Lead the way, fearless leader!
After returning to Amphibia which has been taken over by Andrias, Anne and the Plantars hide out underground where Sasha has started a resistance and makes Anne the leader, although she's not very good with the job. Full Recap
Anne and the Plantars arrive only to find that Wartwood has been attacked and nearly destroyed by King Andrias and his army, as well as some wildlife under mind control. As Anne and the Plantars are threatened by one of these creatures, mysterious figures come out and save them as well as the creature, removing his mind control device and reveal themselves to be some of the familiar residents of Wartwood, led by Anne's friend Sasha.
The Plantars' home serves as the entrance to the ancient tunnels (First seen in Family Shrub) that have been turned into the rebel's secret hideout. King Andrias and his army have taken over Amphibia and destroyed towns including Wartwood. The town's residents all moved into the tunnels as well and became The Resistance, all of whom rejoiced when Anne and the Plantars returned. Hop Pop, however, is having a hard time adjusting to his old life back home after being spoiled by the comforts of Earth.
Anne and Sasha briefly talk about the events at Newtopia Castle, where Sasha talks about how she has changed and her days of toxic manipulation are over. We are then introduced to the helmet of authority that Sasha is wearing, and then bequeaths it upon Anne since the hopes that she would return is what kept the town going this whole time. Anne leaves and Grime enters, shocked that Sasha gave Anne the helmet asking why she hand over control to to Anne since she has no experience leading an army but Sasha is being stubborn and vague about her decision.
The new team sets out on their first mission to destroy a certain factory to stop the manufacturing of the mind control collars that are found on the wildlife. As a montage shows that the mission goes poorly under Anne's command to the point even Anne realizes she's not a good commander (especially since she led the troop off a cliff), and finally breaks asking Sasha what her angle is.
Turns out, there is no scheme, but rather insecurity. Sasha explains that she didn't want to be commander because when she was in charge before, everything got messed up, and she didn't want to lose their friendship again. When the troop gets swallowed by a mind controlled snake and seeing that Sasha be adamant off not wanting to be in charge again, Anne allows herself to be swallowed too forcing Sasha takes charge in this mission and makes it successful, the troop widen themselves in the snake's throat so that it can cough them out then they succeed in blowing up the factory, handing a huge setback for Andrias and his army. Sasha is still reluctant to lead the whole resistance while Anne is around, but Anne points out that in the past, Sasha would have fought for the helmet, so the very fact that she doesn’t want it proves that she is a changed person and the rebels beg Sasha to be their commander again. Sasha promises that even though she is leading the resistance, it's still very much a partnership now that Anne has returned; the 2 new co-leaders of the resistance shake hands then hug. As the group is heading back to base, Anne discovers she lost a shoe again, much to her annoyance.
Tropes:
- The Atoner: Sasha deeply regrets her past manipulative ways, and wants to make things better with Anne. Unfortunately, this means that until Anne forces her to take the position of leader back by jumping into the mouth of a mind-controlled snake, she keeps refusing to lead despite obviously being more qualified than the out-of-the-loop Anne because she's afraid that she'll mess it up with Anne again. Even after she accepts the position again, she makes it clear to Anne that they're going to be partners.
- Bigger on the Inside: The Plantars’ basement got big enough to hold an entire town.
- Call-Back:
- The tunnels under the Plantar house now serve as the base of the resistance.
- Andrias has developed mind-control collars using the mushroom parasites Hop Pop once infected the kids with.
- Anne once again loses her shoe and gets leaves and a stick in her hair.
- The Cameo: Bailey, the tiny frog child from "The Ballad of Hopediah Plantar", can be seen among the other children Grime is training.
- Character Development: Anne notes this about Sasha, telling her how her refusal of the commander helmet is a far cry from her older self who would've fought to keep it.
