Recap / Amphibia S3E03 "Turning Point"

There's a superhero in all of us. We just need the courage to put on the cape.

Oh, Anne, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have tried so hard to be in control again. In the end, where did it get me? Well, that changes now. I wanna be someone better. Someone that deserves you.

— Sasha, finally changing for real.

After Anne and the Plantars escape to Earth, Sasha and Grime hide out in Wartwood where Sasha begins considering the consequences of her actions.

Full Recap

Some days earlier in Newtopia Castle above Newtopia during the night, after Marcy is stabbed by King Andrias from the back, causing her to drop the Calamity Box, and sending Anne with the Plantars to Los Angeles on Earth. Right after this, Andrias orders Lady Olivia and General Yunan (both who are now forced to obey their king out of fear of death) to take Marcy's body away to a rejuvenation tank. Having gotten the Calamity Box, he plans to move forward. Meanwhile, Sasha and Grime are hiding from the giant Newt; Sasha is heartbroken to see Marcy on the floor mortally wounded but is told by Grime they can't help her now. Before they could leave, some Frog-Bots surround them at gunpoint, so Sasha and Grime had to jump out the window and escape on Joe Sparrow, not knowing Andrias saw them and orders a Frog-Bot to follow them as he didn't want lose ends. Grime noticed the Toad Army is captured by the Frog-Bots and Sasha points Toad Tower wouldn't be a good place to hide, so they decide to return to Wartwood to hide.

The next day, Sasha and Grime arrive to the confusion of the townspeople who want to know what is happening and why the Castle is floating. Grime tells Sasha they can’t know about what happened to Anne or Marcy and he tells them this; the first half of their story is true about Andrias being a ruthless tyrant - but the other half is a lie that Anne and the Planters were on an important mission and sent him and Sasha to protect the town. The people of Wartwood are relieved to hear this, but Sasha feels guilty. The 2 decided to go to the Plantar Farm to rest for the night but Sasha is hesitant to sleep in the same house of the friend she betrayed yet again so she decides to sleep in the barn where encounters she MicroAngelo and Bessie and then lies down and covers her face in hay out of shame, while Grime sleeps in Hop Pop's bed. In the morning Sasha is riddled with even more guilt when the townsfolk treat her with kindness and reminded her of Anne.

Grime informs her that some of the Toad Army members managed to elude capture and got word from his sister Beatrice who used a messenger bat to send this message that the toads are regrouping and planning an attack. Just then the Frog-Bot that was following them showed up to scan the area; Sasha and Grime managed to fight it then Grime destroyed it by Barrel's Warhammer he's using, though the Frog-Bot manages to send a signal where they are before the hammer made contact. Grime decides to leave before Frog-Bot reinforcements show up, but Sasha is reluctant to leave the townsfolk, now wanting nothing to do with plans and schemes because she now knows the consequences and is tired of manipulating others. Grime tells her to go into the Planter's house so she can deal with the drama so they can go. As Sasha looks around Anne's room she finds her friend's journal; after reading it she learns that Anne genuinely valued her friendship with her. Tears run down Sasha's face as she apologizes for her cruel deeds, and she decides to go do what she knows is 'right'.

She gathers everyone in Wartwood and tells them the truth and vows to protect them until her last breath. Just then a Giant Frog-Bot shows up and Sasha engages it in battle, but the Frog-Bot shoots out smaller Frog-Bots that overwhelm her. Just as the Giant Frog-Bot is about to fire a missile from the chess cannon at Sasha, Grime, who had a change of heart as well, rescues her. The villagers then join in the fight, attacking the smaller Frog-Bots as Sasha and Grime use the Giant Frog-Bot's 2 own missiles from its 2 arms turned into 2 cannons to blow itself up.

Once again, the townsfolk thank Sasha and Grime for helping them and Sasha appreciated when the citizens of Wartwood told her that she has become a much kinder person because of her honesty and she promises to be to be their protector for real this time; as they celebrate Mrs. Croaker wonders what to do next. After getting a nod of approval from Grime, Sasha now truly reformed and filled with confidence decides to lead the citizens of Wartwood in a rebellion against King Andrias.

