Awesome / Amphibia Season 3

"If you think I'm just gonna sit here while you hurt my friends, you've got another thing coming."

In General

• The new opening showcases a few awesome moments.
  • Firstly, after two entire seasons of seeing Anne bond with the Plantars as a surrogate Found Family, it's awesome getting to see them interacting with her original family — and even better, the Boonchuys seem to have accepted their daughter's strange new friends and allow them to live in their house, in gratitude for everything the Plantars did to help Anne when she needed shelter and protection in a strange and hostile world.
  • Anne is shown picking up the Plantars and running away from what seems to be an upgraded robot assassin sent by Andrias in the human world, showing that the madman may have been taken off guard by her unexpectedly still having her Calamity Box powers in the season 2 finale, but he is not going to underestimate the threat Anne brings to his plans, and will be working to preemptively eliminate her even as he preps for the main invasion.
  • Anne and the Plantars are seen to be running away from/evading some government agents on a scooter with police cars and helicopters in pursuit, showing it's not just the threats from Amphibia Anne's got to protect them from.
  • Sasha is shown alongside Grime and the Wartwood citizens, revealing that they both somehow managed to escape from Andrias and are now leading a resistance movement against him with all the various friendly allies they can — in Sasha's case, this also allows her to finally use her various skills that she's been building up throughout the series thus far in a heroic capacity and also possibly make amends for her villainous actions towards Anne and the Plantars.
  • Andrias' invasion is partially showcased though a variety of Mecha-Mooks, ranging from robotic dragonflies to a Humongous Mecha that deploys smaller ground force troops for an assault. After Anne and her allies were able to carve through the robots Andrias summoned in "True Colors" like a hot knife through butter, this implies that the only reason the robots were so easily beaten then is that they were outdated models, and Andrias is going to keep improving their performance until each one is a legitimate threat to Anne and everybody on Earth.
  • Marcy's shown to be still alive, kept suspended in a healing vat for some unknown purpose of Andrias'. After her shocking fate in the season 2 finale, it's awesome to get confirmation she's Not Quite Dead.
  • Finally, it's shown that, now that she's aware of her Calamity Box powers, Anne is going to be exercising more control over her Super Mode going forward, voluntarily transforming to knock away some missiles fired at her and the Plantars by Andrias' Mecha-Mooks and even grabbing one to toss back in their face.

The New Normal

• Anne tapping into her powers again and damaging the Cloak-Bot enough that it needs to flee for repairs.
• And how does she finally activate her powers? When she sees the frozen Plantars in fatal danger. She represents the power of heart, and her powers are activated by the love and friendship of others.
  Anne: If you think I'm just gonna sit here while you hurt my friends... you've got another thing coming!
• Hop Pop, investigating the produce in the food market, finds some durians and, intrigued by this new and impressive looking produce, splits it open on his knee to get a look at it's insides. As anybody who's actually handled the fruit IRL will tell you, the durian's skin is quite tough and solid, so this is an impressive feat of strength for what is supposed to be an old man, and serves as an important reminder that for all his advanced age, Hop Pop is still the physically strongest member of the Plantar family^note  aside from Anne, especially whenever she's using her powers. Too bad he was unprepared for what the inside of durians smells like.

Hop 'Til You Drop

• Anne saving Sprig as he's rolling on a statue in the mall.
• Anne's Batman Gambit of leaving the security (who was coming after Hop Pop) with the three moms (who were complaining about Polly hurting their babies) just to get them to leave the Plantars alone.

Turning Point

• Sasha's Heel–Face Turn gets fully realized in this episode, as she vows to become a better person that Anne deserves. To that point, she confesses to the citizens of Wartwood the truth about Anne and the Plantars' whereabouts, and then declares that she'll defend the town against the coming robot army on her own if need be. Remember that this is the same person who incredulously asked Anne how she could defend a bunch of "talking frogs", and now she's ready to lay down her life for those same frogs, even if it's suicide.
• Sasha and Grime can't take on the army of robots sent by Andrias on their own... but the residents of Wartwood can. Once they see what's going on, the goofy and peaceful villagers band together and thoroughly decimate the invaders. Sasha and Grime then get the winning blow, cleverly tricking the "head" robot into attacking itself by leading its guided missiles straight towards it.

