Line #89 Recap/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilS3E24MonsterBash


1	All the youth of Mewni gather at the ancient Monster Temple to celebrate a new era of Monsters and Mewmans living together in peace, until guests start disappearing!
2	----
3	!!Tropes:
4
5	* AccidentalDanceCraze: Marco's "sword-hand dance" has apparently become popular among the youth of Mewni.
6	* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Star brings up the DoubleStandard applied to the arrest of the loitering monsters by asking the knight why won't she deal with the non-monster troublemakers. She has no answer. All she does is let the monsters go out of complacency.
7	* ArtificialLimbs: Aside from his mechanical legs, Rich Pigeon also wields a mechanical pair of arms. He uses them to do the sword hand dance.
8	* TheBadGuyWins: Mina captures the monsters, fights Star, and then the cops come, and tensions are higher between monsters and Mewmans, which is exactly what Mina wants.
9	* BaitAndSwitch:
10	** During a tense moment at the party, Rock Johansen breaks the silence, saying "If no one else is gonna say anything, I will!" Turns out he wanted to break the ice by complementing one of the monster guest's pre-ripped jeans.
11	** A slime monster appears to be offering to dance with Princess Spider-Bite, but she's grossed out... because she thinks he's coming onto her. Then it turns out his slime has healing properties, and he was offering to heal her spider-bite.
12	* BaitAndSwitchBoss: In spades. At first, it looks like Miss Heinous is the opponent the heroes have to fight due to spying on them, and when monsters are disappearing, Mina Loveberry shows up in the dungeon, and it turns out she was the one kidnapping the monsters. ''Then'' Miss Heinous comes crashing down on her just when it looks like a fight with Mina was going to ensue, and ''[[RuleOfThree then]]'' Mina rises again and she's the main threat they have to face.
13	* BlackSpeech: Uttered by Tom to summon a casket of black stone to imprison Mina
14	* BrickJoke: Eclipsa isn't the only one who mistakes Marco's karate poses for some kind of "sword-hand dance".
15	* TheBusCameBack: Many past characters return, some vital in the plot.
16	** The princes and princesses from the Silver Bell Ball appear again.
17	** The alternative monsters Star befriended in "Raid the Cave" are guests at the party.
18	** Pony Head's friend from the Bounce Lounge, Johnny Blowhole, brings back the photo booth.
19	** Roy, the Goblin Dogs vendor is supplying his food to the party.
20	** Mina Loveberry reappears in the basement, and has a vital role in the climax.
21	** Miss Heinous, Gemini and Rasticore try to kill Marco again, and the headmistress is in for a major surprise.
22	** In her fight with Mina, Star uses the Spider With a Top Hat spell again.
23	** Rhombulus, Lady Whosits and other knights show up at the end to arrest the Monsters (but not the Mewmans) for the ruckus at the party.
24	* TheCavalryArrivesLate: Rhombulus and the knights arrive to defuse the situation, but Heinous is long gone and Mina manages to escape. It also kinda counts as CavalryBetrayal because Star is the one who gets in trouble, and the monster kids get mistreated.
25	* ChildhoodHomeRediscovery: The temple Star is throwing her monster/mewman party in was Miss Heinous' nursery, and revealed that she is a member of the Butterfly family, namely, Queen Eclipsa's daughter.
26	* ConflictKiller: The whole conflict between Miss Heinous and the heroes is smashed when Mina rises and shows how powerful she is.
27	* ContinuityNod:
28	** Star wears her Song Day outfit from "[[Recap/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilS2E40FaceTheMusic Face the Music]]", while Marco wears the suit he wore for his date with Jackie in "[[Recap/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilS2E27BonBonTheBirthdayClown Bon Bon the Birthday Clown]]".
29	** Pony Head and Johnny Blowhole bring the old photo booth from [[Recap/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilS2E33TheBounceLounge The Bounce Lounge]] to Star's party.
30	** The alternative monsters from "[[Recap/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilS2E28RaidTheCave Raid the Cave]]" are guests at Star's party.
31	** The [[Recap/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilS2E22SpiderWithATopHat Spider with a Top Hat spell]] returns in the fight against Mina, [[NoSell to no effect]].