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Tropes:

• Accidental Misnaming: Grime thanks Joe Sparrow for rescuing him and Sasha, but mistakenly calls him George Sparrow, earning an annoyed look from the bird.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: After Grime saves Sasha from a swarm of robots that were about to kill her, she happily thanks him by noogying his bare head, much to his befuddlement.
• The Atoner: Having finally seen the consequences of her actions, Sasha vows to become a better person for the sake of her friends, and she starts by becoming a protector of Wartwood with plans to eventually take the fight to King Andrias himself.
• Becoming the Mask: Grime and Sasha claim Anne sent them to defend Wartwood from King Andrias and his forces as a cover to avoid questions and have an excuse to stay there. By the end, they've decided to become the town's protectors for real, Sasha as a form of atonement and Grime because where Sasha goes, he'll follow.
• Being Evil Sucks: The crux of the episode. Sasha is forced to confront the consequences of her actions, and realizes that lying, manipulating, and backstabbing feels crummy when it just causes you to hurt and lose the people you care about. When she finally decides to do the right thing, she finds that Good Feels Good.
• Big Damn Heroes: Grime shows up to save Sasha from being obliterated by the Golden Boss.
• Call-Back
  • When Sasha enters Anne's old room in the Plantars' basement, there's a minor Continuity Cavalcade of items and objects she's accrued over her adventures in Wartwood, including:
    • The stuffed doll of Domino 2 that Sprig made her in "The Domino Effect".
    • Several of Hop Pop's IOU's from "Girl Time".
    • A bag of Beetle Jerky, like the one that Wally had in "Toad Tax".
    • The Boba-esque drink she had in "Bizarre Bazaar".
    • The Koala jigsaw puzzle she was working on in "A Caravan Named Desire".
  • When Sasha opens up Anne's diary she sees an illustration of herself in the butterfly costume Anne planned for her to wear in "Battle of the Bands".
  • Crossed hilariously with Oblivious Guilt Slinging, but Wally tells Sasha that Anne taught him many lessons, showing him the importance of honesty, being true to yourself and the meaning of friendship.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: Grime abandons Wartwood to join Beatrix's army before Andrias's forces can show up, figuring the town is a lost cause and he doesn't want to throw away his life fighting a Hopeless War. However, later that day, just as Sasha is about to be executed by Andrias's reinforcements, Grime returns to save her.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Similar to his last appearance (which was chronologically only a few minutes ago for him), Joe Sparrow appears to save somebody falling to their death from Andrias's Ominous Floating Castle, and additionally also provides Grime and Sasha an easy means of fleeing straight to Wartwood, avoiding getting captured with the rest of their forces by Andrias's Mecha-Mooks.
• Comically Missing the Point: A frustrated Sasha is already overwhelmed by the friendly Wartwood villagers, and finally snaps at Maddie to leave her alone and runs away. Maddie thinks that she did this because she doesn't want extra carbs from the free bread she was trying to give her.
• A Day in the Limelight: The fourth episode altogether that centers on Sasha and Grime.
• Darkest Hour: Grime and Sasha have barely escaped with their lives from King Andrias, his robots are still hunting them, and only a fraction of the toads have avoided capture by the Mecha-Mooks.
• Didn't Think This Through: Grime figures the only way out of the castle is through the window... while it's floating above the clouds. He admits he didn't really consider how they were going to survive the fall, but Joe Sparrow flies in to cover that problem.
• Destination Defenestration: In order to escape Andrias's castle, Grime throws Sasha out the window then jumps after her.
• Downer Beginning: Sasha and Grime watch Andrias skewer Marcy after their attempt to hold him off fails, and Grime, knowing they can't fight him, orders a retreat that they only survive because of Joe Sparrow. All the while, Sasha doesn't know that Anne is okay and is forced to abandon a mortally wounded Marcy to whatever Andrias plans to do to her, knowing full well things wouldn't have gone this wrong had she not faked being reformed and thus wracked with guilt and self-loathing.
• Dramatic Irony: Sasha may know what’s gonna happen to Marcy, but she has absolutely no idea and no way of knowing that Anne ended up back at home, but for all Sasha knows, she could be in an even stranger world.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Well, ending to her Heel–Face Turn. While the show is far from over, Sasha is put through the wringer this episode. She's forced to face the consequences of her treacherous actions, subjected to relentless Oblivious Guilt Slinging, and has to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to clear her conscience. When the town of Wartwood stand with her and make it clear they're just happy she came around, Sasha finds that she feels truly good about herself for the first time in her life.
