use this bad boy!"
• The feud is over as suddenly as it began. "Oh that's just the way we are Anne. You should have seen last year's avocados vs almonds fiasco! We almost tore this place to the ground!"
• Theater Night (now "Moovy Night") is supposed to be monthly. If the one in the episode's coda is on the same timing, it means Anne must have been in Amphibia at least a month between the end of the feud and the second show. It's possible they just decided to have them more frequently though.
• From the backpack: fancy sunglasses, hoodie jacket with Saint James Middle School (Anne's school) insignia

posted by JHarris