Dare you accept the Scare Dare Challenge?
Anne and Marcy issue a Scare Dare Challenge that brings Sprig and Polly into forbidden areas of the castle. Full Recap
TBA...
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Evil: The Shadowfish creatures can dissolve bones, but whether they are just predators or are malicious isn't known. One has an Evil Laugh at the end, but it could have just been copying the gang.
- Ancient Tomb: Anne and the others discover a tomb in the castle basement, complete with chains around the very scary-looking coffins. Who or what — if anyone — is entombed in there isn't, but the ghostly Shadowfish haunt the crypt.
- Aside Glance: As Lady Olivia says she'll in the kitchen drinking, she pauses, gives a quick side glance, and appends "juice" to her sentance.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Before Lady Olivia can explain why the basement is off limits, Anne sprays her in the face and declares that the montage is back on.
- Butt-Monkey: Lady Olivia. Complete with Polly calling her a peon at one point.
- Call-Back:
- Lady Olivia is shown holding "In the Heat of the Swamp", the same book shown back in "Cracking Mrs. Croaker".
- When the gang runs through an organic laboratory, a creature that resembles the Moss Man from "Wally and Anne" can be seen in the foreground.
- The Cameo: A mossman from the episode "Wally and Anne" is seen in the basement with a collar around its neck.
- Chekhov's Gun: Marcy mentions that some cultures believe mirrors can ward off or even summon evil spirits, and the corridors leading to the crypt are lined with mirrors. Mirrors turn out to be the key component in stopping the creatures that chase them in the episode.
- Contemplate Our Navels: Marcy raises several important questions about the nature of the creatures they encountered and finishes with "If those things were ghosts, is there actually an afterlife?"
- Energy Beings: The shadowfish that attack the protagonists are immaterial, but exposure to mirrors somehow forces them into a solid form.
- Face Doodling: On the way to the basement, Polly doodles on a sleeping Lady Olivia's face. It's revealed near the end that she gave her a moustache, goatee and wrote "Polly wuz here!" on her eyelids.
- Foreshadowing:
- During the chase scene, Sprig notices an old portrait and questions who or what could have torn it to shreds, only to be dragged off by Polly, dropping a piece on the ground. The lingering shot of the torn fragment shows what looks like a younger King Andrias and a barely visible toad. This will become an important plot point in the future.
- Minor, but Anne gets a paper cut, with visible blood, when she holds the old tattered castle map pointing to the basement. The last time the situation was serious enough to show blood, it was when Anne gave Sasha her facial scar in their duel and the music playing a Scare Chord when Anne's looking at the wound and the obscured potion of the map indicating the basement drives the idea that there's something bad down there. True enough, there turn out to be freakish beings apparently sealed down in the castle basement that pose a serious threat to the quartet until they discover their weakness, with no explanation being provided as to why they're there nor why Andrias is apparently hiding their existence. And as it turns out, they're not even the worst things hidden underneath the castle...
- The Ghost: Sasha doesn't appear in this episode but she is a key figure of the episode nonetheless, as Anne and Marcy keep bringing her up as the person who always led the sleepovers and made them fun.
- Glowing Eyes: Marcy does this with Anne, Sprig, and Polly joining in after accepting the scare dare of going down the castle's forbidden basement.
- Good-Times Montage: There's a montage of the kids goofing around during their sleepover.
- Here We Go Again!: The Everyone Laughs Ending is interrupted by the appearance of one last Shadowfish creature.
- High-Pressure Emotion: Lady Olivia reacts this way, furiously turning bright red in the face with a whistling noise, when she tries to talk to what she believes is King Andrias, only for it to be Polly in disguise.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Implied; after Anne, Sprig, and Polly arrive for Marcy's sleepover and start making a ruckus, Lady Olivia says she's going to go get a drink of "juice".
- Internal Reveal: A purely comedic one. Anne finally realizes that she has leaves in her hair. She even asks why no one told her about them.
- Macabre Moth Motif: When the protagonists reach the basement, an odd-looking moth flies down the corridor of mirrors where they discover the door to the crypt.
- Must Make Amends: Anne reminds Marcy near the end of the episode, they need to find Sasha and make things right with her.
- Mustache Vandalism: During the montage, the kids paint mustaches on all the portraits they can find. They even uses paint rollers on a huge portrait of King Andrias.
- Out of Focus: Hop Pop only makes a cameo at the beginning of this episode.
- Pajama-Clad Hero: Anne, Sprig and Marcy spend the entire episode in their pj's: justified as the kids are having a sleepover. The only exception is Polly, since she doesn't wear clothes.
- Precision F-Strike: Of sorts:Lady Olivia: Oh, for frog's sake!
- Reactive Continuous Scream: After falling down the stairs into the basement, Marcy is startled by a moth and screams, which causes Anne to scream, which causes Sprig and Polly to scream, which causes Anne to yell "Okay, that's enough!" and shut everyone else up.
- Security Cling: Marcy grabs onto Anne's arm a few times in the basement (her shirt when they open the crypt).
- Slobs Versus Snobs: Lady Olivia is highly put out by the kids' antics in the castle, generally by breaking decorum.
- Scare Dare: Kicks off the whole plot.
- Shout-Out:
- Marcy sees a reflection of herself with a moth covering her mouth, like the cover image for The Silence of the Lambs.
- Marcy says to Anne, "Let's get outta here, Scoob!" Anne even asks what Marcy just called her.
- Silk Hiding Steel: When Anne and company spray Lady Oliva with silly string immediately after she sits down to read a book, she responds by beating them all up within a fraction of a second.
- Slumber Party: This episode focuses on Anne, Sprig and Polly having one with Marcy at the castle.