• Easily Forgiven: The townsfolk are quick to accept Sasha despite her lying to them. It helps that she takes responsibility for her actions and makes an effort to fight against the robot army.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Grime is more shamelessly amoral than Sasha, and thus spends most of the episode bewildered by her strange fit of conscience. While by the end Grime is still fine with using and discarding people, he also cares about Sasha and is willing to stand by her because she's his friend.
• Evil Is Petty: Before abandoning Wartwood and its citizens, Grime comments that Croaker's pie had a soggy crust.
• Eye Scream: During the townspeople's attack on the Mecha-Mooks, Loggle does this to disable several of them.
  Mrs. Croaker: (After Loggle rips out the eye from the Golden Boss' inert shell) I think you're enjoying this too much.
• Flunky Boss: The Golden Boss is a giant frog robot that contains dozens of smaller frog robots that swarm opponents, in addition to heat-seeking missiles it can fire from its arms and chest.
• Forced Transformation: Maddie fights the robots by chucking curse bags at them, turning them into various tiny objects.
• Foreshadowing: Back in "The New Normal", Andrias told an unconscious Marcy that her 'friends' were about to be eliminated from the equation after sending the assassin after Anne, hinting he'd already done something about Sasha to remove her as an obstacle to his plans. It turns out in this episode that whilst she did manage to escape him, Andrias sent a massive robot armed with a ludicrous amount of ordinance and a small battalion of forces after Sasha that, if not for the interference of the Wartwood villagers, would have overwhelmed both her and Grime.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: After Marcy uses the Box to send Anne and the Plantars to Earth, when Andrias picks it up, it seems that at least one gem is drained of color again.
• Good Feels Good: When Sasha finally decides to become Wartwood's town protector for real, she finds that being honest and supporting those you care about feels far better than using, hurting, or controlling people.
• Hero of Another Story: After her Heel–Face Turn, Sasha, alongside Grime, decides to turn Wartwood into La Résistance against King Andrias, while at the same time Anne’s trying to find a way to go back to Amphibia to stop him.
• Heroic Resolve: Despite knowing the odds are just against them, Sasha with vigor in her heart has one goal in mind—fight back and defeat King Andrias once and for all.
• Honesty Aesop: Somewhat. Sasha reveals that she and Grime lied about why they came to Wartwood near the end of the episode after feeling guilty for doing so throughout the episode, which earns her the villagers’ loyalty.
• Hourglass Plot: In a reversal of "Toadcatcher", Sasha is the depressed one as she's forced to face the consequences of her actions, while Grime is the one who constantly tells her to snap out of it if they want a fighting chance.
• Karmic Jackpot: By staying behind to protect Wartwood from the Golden Boss, Sasha and Grime discover that ordinary people protecting their home are far more dangerous than any soldier... and they've just earned the Undying Loyalty of these ordinary people.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: Grime is quick to realize after Marcy gets stabbed that they can't win on their own and decides to flee with Sasha... out a window.
• Little "No": By Andrias in the beginning when he realizes Marcy knew how to open the portal.
• Meaningful Titles: As the title suggests, this marks Sasha and Grime having a full Heel–Face Turn, as they decide to turn the citizens of Wartwood into La Résistance against King Andrias and his robot army.
• Moral Pragmatist: Sasha freezes on seeing Andrias order Yunan to put Marcy in a healing chamber. Grime tells her that they need to go now, that there is no way they can fight Andrias to save Marcy or Anne. She reluctantly listens to him with a Thousand-Yard Stare.
• Musicalis Interruptus: Wally is about to sing a song to Sasha about how much Anne and her friends mean to the town, but she promptly shushes him.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Sasha returns to the Plantars' now-abandoned house, finding Anne's journal in her old room and flipping to the last page, wherein Anne is hopeful after the Battle of the Bands and feels like she can trust Sasha again. This helps Sasha to see just how badly she betrayed Anne's trust and convinces her to be a better person.
• Mood Whiplash: Immediately after Ms. Croaker and Sasha's wham exchange...cue Animesque ending sequence.
