Amphibia: Hop 'Til You Drop/Turning Point

October 11, 2021 2:01 AM - Season 3, Episode 2

Hop 'Til You Drop: The Plantars are excited to explore Anne's world, but are ignorant of its own kinds of dangers. Anne figures the best thing to do is to drop them in the deep end at the most chaotic place she can think of: the mall. Turning Point: In Amphibia, after Anne and the Plantars were sent to Earth, Sasha and Captain Grime escape from Andrias' castle and hide out in Wartwood, but are soon tracked there by a robot scout.

Hop 'Til You Drop

• After The New Normal, this is a fairly low-key episode about the frogs adjusting to the world of humans. No robots, no Calamity powers, no deadly dangers.
• Polly: has anger management problems. At least she didn't pull out a ball-and-chain to attack the babies in the plush store.
• Sprig: Some context is given to his compulsive pressing of buttons, it turns out he craves surfaces and textures! Could it be that he is a bit autistic? Fortunately Anne stops him before he feeds himself into a woodchipper.
• Hop Pop: He's mostly just elderly and gullible. Although when someone tries to scam him on the phone, he seems okay with giving out his bank numbers, when he doesn't even have an Earth bank account? And in the mall, he's asked for his ID, and he reaches for his wallet, but he shouldn't have an ID either? Ah well.
• Anne's parents seem to have settled a bit with the idea of a family of frogs living under their roof, at least for now. I love Anne's mom's turn of phrase, "This is a lot of new for them."
• Presiding over the art scenes like a prickly green god is what appears to be a statue of a Cactaur from Final Fantasy.
• Some stores in the mall: Construct-A-Carnivore, Slacks, Old Maybe, Ever22, Uniq-oh, Rent-A-Suit, Soap World, Booots, Limited Three, We Sports, "R" and "K."
• Of the art installations Sprig walks by, one, a textured cube, has the title "Cube De Texture."
• Anne's friend who spots her is Gabby. The excuse Anne gives for being missing for five months is, she was visiting "her family's farm," which is true in a way, "in Alaska," which isn't.
• As Sprig rolls by on the giant egg-shaped piece of an art installation, things stick to it like a katamari! Sprig himself is explainable though, he can cling to things like walls and ceilings.
• At the end, we have two more instances of Amphibia's ludicrously deadly perils seen in flashback, that weren't even in episodes.

Turning Point

• "Some Days Earlier," evidently Anne hasn't been on Earth for very long yet.
• What happened at the end of the fight from True Colors: Anne and the Plantars are sent to Earth, Marcy collapsed from the wound she suffered and is put into a "rejuvenation tank," Lady Olivia and General Yunan feign being on Andrias' side, and Grime and Sasha, cornered by robots, jump out a window, to be saved from their fall by Joe Sparrow (who Grime calls George Sparrow).
• Sasha and Grime hide out in Wartwood, claiming to be sent by Anne to protect the town, which is a lie. It gives us a chance to see how Wartwood is coming along, which is pretty well all told. All our old friends there are present: Mrs. Croaker, Wally, Loggle, Ivy, Felicia, Stumpy, Mayor Toadstool, Toadie and Maddie. S & G do tell them that Andrias has turned out to be a ruthless tyrant.
• Sasha and Grime stay at the Plantar farm overnight, although Sasha, feeling guilty, sleeps in the barn, where Bessie and MicroAngelo are still stabled. Grime breaks Hop Pop's bed while resting. Sasha finds and reads Anne's journal (shouldn't she have taken that with her to Newtopia?) and is sad that she betrayed her friend again.
• One of the little charms of Amphibia is Sasha and Grime's friendship, which has grown deep. They have become quite a team.
• In the end, Sasha comes clean to the townsfolk, Grime joins her, and together, with the help of the townfolk, destroy a robot carrier. Grime expresses amazement that the townies are effective fighters, but I figure that's just what living in a valley crammed full of deadly monsters does to people.
• Beatrix has gone underground with toads that escaped the uprising, but Sasha and Grime decide to stay in Wartwood and plan on fighting against Andrias on their own front.

posted by JHarris (2 comments total)

If there were public art installations like that, I might not dread going to the mall.
posted by Marticus at 2:34 PM on October 11, 2021 [2 favorites]

Just be careful around the weird purple kid somehow sticking to surfaces.
posted by JHarris at 3:46 AM on October 12, 2021 [2 favorites]