32	** Marco's karate stance is [[Recap/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilS3E19SweetDreams once again]] mistaken for a "sword hand dance".
33	* CurbStompCushion: Star, Marco, and Tom Vs. Mina. The result is that Mina manages to hold her own with barely a scratch. Although Star's double rainbow fist punch, Marco throwing books, and Tom's magic coffin trap manage to do some damage but not even those seem to slow her down even a bit.
34	* DarkerAndEdgier: In her [[Recap/StarVsTheForcesOfEvilS2E9Starstruck first appearance]], Mina's craziness was mostly PlayedForLaughs. Here, it's shown that her lack of sanity and shameless bigotry makes her an extremely dangerous opponent who is impossible to reason with.
35	* DespairEventHorizon: After the party is ruined, the monster kids lose any hope of ever being treated as equals in Mewni. Likewise, Star feels that with tensions between monsters and Mewmans having worsened, she can never accomplish her dream of having an integrated Mewni society.
36	* DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu: Mina gave even the Demon Prince of The Underworld a run for his money, easily withstanding his own infernal magic.
37	* DoubleStandard: A racial one. When the knights show up at the end to arrest the guests for loitering outside the temple, they intend to get only the monster ones for questioning, while not just ignoring the Mewman troublemakers, but giving them shock blankets and hot cocoa. Lampshaded by Star, [[WhatTheHellHero and then some]].
38	* DownerEnding: Star's party ends in disaster, and put a serious crimp in her hopes for peace between Mewmans and Monsters. Plus, the events of the night have raised a ''lot'' of questions about her family's history.
39	* FaceHeelTurn: While Mina was rather reckless and wasn't very nice from the start, she becomes a full blown villain here, bent on keeping the status quo of Mewman superiority over monsters. In fact, what she did was borderline ''terrorism''.
40	* FantasticRacism: The Monsters and Mewmans.
41	* GlamourFailure: When Heinous realizes her true heritage, she regains monster features that were evidently disguised by magic.
42	* GoMadFromTheRevelation: Heinous, upon realizing her true heritage, has a VillainousBSOD. At the end of the episode, she forsakes her name for her true one, Meteora Butterfly.
43	* GreenEyedMonster:
44	** Turns out Pony still feels a bit of rivalry with Marco over the position of Star's best friend. As she made a point of rubbing it in his face that Star called her the best.
45	** Marco is visibly upset at any displays of affection between Star and Tom, and is unusually cold to Tom as a result of his jealousy.
46	* HealingHands: Turns out Slime's slime helps Princess Spider-Bite get rid of her titular condition.
47	* HelicopterHair: Mina makes her escape by jumping out of a window and flying away by spinning her hair.
48	* HiddenDepths: Who expected Miss Heinous to be a fan of heavy metal and headbanging?
49	* HopeSpot: At first the party is going great as the Mewmans and Monsters are getting along. Then Mina starts kidnapping the monsters...
50	* HypocriticalHumor: Mina complains about Star interrupting her... when Mina is barely letting Star get a word in edgeways.
51	* IAmWho: Miss Heinous discovers that she is Meteora Butterfly, the half-monster daughter of Eclipsa.
52	* IllNeverTellYouWhatImTellingYou: Subverted. Rhombulus insists the true nature of the temple is classified, but Star says he doesn't even know. He only blurts it out just to prove he does, but his snake hands manage to get him to keep his mouth shut.
53	* ImOkay: Slime says this after he and Princess Spider-Bite fall through a secret passage, and she lands on top of him.
54	* ItsAllAboutMe: Downplayed, but Tom is clearly annoyed that Star is more concerned over making sure the Mewmans and monsters get along then spending time with him.
55	* IWasJustJoking: About when Marco accidentally broke Rich Pigeon's leg:
56	-->'''Rich Pigeon:''' Legs heal, Marco, but grudges last '''''[[GrossUpCloseUp forever]]'''''.\
57	''{{Beat}}''\
58	'''Marco:''' Yeah, well, I'm sor-\
59	'''Rich Pigeon:''' Kidding! Kidding! Water under the bridge!