• No Escape but Down: Grime and Sasha escape the castle by jumping out the window, height be damned.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: Andrias again proves himself as this, sending the robotic equivalent of an armored tank equipped with a battalion of soldiers to hunt down Sasha and Grime once their location has been identified, despite the pair of them basically being just two commanders on their own without any available forces to seriously counteract his plans. Despite being extremely capable combatants, Sasha was seconds from getting killed by the Golden Boss' ordinance before Grime saved her, and the pair of them aren't even able to directly hurt the massive machine with their weapons, having to resort to using its own attacks against it to score a narrow victory.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Grime and Sasha lie to the citizens of Wartwood about what happened to Anne, claiming she and the Plantars are off on a secret mission and sent them to defend the town. Grime intends to bail at the first opportunity, especially when he learns some of the toads have survived and regrouped. As the town sings her praises, Sasha realizes she has to be honest with them. Her being a terrible person wasn't really news to them, but they appreciated her telling the truth.
• Perspective Flip: This episode shows the events of the last few minutes of "True Colors" from Sasha and Grime's perspective, showing how they escaped from Andrias's Ominous Floating Castle and returned to Wartwood, as well as how the Wartwood villagers reacted to the reveal of Andrias's Mecha-Mook army.
• Pyrrhic Victory: A big part of Sasha's Character Development is finally realizing how her quest for control and power has done nothing but cost her, especially in regards to her friends, and that Being Evil Sucks.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: When Sasha turns down Grime's plans for an invasion against King Andrias, he is shocked, and asks her "Since when have you cared?" She sadly replies "Since I saw the consequences." This takes Grime aback for a second, and he softens his tone with her.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
  • Grime realizes that he and Sasha need to run, and tosses her out the window to do so... while they're flying.
  • Yunan and Olivia were trying to sneak out of the throne room in the commotion. Unfortunately for them, they weren’t quick enough, and Andrias spots them and forces them to stay on his side, because they’re otherwise not allowed to leave his castle with knowledge of his invasion in one piece.
• Ship Tease: Yunan and Olivia fans were delighted to find the newt ladies holding hands when trying to sneak away from Andrias.
• Shout-Out:
  • When Grime tells the villagers that the king is a ruthless tyrant, Mrs. Croaker says that she never voted for him.
  • The smaller green robot drones resemble Saibamen, right down to swarming their opponents and having a self-destructive role in combat with them.
• Sleep Cute: Unable to sleep in the Plantar family home due to bad memories, Sasha chooses to sleep in their barn instead with Bessie and MicroAngelo. When Grime wakes her up the next morning, Bessie has curled up around Sasha and she herself has MicroAngelo cradled in her arms.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: Played for Laughs. When Grime abruptly wakes Sasha in the morning, she momentarily forgets where she is and scrambles to explain that of course this is her natural hair color!
• Tears of Remorse: Sasha has these when looking at Anne's journal and reads about what Anne wrote about her.
• Tempting Fate: Sasha boasts that one robot isn't much of a threat, ignoring its size. Then it deploys a dozen smaller robots and the odds suddenly look much worse.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Sasha and Grime are alone, without their armed forces and armed with only their personal weapons good for hand-to-hand combat. Upon identifying their location, Andrias sends the robotic equivalent of an armored tank containing a battalion of soldiers against them, despite the fact they cannot realistically pose any threat to his plans at present (aside from telling others his plan), just to tidy up loose ends. The Golden Boss' go-to tactic when trying to take out the duo involves having its disposable soldiers pin down one of the targets so it can blast them in the face close-range with its massive ordinance, firing heat-seeking missiles about the size of the average frog, and it's tough enough that Grime and Sasha have to resort to using its own weapons against it to win. Suffice to say, Andrias doesn't hold back when trying to remove any opposition to his plans, major or minor.
