Full Recap
TBA...
Tropes:
- Age Lift: Anne's story has the humanized versions of Sprig, Polly, Maddie, and Toadie as all around her age and attending the same school as her, meaning they'd be roughly 13. Sprig however is 10, Maddie is hinted to be close in age to Sprig, Polly is 5, and Toadie was confirmed by the writers to be in his 30's.
- And You Were There: Anne's story features humanized versions of her friends and neighbors in Wartwood (such as Sprig and Polly becoming "Twig" and "Molly").
- Artistic License: In Anne's story, Anna defeats the monster by giving it multiple dislikes; in reality, when she repeatedly pushed the dislike button, it would've added and removed her dislike instead of giving loads of them.
- Bad Moon Rising: The Blue Moon. According to legend, anyone who looks at it transforms into a hideous beast.
- Bloodless Carnage: Played with. There's no onscreen blood spilling, but there's definitely blood on Littlepot's scythe and the Seamstress's needles.
- Breather Episode: This episode has no relation to the main story, and is generally considered a filler.
- The Bus Came Back: The episode is set back in Wartwood (it's
Out of Order and intended to be an "evergreen" episode), allowing most of the residents from Season 1 to return in this episode. - Compressed Hair: In Sprig's story, Ivy's hair underneath her hat is actually bushy.
- Company Cross References: Mr. Littlepot's appearance is very similar to that of Mr. Dark from Disney's 1983 live-action film Something Wicked This Way Comes.
- Continuity Nod:
- In his story, Hop Pop mentions to Mr. Littlepot that their first stop's owner, Old Man Hopkins, has red leg, a sickness first mentioned in "Contagi-Anne".
- Polly keeps trying to tell stories based on previous episodes, like "A Night at the Inn", "Children of the Spore" and "Anne or Beast?".
- "Eureka!" Moment: In "Phone-Mo", after the beast flinches from Anna saying it's not cute at all, Anna realizes the beast's weakness is dislike and hatred and proceeds to use such to defeat it for good.
- Fairy Ring: During Hop Pop's story, the first hint that Mr. Littlepot is more than just another traveler for Hop Pop's wagon business is that Littlepot's introduced standing within a fairy ring, having not been there when Hop Pop first pulled up.
- Faux Affably Evil: Littlepot presents himself as a charming gentleman just fulfilling his duties as the Frog Reaper. Yet he clearly enjoys the brutality of his work and happily uses Hop Pop's honest business practices to torment him and force him into obedience.
- Faux Horrific: Hop Pop's tale is about how he met the "Frog Reaper"... and he stole Hop Pop's hair.
- Foreshadowing:
- When Anna looks at the cursed video, she notices there are no dislikes or negative comments, which she finds weird. This later turns out to be the beast's weakness.
- In Sprig's story, Ivy is ashamed of her hair, which is why she always wears a hat. When the Seamstress is exposed as a glass frog, she says "Don't look at me!", and Ivy deduces that like her, the Seamstress is ashamed of her looks.
- Mr. Littlepot first appears in a Fairy Ring, hinting that he's something supernatural.
- Fully-Clothed Nudity: Ivy tries to hide her hair after her hat gets knocked off at the start of "Skin Deep". She tells Sprig not to look and says she's really embarrassed about her hair.
- Genuine Human Hide: The Seamstress wears a cloak made of other frogs' skins.
- The Grim Reaper: Mr. Littlepot in Hop Pop's story. He states that he's just like Hop Pop and his wagon business, taking poor souls to their final destination.
- Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow: In Hop Pop's story, he had a luxurious pompadour when he was younger, until Mr. Littlepot chopped it off for himself.
- Halloween Episode: The Blue Moon Shut-In has a lot of the same trappings as Halloween: instead of candy, frogs go door to door picking up supplies for the shut-in, carve "scare gourds" and decorate their houses. Despite this, the Plantars deny that it's a holiday. Anne even comments on the similarities.
- Haunted Technology: Anne's story features a tale about a haunted viral video that traps anyone who watches it inside.
- Here We Go Again!: At the end of Anne's story, the little lumps left behind when the monster exploded turn out to be its eggs.
- Ignored Aesop: The moral of Anne's story is stated to be to not do things just because everyone's doing it. Then Twig talks about a new burger place at the haunted part of town and everyone goes there despite what they just went through with the video.
- I Have This Friend: Anne's story doesn't feature her, but someone named "Anna".
- Mundane Horror: Sprig doesn't consider Hop Pop losing his hair to be a really scary story. Hop Pop tells him it will be.
- One-Person Birthday Party: Wally is revealed to be born on the Blue Moon Shut-In; because of this, he is forced to celebrate his birthdays alone at home.
- The Power of Hate: In Anne's story, this turns out to be the monster's weakness. Anna defeats it by berating it, repeatedly disliking the video, and sending a nasty comment.
- Real After All: Polly looks at the Blue Moon and nothing seems to happen to her, so the others presume it was just a legend after all. But just before she comes inside, Polly transforms into some sort of werewolf. She shrugs it off and shows the others, who are horrified.
- Serial Killer: The Seamstress is Sprig's story is straight out of Silence of the Lambs, a frog with glass skin who steals the skin of other frogs to cover herself up.
- Shout-Out:
- Without her hat, Ivy looks like a Troll doll with her head of hair.
- The ending where Polly looks at the Blue Moon and is turned into some kind of werewolf creature refers to the Goosebumps book Full Moon Fever, where siblings are turned into wolf-like monsters after they gaze up at the Halloween full moon.
- The plush dolls "Anna" throws at the monster in "Phone Mo" resemble Beanie Babies, complete with red heart-shaped tag.
- Anna answers Twig's call with "what's the sitch?".
- Significant Birth Date: The Blue Moon Shut-In is also One-Eyed Wally's birthday.
- The Shut-In: Right there in the title. On that day, the frogs of Amphibia lock themselves in their homes during a literal blue moon, and they are not to go back outside until morning because anyone who looks at the blue moon will turn into a hideous beast.
- Special Edition Title: The intro is given a Halloween-style theme to it in celebration of the holiday, and the end credits are based on Season 1's credits, but with Anne and Sprig's skeletons.
- Special Guest: George Takei stars as Mr. Littlepot.
- Vignette Episode: The episode consists of a series of scary stories told by Anne and the Plantars to one another.
- Worst. Whatever. Ever!: Anna finishes off the monster by sending the nasty comment "Worst video ever."
- You Mean X Mas: Even though they keep insisting that the Shut-In's not a holiday, it's still basically Amphibia's equivalent to Halloween, right down to putting up decorations and gathering up supplies in the same way kids would go trick-or-treating for candy in Anne's homeworld.