Thai Feud

• Anne managing to just barely keep the brake-less food truck under control.

Adventures In Catsitting

• The fact that Hop Pop can perfectly imitate beeping sounds.
• Polly using her body to lure Domino out of the shawarma shop.

Fight at the Museum

• Anne fighting off Cloak-bot without the use of her Calamity powers.
• The Cloak-bot simply spares Anne of her life when Dr. Jan, of all people, bursts right into the museum and sees her coming within two seconds of being Killed Off for Real. Had she not entered the museum when she did, Anne would've been vanquished for good.

Temple Frogs

• Polly turns out to have learned Thai, simply by watching Thai romcoms. And she's fluent at it.
• The whole Thai Temple community defeating the swarm of dragonfly drones.

Fixing Frobo

• In apparently just a few hours In-Universe, Polly became skilled enough in robotics to get Frobo working again just by watching online tutorials, to the point she and the I.T. Girls are talking in technical language the others can't follow without any sign of Polly being confused.
• Polly and a revived Frobo are falling towards the ground, but Frobo's jet thrusters aren't working, so he unhesitatingly performs a Heroic Sacrifice by placing Polly in his central compartment. He successfully cushions her fall, and fortunately, his head remains intact enough to remain functional.

Anne-sterminator

• Mr. Boonchuy running the Cloak-Bot over with the car.
• Mrs. Boonchuy using her skills making dummies of Anne to distract the Cloak-Bot at the junkyard, and then when it gets the upper hand on the others, she grabs a sledgehammer and takes turns beating the crap out of it with Anne until it can't move.
  Mrs. Boonchuy: (wielding a sledgehammer) Hey robot! Leave my daughter ALONE! (smashes Cloak-Bot with the hammer)
• When the Cloak-Bot reveals that it's going to self-destruct and take the Boonchuys and Plantars with it, Anne consciously taps into her powers enough to kick it into orbit where the detonation can't hurt anyone.

Mr. X

• The Boonchuys' efforts to save Anne and the Plantars from the government agents. Mrs. Boonchuy distracts the agents via a pull-rabbit-out-of-the-hat trick with Domino. Then they head to the pet store to purchase two frogs and a tadpole (to use as decoys to trick the FBI agents later on) and finally, they turn off the power of the movie theatre, so they can save their daughter and the Plantars without the FBI spotting them.
• The tech that Mr. X and Jenners have in general.

Spider-Sprig

• Sprig stops a runaway bus basically singlehandedly by creating a safety net with his tongue.

Olivia & Yunan

• Even in her tired and confused state, Marcy’s intelligence is still a force to be reckoned with, as she immediately realizes that she, Olivia, and Yunan are trapped in a Lotus-Eater Machine that forces them to face their worst fears with illusions.
• Marcy, Olivia, and Yunan working together to destroy the eyes creating the illusions.
  Olivia: You'll pay for using my mother's likeliness! [karate-kicks a projector eye and disrupts a monstrous projection of her mother]
• Two villainous examples:
  • You gotta give props to The Core for using Shadowfish as a way to preserve their consciousness after death.
  • Earlier Andrias states that the Brain Upload device for The Core hasn't been tested yet. And as unfortunate as it is, it works on the first try.

Hollywood Hop Pop

• Hop Pop strikes it big in Hollywood, getting a role in a commercial that becomes an overnight success and getting his face plastered all over town. While it's pretty inconvenient for the Plantars trying to be undercover, it is nonetheless very impressive, especially when Anne gets a call from the director of a huge Show Within a Show who wants to hire Hop Pop.