60	* JustJokingJustification: Rich Pigeon shoots a NightmareFace at Marco and tells him "grudges last forever", in reference to his broken leg. Turns out he was just joking.
61	* KarmaHoudini: Mina captures innocent monsters, cause a lot of destruction at the party and tensions between Mewmans and Monsters and manages to escape unpunished.
62	* KnightTemplar: Mina, going so far as to kidnap monster kids.
63	* KnockKnockJoke: When Star and Marco go check the situation in the basement, she leaves Pony Head in charge of breaking tensions by telling jokes to the guests. We see her telling a knock knock joke, only for it to be "answered" by Mina crashing through the ground.
64	* LockedOutOfTheLoop: Marco feels like this as TheReveal about Heinous' nature ensues, demanding that someone fill them in already.
65	* LuckBasedSearchTechnique: As Slime reclines against a wall, he crashes through it, ending up in a secret passage to the basement, where he and Princess Spider-Bite are captured by Mina.
66	* LukeIAmYourFather: Turns out Miss Heinous is Star's distant relative. Later it's revealed that she's the last descendant of the ''original'' Butterfly royal family.
67	* MundaneMadeAwesome: Star decorates the hall by jumping around, reaching a wall to put a birthday hat in the statue. She then jumps into her boots to wear them.
68	* MundaneUtility: Tom's fire powers come in handy for quite a few mundane situations, some of it accidental.
69	** When Star gets her tongue stuck in the punch bowl she froze, Tom simply uses his fire powers to melt the ice block.
70	** Also, when he goes down the basement to look for Star, he summons a single flame to act as his light source.
71	** At the end, he uses fire to burn the punch cup for Star to drink it,
72	* NiceJobBreakingItHero: Hero might be a stretch here, but Mina, a celebrated Mewni hero, is so AxeCrazy that she can't comprehend the idea of there being such a thing as a "good" monster and kidnaps several monster party-goers. This causes tension between the otherwise amicable Mewni and Monster youths; her rampage alerts the police guards who show up and arrest the Monsters for "loitering" while handing out hot chocolate and blankets to the Mewmans ([[MyFriendsAndZoidberg and Marco]]). This in turns severely damages Star's efforts and leaves the Monsters dejected, even after Star uses her authority as princess to convince the guards to let the Monsters go. Similarly, if she hadn't kidnapped those Monster youths, Heinous' linage as Eclipsa's daughter and her status as a HalfHumanHybrid wouldn't have been revealed and in turn cause her to remember her identity as Meteora. Thus, Mina is personally responsible for awakening what she herself called "the most dangerous monster in the history of Mewni".
73	* NightmareFace: Pigeon does this when joking to Marco that "grudges last forever". It scares Marco a bit.
74	* NoodleIncident: It seems Rock Johanssen got into a boating accident, resulting in the spikes protruding from his arms.
75	* NoSell: In her hulked-out form, Mina Loveberry is tough enough to shrug off Star's ''strongest spell'', Spider-with-a-Top-Hat Blast.
76	* NotHelpingYourCase: Tom tries to convince Star that her party wasn't a bust, but [[ExplainExplainOhCrap accidentally reminds her of everything that went wrong]].
77	* NothingIsTheSameAnymore: Not only is Heinous revealed to be a member of the Butterfly family, but tensions between Mewmans and monsters are higher than ever, and Star is left with so many questions about her family's heritage.
78	* OneWingedAngel: Mina activates a hulked-out form which makes her not only stronger, but can NoSell all of the heroes' attacks.
79	* PoorCommunicationKills: Star could've at least mitigated things if she had told Rhombulus that Mina was the one who caused trouble.
80	* TheReveal: Miss Heinous' real name is Meteora Butterfly, and is Eclipsa's daughter.
81	* SaveTheVillain: Once Star discovers Miss Heinous' true origins and her backstory, she stops Mina from trying to kill the former headmistress.
82	* SequelHook: Rhombulus says the Monster Temple has some major importance (apparently besides Meteora's nursery), but won't say what.
83	* ShipTease:
84	** Marco accepts Kelly's offer to do the sword hand dance with her.
