Breakups are awkward enough without involving magical curses.
After Anne helps Sprig break up with Maddie, strange things start happening to them.
Full Recap
TBA...
This episode has examples of:
- Bird People: Anne becomes one of these, due to her curse. She isn't able to fly (though she tries) but she is able to talk to other birds and starts actually finding live bugs and worms tasty (which she is not happy about). In the episode's climax, Barry also turns into one.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Barry acts all jolly and upbeat, but inside, he's bitter and vengeful, by his own admission.
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: As Anne transforms, Hop Pop tells her and Sprig that they've been cursed. Anne demands an explanation, to which Hop Pop tells her that Amphibia is home to many arts: "Sculpture, mosaics, and of course... (voice drops to a sinister whisper) THE DARK ARTS!"
- Card-Carrying Villain: Barry admits that he is perfectly content with inflicting curses on people for petty reasons.
- Catch and Return: Maddie catches Barry's last bag of curses in midair without it breaking open and throws it back at him with another pouch stuffed with Anne's feathers and Sprig's hair. It somehow transfers the curse from the two of them to Barry.
- Charlie and the Chocolate Parody: Barry appears to be at least superficially based on Gene Wilder's Willy Wonka.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Maddie scolds Sprig for thinking she was the one who cursed him and Anne because of the breakup, explaining that she uses magic to help people, and that just because she's creepy doesn't mean she's evil.
- Easily Forgiven: Zigzagged. When Barry finds himself a victim of both his curses, he concedes defeat and expects Maddie to lift the curse. She refuses, saying he's way too dangerous to go un-cursed. However, Sprig asks Maddie to lift the curses anyway, feeling they've already done him wrong note . So Maddie finds it in her heart to lift both curses, but only in exchange for a good portion of his candy.
- Entertainingly Wrong: When Anne and Sprig realize that they've been cursed, they initially assume that Maddie was the one who cursed them, figuring that she's upset about Sprig breaking up with her—but not only did Maddie not curse Anne and Sprig, she's ultimately fine with Sprig not wanting to be in a romantic relationship with her (she was ultimately more upset about the way Sprig broke up with her rather than why he wanted to break up with her).
- Everybody Has Standards: Creepy or no, Maddie believes that curses should never be cast unless its victim really deserved it. If not for the fact that he cursed Anne and Sprig over a harmless accident, she's deeply offended that Barry would abuse his power by refusing to remove the curses even when they apologize.
- Excited Episode Title!: Although given the synopsis, there's nothing to be excited about.
- Feather Fingers: While in her birdie form, Anne has no problem doing things like gripping newspapers with her feathery wing-arms.
- Foil: Between Maddie and Barry —
- Maddie's a misunderstood Creepy Child who seemingly uses black magic, but rather uses her magic to help people, and only harms people who deserve it.
- Barry is a deceptively nice man who's secretly bitter and mean-spirited, to the point he uses curses on all who wrong him ever so slightly.
- What's more, there's a contrast between how each accepts Sprig's apology —
- Maddie has every reason to be mad at Sprig for breaking up with her in the most impersonal way imaginable, not helped by her clingy nature. Yet she accepted both the breakup and the apology with grace.
- Barry, on the other hand, receives a genuine apology complete with begging on one's knees, but outright turns it down out of sheer pettiness.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- When Barry pulls the 'what's behind your ear' trick with Sprig and Anne, you can see that one of the buttons on Sprig's hat disappears, a hint of who really placed the curse.
- The newspaper bird!Anne reads after the Time Skip shows some funnies and a headline that mentions a growing rebellion.
- In the breakup letter Anne composes, she puts a shrug emoticon (¯\_(ツ)_/¯) over Sprig's name.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Maddie triumphs over Barry by using his own curse against him.
- Just Friends: Maddie's ultimately fine with Sprig wanting to break up with her, and after he apologizes to her again at the end of the episode, she's fine with the two of them being platonic friends (although she's still pretty clingy).
- Non-Standard Character Design: The bird Anne befriends is a realistic, regular-sized crow. Other birds in the show have been gigantic monsters, and the niche of regular-sized birds was filled by bird-sized insects.
- Not Quite Back to Normal: As The Stinger, Sprig walks in on Anne pecking at ants on the floor.Anne: (offended, to Sprig) What? You got a better way to eat ants off the floor? Sheesh. (walks back to her room)
- Proxy Breakup: Anne offers to break off Sprig's engagement with Maddie for him, claiming she used to do that with her other friends at school.Anne: They called me "The Break-Up Queen." Also, "Angel of Death!"
- Red Herring: Maddie is at first pegged as the one who cursed Anne and Sprig, but it was cheerful, nice Barry all along.
- Shout-Out:
- Anne's bird-human form looks like a brown Big Bird (complete with orange striped legs) and Sprig looks like a Muppet when he's covered in fuzz.
- Anne's newspaper includes the comics Beetle Baily and Frogaduke.
- Slave to PR: Barry explains that he only played it cool when Anne and Spring bumped into him because his jolly image is what draws customers to his stand, and he couldn't risk ruining it by getting angry out in public. Thus, the need to secretly put a curse on the two of them later.
- Stab the Salad: Sprig does not want to break up with Maddie because she is unstable. This immediately followed up with her seen slicing bread sadistically while chuckling.
- Transferred Transformation: Maddie takes one of Barry's magic pouches, adds bits of the hair and feathers Sprig and Anne's curses gave them, and throws it back at Barry. This somehow transfers both their curses to Barry, with only Maddie being able to remove it.
- Wham Line:
- Maddie reveals she wasn't responsible for Anne and Sprig's curses.
Maddie: Sorry, but I can't. Curses can only be lifted by the caster, and...this isn't my curse.- Then we learn who the real caster is:
Barry: Hello...children. - Whole-Plot Reference: The basic plot of Anne and Sprig getting cursed because they knocked into Barry and made him drop a bunch of berries seems remarkably similar to the plot of Chicken Chicken from Goosebumps where two siblings are cursed by a witch because they made her drop her groceries. The similarities aren't helped by Anne getting turned into a bird-like creature and Barry's tendencies towards Disproportionate Retribution while acting seemingly affably, much in the same way the girl protagonist of Chicken Chicken turns into a bird as well as the villain's affable demeanor hiding what a depraved sadist she is. However, while this episode ends with a more happy ending, the original source material has a Cruel Twist Ending.
- Wizard Duel: Barry and Maddie fight each other by throwing curse-inducing bags of magic powder.