If You Give A Frog A Cookie

• Egocentric and mad as she is, Dr. Frakes managed to build a working dimensional portal after studying the energy of the Calamity Box for five months. She even manages to get a few images of four dimensions she discovered, one of which is the Boiling Isles.

Froggy Little Christmas

• How do the Plantars and Boonchuys finally take out the giant robot Santa Andrias takes control of to kill them when he has them cornered? Why, they take the Christmas tree from their float, mount it in an oversized firework can, light said can, and launch it like a javelin straight through the robo-Santa's chest, right into the drone! It's especially karmic given how Andrias stabbed Marcy.
  Anne: Hey Andrias! Merry Christmas!
  Andrias: Hey, thanks! You too— wait, NO!!!
  • While this is happening, we hear Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" playing, which immediately transitions into a Triumphant Reprise of Anne's Theme.
• After Andrias once again fails to take down Anne and the Plantars, he has a small tantrum over it. Darcy laughs at this and mocks him for his failure.
  Darcy: That was pathetic. And you call yourself a King…

Escape To Amphibia

• Terri managing to crack the secret to making portals, realizing that the reason the Calamity Box was a music box was because the ancient newts found a way to use music as a sort of multiversal GPS and successfully opening a portal to Amphibia, if a small one.
• Frobo is fixed! Well, sort of. Polly bought an RC car model and attached his head to one. She also programmed him to play her favorite movies.
• In a homage/parody of a certain Star Wars film, Anne confronts a whole squad of FBI agents armed with shock batons in a red-lit hallway with a toy lightsaber... and proceeds to beat the absolute daylights out of every one of them with the sword skills she learnt during her time in Amphibia! It has to be seen to be believed.
  • And to up the ante, some fans took it upon themselves to combine Anne's theme with the Imperial March in response.
• When Anne rescues the Plantars, she sics a repaired Frobo on the guard in the room. Frobo gains a Let's Get Dangerous! look, spits out CDs like discuses, and proceeds to free Polly from her bonds using a blowtorch. Polly's repairs paid off.
• The FBI chase scene. Dr. Jan has the wheel and drives through the guard gate. She keeps them on the road as the Plantars toss everything they have at their pursuers. While Mr. X manages to jump onto the van and plant a tracker, Sprig knocks him off using a kombucha barrel.
• Doubling as a heartwarming moment, Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy reveal they packed Anne's backpack with all the supplies they think she'll need in Amphibia. Knowing how Crazy-Prepared the Boonchuys are, that will definitely come in handy.
• When Mr. X tracks the group down to the warehouse, he starts belittling Anne again. She then unleashes her blue Calamity powers again, using a Shockwave Stomp to throw the FBI agents off their game, charges the portal fully open herself, and uses Hop Pop's avocado to lure the praying mantis through the portal so it can attack the agents while she and the Plantars escape to Amphibia. This same scene also happens to be some sort of development for Anne's powers, given that she only faints after passing through the portal and has enough fine control to split an avocado down the middle.
• The FBI agents see a giant monster mantis, and their response is to zerg-rush it before finally taking it down with advanced weaponry.
• At first, Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy seem fine with Anne going back to Amphibia. Then the mantis smashes the portal, and Mr. X confronts them for answers. Bumbling Dad Mr. Boonchuy smacks Mr. X's hand and tells him off, because they are going to give answers but he better damn well listen. Mrs. Boonchuy joins in, berating Mr. X for how he treated their daughter and guests like criminals.

Commander Anne

• Although it ultimately fails, Polly is able to uppercut and then kick down a giant mind-controlled centipede! Keep in mind, she's a baby!
• Loggle is ripped now!
• Once Sasha takes back command of the team, she quickly shows that she deserves the position.

Sprivy

• Once they get the team divisions back the way Sasha wanted, the teams manage to accomplish the objective of destroying the laser cannon just in time.