• They Know Too Much: Andrias made it clear he can’t have anyone living and breathing leaving his castle with knowledge of his invasion plans. He easily took care of Olivia and Yunan not-so-subtly reminding them they literally have no means of escape and his other robots attempt to eviscerate Grime and Sasha. Since the latter two barely escape, they’re the only loose ends remaining, so King Andrias sees to it that they take that knowledge to the grave.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Olivia and Yunan's expressions scream this when Andrias turns his attention to them when they're trying to sneak out the throne room, having little choice but to proclaim their loyalty to him for now because they have no other way off the Ominous Floating Castle and Andrias has them surrounded by his Mecha-Mooks.
• Too Unhappy to Be Hungry: Grime wakes Sasha up with a plate of worm waffles in his hands, intending to share it with her. She depressingly says she's not hungry. Grime can instantly tell that she's acting like this because of guilt.
• Tragic Keepsake: An unintentional example. Anne's journal was left behind in her old room in the basement, seemingly dropped while Anne was packing since it was left on the floor. The journal functions as this to Sasha when she finds it, showing that Anne trusted Sasha before Sasha betrayed that trust.
• Training the Peaceful Villagers: After seeing the Wartwood citizens prove themselves as a surprisingly effective combat force against the robots, Grime and Sasha decide to enlist them in the war against Andrias.
• Villainous Virtues: In Grime's case: Loyalty. While he's still gleefully amoral and has no problem with lying, manipulating, using, and discarding people to get what he wants, being close friends with Sasha compels him to stand by her and defend Wartwood just because it's what she wants to do.
• Waking Non Sequitur: When Grime wakes up Sasha after she sleeps in the Plantar family barn, she quickly stammers out, "Who is it? Where am I? Of course this is my natural hair color!"
• Wham Episode: Sasha officially has a Heel–Face Turn, and she and Grime start training the Wartwood villagers to act as the resistance to Andrias.
• Wham Line: More of a wham exchange between Ms. Croaker and Sasha at the very end of the episode.
  Ms. Croaker: What happens now?
  Sasha: We start fighting back.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: This episode reveals what happened to Yunan and Oliva after they seemingly vanished in "True Colors" during the big fight sequence. It turns out they were still in the room, but were intentionally keeping a low profile in order to try and sneak out of the chaotic situation at the first opportunity, due to not personally being 100% on board with Andrias's master plans of multiversal conquest, despite him being their king and ruler. Unfortunately, with Sasha and Grime commandeering Joe Sparrow to escape, they're left with no reasonable way off the Ominous Floating Castle and are forced to reaffirm their loyalty to Andrias in order to avoid getting on his bad side.
• What Were You Thinking?: After Grime thanks him catching him and Sasha, Joe Sparrow gives Grimes a dirty look to this affect in response to Grime's No Escape but Down plan.
• Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Subverted. Grime and Sasha are able to escape from Andrias's throne room before he can personally deal with them thanks to Joe Sparrow, but he has one of his robots follow them and once it's identified their current location, sends a small armored battalion with a ludicrous amount of firepower after them to finish them off, despite the fact they've realistically little to no chance of upsetting his plans at this point. The Mecha-Mooks the Golden Boss spawns to fight the duo don't seem to have any armaments or weaponry on them, but their role in battle is to overwhelm and pin down the target so the Golden Boss itself can finish them off. With its massive cannons. Straight to the face. From a distance of about ten feet.
• With Us or Against Us: As an Implied Death Threat, Andrias grimly asks Olivia and Yunan if they're still with him. The two newts nervously assure their allegiance to the dark king, knowing their heads are on the chopping block if they say anything to the contrary.
• You Are Worth Hell: Platonic version. Grime is about to leave Wartwood to its fate since he considers it a lost cause, and that he'll have better odds resisting King Andrias with Beatrice's underground army. But when Sasha makes it clear that she won't abandon Wartwood, Grime decides he'd rather fight a Hopeless War with her than join Beatrice's army.
• Zerg Rush: The miniature Mecha-Mooks the Golden Boss spawns don't seem to have any armaments or blasters attached to them like the taller model line Frobo hails from. Instead, their standard tactic seems to be using their superior numbers to grapple and restrain opponents for the Golden Boss to deliver a point-blank shot to the face with its cannons, heedless of the fact they'll be destroyed as well. It almost works on Sasha before Grime intervenes, and then the Wartwood villagers join in to even the odds.

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