85	** Slime and Princess Spider-Bite's interactions also count as Ship Tease.
86	** Marco's reactions to displays of Star and Tom's relationship and his unusually cold attitude towards Tom imply some jealousy on his part.
87	* ShoutOut:
88	** To ''Manga/SailorMoon'', fittingly; one of Mina's books at her camp is "Secret Tuxedo", a reference to Tuxedo Mask, Sailor Moon's love interest.
89	** Another book is called ''Thirty Shades of Magic'', a reference to the novel ''Literature/FiftyShadesOfGrey''.
90	* SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome:
91	** Centuries of prejudice can't be ended in a single night, and while both sides try, it doesn't stop them from falling back on old biases when things start going downhill. Plus, there will always be people who will be ''insulted'' by a change in the status quo, despite said change having more sound logic. Finally, years of fighting leave mental scars on its [[ShellShockedVeteran soldiers]] to a point where they can't be reasoned with or forgive those years. The older generation is more troublesome than the younger when it comes to change.
92	** While Tom has made great strides in bettering himself, lifelong personality flaws like [[ItsAllAboutMe self-centeredness]] and a [[HairTriggerTemper bad temper]] can't be removed overnight. He starts slipping back into throwing (admittedly small) temper tantrums when Star is too busy encouraging Mewman/monster interactions to spend time with him. And though he does apologize for his actions later on, he admits that he doesn't know exactly what he did wrong.
93	* SympathyForTheDevil: Even Star feels rather sorry for Miss Heinous, the very woman she feared and hated from the first season.
94	* ThatWomanIsDead: Inverted. Upon becoming aware of her true origins, Miss Heinous forsakes her name and now goes by her true name of Meteora Butterfly.
95	-->'''Gemini:''' Ooh, there's too much heat out there. We should get going, Miss Heinous.\
96	'''Heinous/Meteora:''' That's not my name.\
97	'''Gemini:''' I'm... sorry?\
98	'''Meteora:''' My name is Meteora.
99	* TiredOfRunning: When Marco faces Heinous again, he says he's done with running from her and prepares to take her on.
100	* TongueOnTheFlagpole: Star accidentally freezes the punch bowl in a block of ice and her tongue gets stuck to it.
101	* VillainExitStageLeft: Mina leaves just as the cops arrive. Miss Heinous gets away too, but her car gets confiscated.
102	* WhamEpisode: Heinous is actually Eclipsa's daughter, her real name is Meteora Butterfly, and Mina has been waiting for her return for ''decades''.
103	* WhamLine:
104	** Star discovers who's been abducting the monster guests... and runs into a familiar face in the process.
105	--->'''Star:''' Mina Loveberry?!\
106	'''Mina:''' Mud sister?!
107	** Later:
108	--->'''Mina:''' I knew you'd be back here one day... ''Meteora!''\
109	'''Gemini:''' I beg your pardon! This is Miss Heinous, the honorable headmistress of St. Olga's School for Wayward Princesses!\
110	'''Miss Heinous:''' No, Meteora. That ''is'' my name. At least, it was my name a long, long time ago.
111	** Then:
112	--->'''Mina:''' Don't you ding-dongs know anything? She's [Eclipsa] her [Heinous/Meteora's] momma!
113	--->'''Marco:''' Eclipsa is Heinous' mother?! But how?! She's hundreds of years old! Besides, that would make Heinous... a ''princess''!
114	--->'''Star:''' (eyes widening in realization) It... means she's a ''Butterfly''...
115	--->'''Mina:''' It ''means'', she's a ''monster''!
116	* WhamShot: The nursery where Miss Heinous spent her early childhood, which includes dolls of her very familiar parents (Eclipsa and her monster lover), a crib labeled with her real name (Meteora), and a mural of Eclipsa holding her as a baby.
117	* TheWorfEffect: Mina takes out the demon ''Tom'', who is at full strength with his demon powers. She also shrugs off the Spider-with-a-Top-Hat Blast, stated by Star to be her strongest spell, like it is nothing.

Context Recap / StarVsTheForcesOfEvilS3E24MonsterBash