Sasha's Angels

• Toadie of all amphibians gets to show off his stuff here, including ripping off the beard of a marauder to reclaim his bow tie.

Olm Town Road

• When Lysil and Angwin threaten to eat everyone, Sasha easily gets her sword pointed at one of their throats and threatens that even if the two manage to eat them, they'll just cut their way out of the duo's stomach. They wisely decide to help after that.
• Despite their weakness to sunlight, Lysil and Angwin jump out and manage to stop the drill Andrias is using to try and mine iron ore, saving the olm city of Proteus in the process.
• Sasha calling the olm leader out for not being appreciative of Lysil and Angwin even after the above act.

Mother of Olms

• When the rest of the group is trapped in Mother Olm's nose, Hop Pop draws upon his knowledge of plants to trigger a sneeze and save them.

Grime's Pupil

• Grime is able to take on a whole swarm of hybeenas (part bee, part hyena), even withstanding being stung by a dozen of them all at once, then tossing them aside like they were nothing.
• With some training from Grime, Sprig is able to defeat Beatrix.

The Root of Evil

• The Plantars and company rescuing Gary and the villagers from Andrias' forces.

The King & The Core

• Leif successfully managing to steal the music box and escape Newtopia alive.

Newts In Tights

• Anne fully demonstrates how much her swordfighting has improved in this episode, first taking down a mind controlled worm with a single slice through its collar, then later throwing her sword with pinpoint precision and (Calamity-power-enhanced) force to sever Tritonio's feather and embed it in a tree behind him. Those sparring sessions with Sasha have been paying off.
• Tritonio's Big Damn Heroes moment to help rescue Anne, Sprig, and his band.

Fight or Flight

• Before leaving, Anne says she only has to break into a mountaintop fortress, so she shouldn't be gone long. She has come a long way from the insecure girl in season 1. And the best part? She's not kidding. She really does get in and out within a single night.
• Anne succeeds in rescuing Domino 2 and the other moths... and since Domino 2 is the "Alpha" moth, that means that the resistance now has air cavalry! The rescue is also punctuated by a magnificent orchestral rendition of Sprig's fiddle song from "Fiddle Me This", "Flight Of The Moth".

The Three Armies

• Anne using her Super Mode to stop all of the different factions from fighting, then giving them a "The Reason You Suck" Speech telling them that it's their responsibility to work together to have any chance of saving their world. It works.

The Beginning of the End

• Moss Man shows up during the battle and saves Wally by making plants grow explosively inside one of Andrias' robots, taking it apart. This also gives Wally the chance to prove to the other Wartwood villagers that Moss Man was Real After All.
• Anne and Sasha using their in-sync dancing skills from Super Dance Fusion to beat a mind-controlled Yunan and Olivia and free them.
• Andrias enters the battlefield by pulling a Three-Point Landing from the top of his Ominous Floating Castle, pulling out his collapsible Laser Blade's handle, rolling it across his shoulders and into his hands to activate it with a flourish, giving off a Badass Boast when the rebels freeze and stare at him. Evil or not, the king has style.
  Andrias: Well, don't stop on my account.
• The Core, using the memories it got from Marcy, to figure out the rebellion's plan and set a trap for Anne's group, capturing the leadership of the rebellion and forcing it to retreat.
• After having captured the rebels, Darcy decides to not leave an unknown but dangerous variable lying around and plans to kill Anne immediately. Anne, however, notices that they don't know about the gems, and points out that it can't guarantee that killing her will return the power to the stone, and might cause it to be lost forever. This forces Darcy to pause, and grants Anne a stay of execution. That's right: Anne, the one seen as the least smart of the Calamity Trio, just OUTSMARTED the greatest collection of minds in Amphibia's history.