- Chekhov's Gun: The mind-controlling mushrooms that Hop Pop once used were shown to have survived Hop Pop feeding the majority of them to Bessie at the end of the episode. Here, it turns out that Andrias discovered them and has been refining them into mind-controlling solutions that can be injected into Amphiba's wildlife in order to control them against the resistance.
- Die or Fly: Inverted. Since Sasha refuses to lead the team because of her guilt about what she did the last time she tried to call the shots, Anne literally jumps into the snake’s mouth, forcing the former to take control of the situation.
- Dramatic Irony: Sasha reassures Anne that Marcy is still alive, albeit as Andrias' prisoner. Neither of them knows that Marcy has since been possessed by the Core.
- Easily Forgiven: Unlike the other times, such as in "The Third Temple" and in "True Colors", Anne is quick to forgive and trust Sasha, happy to see one of her best friends still alive. The fact that Sasha tried to hold Andrias off to let Anne and Marcy escape (it half-worked unfortunately), not to mention is shown to have undergone heaps of genuine Character Development, does help Sasha's case. One way or another, Anne makes it clear she doesn’t hate Sasha.
- It also helps that she says they'll "work on their own baggage later", illustrating that this doesn't necessarily mean everything is peachy forever, but there's more important things to focus on for now. Anne does default to thinking that Sasha's absolute refusal to take back command over the resistance despite Anne's ineptitude with the position is another of her manipulation tactics rather than Sasha's remorse over her Control Freak tendencies, so clearly she's still not fully over Sasha's last betrayal and has some reluctance to completely trust her despite knowing that logically she needs to work with her former friend.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Sasha now has her hair loose, and it has grown longer.
- Faux Horrific: Whilst fighting the monster snake, Anne hears Hop Pop seemingly cry out in terror. She looks at him in worry, but it turns out that he is complaining about a grass stain that's on his clothing. Anne is visibly unimpressed.
- General Failure: Anne has no idea what she's doing as commander of the Wartwood Resistance, and repeatedly tries to get Sasha to keep the job.
- Going Native: The Plantars retroactively discover that their time on Earth has made them this, with Polly eager to use Anne's phone to call for a ride despite that not working in a medieval society, and Hop Pop desiring hand sanitizer after re-discovering how dirty Amphibia actually is.Sasha: Wow. Earth made you three soft.
- Gosh Darn It to Heck!: WHAT THE HECK, BOONCHUY?!note
- Hat of Authority: There's a special helmet for the leader of the resistance.
- Hidden Elf Village: The main town of Wartwood got destroyed, but the inhabitants founded New Wartwood in the Plantar’s basement, and are still able to have a functional government and economy.
- Human Ladder: Anne's plan for crossing the moat is for the frogs to stand on top of each other and form a bridge. Unfortunately, she forgot to take into account the width of the moat, forcing her and Sasha to save them from falling over.
- Hypercompetent Sidekick: Sasha is clearly more qualified than Anne to lead the resistance, especially since Anne has been back on Earth for months and is Locked Out of the Loop, but she's so scared of messing up with Anne again that she refuses to take the position back for most of the episode despite Anne repeatedly trying to resign in her favor.
- Immediate Sequel: This episode picks up right where "Escape to Amphibia" left off, with Anne and the Plantars arriving back in Amphibia.
- Internal Reveal: One of the first things Sasha tells Anne is that Marcy's still alive after her fate at Andrias's hands, which visibly relives her, but her comments about her being captured in Andrias's castle make it clear that neither girl actually knows Marcy's current condition yet.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While he lacks the tact and finds it bad enough he got demoted, Grimes rightfully tells Sasha that giving the command to Anne, who has little to no experience in leadership in a battle compared to her, is a really bad idea. Even Anne agrees with this sentiment since she repeatedly tries to convince Sasha to take the lead.
- Legally Ousted Leader: Once it is clear that Anne is not cut out to be leader of the resistance, she holds a vote among the army to put Sasha back in charge, which the troops all agree to.