All In

• Frobo using one of Polly's hidden upgrades to bust the gang out of the dungeon, with it taking the Core and Andrias a while to even notice.
• The flashback shown of Hop Pop arriving at the scene of the heron attack. He didn't hesitate to take arms and fight the herons, even giving one a distinct scar, just to protect his grandkids, and by all accounts, he managed to drive them off.
• Polly using the St. James metal shop to give Frobo some serious upgrades.
  • It's worth noting that less than three months ago, Polly didn't know what a robot was! Now, she can supe one up in a middle school metal shop, with a box of scraps.
• All the time that Marcy has been trapped within the Core's hivemind up to now, she's spent it solving 300 puzzles, one of which is the Millennium Puzzle.
• The Plantars overcoming their fear of the herons to save Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy, even taming them afterward with the family hunting dance.
  Hop Pop: If you think we're gonna sit here for another second...
  Sprig: ...while you try to take away the only family we have left...
  Polly: ...you've got another thing coming!
• Anne vs. Andrias:
  • Anne using her Calamity powers to fight Andrias' mech head-on. And when it seems like Andrias has her on the ropes, Mr. X plays one of her favorite songs and her family cheers her on, granting her a Heroic Second Wind.
  Anne: Well, hello there, sweet life-giving K-pop!
  • In a reference to Anne's Thai heritage, several of her attacks against Andrias are illustrated with lotus blossoms.
  • Credit to Andrias, he comes prepared for Anne's Calamity powers this time, with his Powered Armor able to fight evenly against her Super Mode. Although his mech is heavily damaged by the end of the fight, he only needed to last long enough for her Hour of Power to run out, which he manages to do. If it weren't for Sprig's intervention, he probably would have won. What's more, he does all this without resorting to underhanded tactics or outside interference.
• Sprig delivering Leif's message to Andrias, finally getting Andrias to stand down. He even defends Anne from Andrias without hesitation by siccing a heron on him and slingshotting a boom shroom into his face, despite having just seen Andrias nearly defeat Anne using his Powered Armor. Spranne against the world, all the way to the end.
• Sasha vs. Darcy:
  • The animation is fluid, with Darcy's use of a scythe standing out as particularly gorgeous, spinning it so fast it turns into a circle and effortlessly blocking every single one of Sasha and Grime's attacks.
  • Sasha has the upper hand the entirety of the fight after Grime gets hurt, and the only reason the Core manages to land a crippling hit on her is because it distracts her with projections of her friends (trying to exploit her fear of hurting them) and attacks her from behind.
  • Once Sprig reads Leif's note to Andrias, he loses the will to fight, causing the Core to try and force him to kill Anne, clearly relishing in the idea of Sasha seeing her friend die. Unfortunately for it, the distraction lets Sasha cut the cord on Darcy's helmet.
  • After spending the majority of the fight shrugging off the Core's comments about how similar they are and how awful she used to be, not mention having her back cut open by its flaming scythe, Sasha still refuses to give up and, motivated by Anne's gentle encouragement from earlier, literally drags herself to her feet out of sheer force of will to lay a swift final blow to its power cord.
    Darcy: Pfft! You missed!
    Sasha: (smirking) Wanna bet?
    Darcy: (the cord is cut) AAAAAAAAAAHHHH! MY CONNECTION. YOU FOOL! DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU'VE DONE?! NOOOO! NOOOOOO!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
  • Throughout the fight, Darcy is taunting Sasha, calling her a Control Freak and pointing out all the ways in which she has been a horrible friend, and dismissing her as a brute. Sasha brushes her off every time, because she is aware of her failings, she has worked to atone for them, and she is not here for a debate. She is here to kill the Core and rescue Marcy, and Darcy can't distract her from that goal. The jabs still get to her, but she doesn't let it affect her fighting, and her Pre-Mortem One-Liner shows exactly why.
    Sasha: I am not that person anymore!
  • The fact that Sasha, a 13 year old girl with no magical powers whatsoever, is so skilled with her swords that she can keep up with and even outmatch a millenia old hivemind filled with the best and brightest scholars and warriors in Amphibia's history. Anne keeps up with Andrias because of her calamity powers. Sasha's power is entirely her own.
• The storyboard artists and director deserve all the credits for the entire final fight. Anne activating her powers is perfectly synced to the beat of the song. Later, it does a perfect Match Cut from Anne, with her blue color scheme against the blue sky and white sun, to Sasha, with her dark armor and orange-and-black background of the Core's chamber, providing not only a perfect cut but an amazing use of color to clearly distinguish different environments and prevent confusion.
• Marcy's Character Development in learning to face reality by rejecting her idealized fantasy world and the fantasy versions of Anne and Sasha with great courage. Bonus points for her short, but extremely poignant "The Reason You Suck" Speech to the Core.
  Aldrich: We gave you your silly games and your idiotic little friends. It's time for you to be assimilated into the Core. Now.
  Marcy: No. Only a coward would hide away in this place. Well, I reject this sick fantasy and I reject you! [...] I started this whole mess because I wanted to escape that reality, but I won't run away from it anymore.

The Hardest Thing

• The reveal of the girls' full superhero forms with a wardrobe upgrade included does not disappoint.
• The final confrontation has come at last. Anne, Sasha, and Marcy assault the moon where the Core is housed, with their Calamity powers making them virtually Juggernauts. After a full two and a half seasons worth of feeling dread at nigh-unstoppable foes, it's now the bad guys' turn to run for their lives, as they're hardly given a chance to land a hit while the girls rain a hail of death upon them with near impunity.
• The Core, specifically Aldrich, pleads to Andrias through his crown to save them, and in return he'll be assimilated into the Core. That's when he orders his frobots fly towards the Core... not to attack the girls, but assist them, much to Grime's (and the Core's) shock. Seeing the girls try to defy the Core's will finally gives him the courage to do the same, cementing his Heel–Face Turn.
  Grime: I don't believe this. You're...?
  Andrias: Finally doing something useful?
  Aldrich: You Fool! You could've been immortal! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!
  Andras: (crushing the crown in his hand) Something I should have done a long time ago... standing up to YOU! (destroys the crown)
• Credit has to be given to the Core. It just refuses to give up, and it takes on all of the girls at once. It takes the Calamity Box's last resort for it to be destroyed for good.
• Seeing that they still can't keep the Core from crashing into Amphibia and with Sasha and Marcy's powers dwindling due to not being as used to it, Anne decides to use all three Gems’ power, even knowing that it could kill her. The end result is a gigantic Wave-Motion Gun that completely obliterates the Core once and for all. Also mixed with Tear Jerker, because it does, even if it is temporary.
  • Another thing worth noting is that the Core mocks Anne for using 'Amphibia's Greatest Treasure' against them to which she replies that the stones are not Amphibia's greatest treasure with an image of the people of Amphibia surrounding her.
• Anne gets the chance to be a cosmic being of incredible power...and turns it down, knowing that (even with her Character Development) she'd screw it up. The entity behind the stones that wants her to replace it, touched by her words, decides to return her to life so she can continue to grow and change, and maybe one day find herself worthy of the position after her natural death.
• The reveal of each of the trio's careers after the time skip.
  • Sasha, having realized over the course of Amphibia just how toxic she was, got a degree in psychology and is working as a counselor for children in her position, helping them unlearn and overcome such behaviors.
  • Marcy making a webcomic. It may not seem awesome, but Fridge Brilliance comes in when you remember she was seen studying for the PSAT as a 13 year old and had a principal say she would solve world hunger, meaning that she chose to do what made her happy rather than forcing herself into a high-profile career that would likely make her miserable.
  • Finally, Anne has become a herpetologist who works at the local aquarium and has made an entire interactive exhibit based on Amphibia. As the series showed, Anne was always a smart kid, but took the easy path. Now, thanks to Character Development, she has become a respected scientist while still maintaining a connection to the world she loves. Also Heartwarming when you remember that the aquarium was always where she cheered herself up.

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