- Letting Her Hair Down: Sasha's new hairstyle is left loose and longer, symbolizing her being no longer a Control Freak.
- Losing a Shoe in the Struggle: Anne, again. She doesn't realize it till the end of the episode, and is vocally unamused.
- Luminescent Blush: When Sasha takes the helmet back from Anne, she briefly uses the visor to hide the blush that's spread across her face.
- Mind-Control Device: King Andrias has taken to using mind control collars to enslave the local wildlife.
- Muscles Are Meaningful:
- Loggie has apparently been working out every day since Sasha formed the resistance and has gotten ripped from it, not to mention gained about a foot in height, to the point he's unrecognisable until he takes his helmet off when meeting Anne again.
- Sasha's arms are even more toned than they'd been when she reappeared in the latter half of Season 2, made especially noticeable next to Anne's own twig-like limbs. She effortlessly lifts the combined weight of the resistance members that were about to fall from a cliff, and that includes Loggle.
- Quicksand Sucks: The Plantars run into this, which causes Anne to try to rescue them only to become trapped herself, which in turn requires the rest of the team to pull them out (and for Anne to lose her shoe in the process).
- Retcon: A minor case. Sasha's eyes, which were brown in "Barrel's Warhammer", are here blue.
- Reverse Telescopic Vision: Anne does this when trying to locate Andrias's forces, which makes it too late when she finds them because they're now attacking them.
- Saw It in a Movie Once: Anne devises a plan to get to an enemy base with this trope. She saw a movie where a group of mice stacked on top of each other to form a bridge in order to sneak into a restaurant. Going by this logic, Anne figures that the Wartwood citizens whom she brought along can do this so they can reach the base. However, as Sasha points out, she didn't ascertain the proper width between the two ledges, which the Wartwood citizens don't quite account for. This forces Anne and Sasha to jump over and rescue them.
- Shout-Out: Anne got the idea for the frogs to stack into a bridge from a movie about mice in a French restaurant.
- Status Quo Is God: By the episode's end, Anne is stuck with one shoe and leaves (plus a stick) in her hair again after spending time in the Amphibian Wilds. Interestingly, her parents did pack her an extra pair of shoes in case this happened, but she isn't going to reach for them anytime soon.Anne: Oh, YOU'VE GOTTA BE KIDDING ME!!!
- Stock Scream: Wally lets out the Wilhelm Scream when it's his turn to be swallowed by the mind-controlled snake.
- Took a Level in Badass:
- Loggle has gained huge muscles since we last saw him, and he even lampshades how even he's surprised that he had it in him. Likewise, the rest of Wartwood has collectively taken one of these when they formed the Resistance, utilising team tactics and their unique skills to perform guerrilla warfare against Andrias' forces with a surprising amount of success, thanks to Sasha's leadership and Grime training the recruits.
- This is Inverted for the Plantars however. Though their time on Earth wasn't a cakewalk by any means, it was a far cry from Amphibia, even before Andrias' strip-mining and weaponisation of the local wildlife created hazards they're inexperienced with, and accordingly they take some hard knocks re-adjusting to life in their native world, with Hop Pop glumly noting that they're in for a harsh transition before they become the Badass Family they were before.
- Trash the Set: In the months that Anne and the Plantars were gone, Wartwood was attacked by Andrias's forces and is now in ruins, including the Plantar farm. However, the resistance managed to set up shop in the Plantar family secret tunnels underneath their house, allowing them to preserve a few mementos of their town, like the town founder's statue.
- Travel Montage: The team has this with an icon of them traveling all over a map. Combined with a Failure Montage as Anne struggles to lead them, to which their icon slowly turns from happy faces to exhausted faces.
- Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: Inverted. Sasha gains blue irises, along with a Voice of the Legion, when making it clear to Grime that with Anne back, she is not interested in having a position of authority over her again in case she screws up after having just gotten her friend back.Sasha: I said, it's complicated.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Anne is not happy to realize that she lost her shoe again.
