The oldest wounds cut the deepest...
"Don't you think it's time to say goodbye to those childhood friends of yours, son?"
— King Aldrich, to then-Prince Andrias
King Andrias reflects back on his past, when he had friends.
Full Recap
TBA...
Tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Andrias's father Aldrich, aka the previous King of Newtopia, is a power hungry tyrant, who constantly pressured his son with royal and conquest duties, tells him to forget his friendship with Leif and Barrel, and even seeds doubt in Andrias's mind about his friends possibly betraying him (which happens, but not without understandable reasons). The fact that it's revealed that his mind is one of the Core's Mind Hive only highlights that he doesn't care about his son's wellbeing, as long as he stays immortal.
- Alien Arts Are Appreciated: Zigzagged. Darcy chooses the name after going through Marcy's memories of RPG games and finds them appealing. However, they laugh at how Earth technology is beneath them after tearing apart Marcy's phone.
- All There in the Script: Andrias's father is unnamed in-episode, but is named Aldrich according to the end credits.
- And I Must Scream: The Core/Darcy reveals that the real Marcy is trapped deep inside her own mind, unable to do anything or control her own body. Although some of her quirks, such as her love for RPG videogames and her clumsiness still affects the Core.
- Assimilation Backfire: Highly downplayed with Darcy. This episode shows that possessing Marcy's body has apparently caused the Core to pick up some of her mannerisms and her clumsiness as a side-effect, but that's about it — it doesn't hinder Darcy in any way, and they're still very much evil.
- Bait-and-Switch: Despite what previous episodes have hinted about the reasons for stealing the Calamity Box, Leif's theft wasn't actually motivated by her having a crisis of conscience over their race regularly invading other worlds to steal their resources and enslaving inhabitants, as both she and Barrel, despite being good people, are shown to be okay with it due to a lifetime of indoctrination, seeing nothing wrong with Leif caring for the chained and collared Moss Men inside the garden despite their captivity and obvious sentience. Instead, Leif only stole the Box because of a harrowing vision she saw about Amphibia being destroyed after she came into contact with the Gems, being willing to go to such extreme measures as stealing the power source of their civilization, breaking her friendship with Andrias and Barrel and apparently taking the box with her to Earth to keep it away from them out of concern for the fate of her own homeworld, rather than other worlds.
- Call-Back: The slashed portrait that Sprig saw in "The Sleepover To End All Sleepovers" makes a return. Turns out it was a portrait of Andrias with Barrel and Leif when he was young, with him having slashed it following Leif's betrayal and Barrel's exile.
- Call-Forward: Leif does the same dance that Sprig taught Anne in "Anne Hunter". She also escapes with what is implied to be the same Moss Man from "Wally and Anne". Additionally, her going to the olms would play onto Mother Olm referencing having never met a frog in over a millennia from "Mother of Olms". Meanwhile, the toad is Barrel, already with his eponymous warhammer. More ominously, the same vision that features Amphibia being obliterated by a Colony Drop also features Mecha-Mook factories and mining Frobots turning Amphibia into a Polluted Wasteland, because Andrias has been forced to rely on Amphibia's own raw materials, and Newtopia Castle being launched, which was presumably to avoid a repeat of Leif, implying that the vision is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.
- Cassandra Truth: Leif tried to tell everyone about the vision she saw resulting in Amphibia's destruction, but she was completely ignored. As a result, she chose to take matters into her own hands by stealing the Calamity Box.
- Colony Drop: Leif has a vision of Amphibia being wiped out by its own moon, seemingly as a result of their abuse of the music box.
- Crapsaccharine World: The Amphibia of 1000 years ago may look bright and prosperous at first glance, but it all revolves around invading and conquering other worlds, with no qualms about exterminating entire sapient species such as humans, and strip-mining their planets bare, and was already run by the Core.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: The people of Amphibia a thousand years in the past are shown to have zero issues with invading and pillaging other worlds and enslaving their inhabitants, while many of the people of modern-day Amphibia are just as opposed to the idea of conquest as modern human society. Leif stole the Calamity Box for Amphibia's sake, she had no concerns with her friend leading the subjugation of a supposedly primitive species.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Amphibia's ancient civilization and its rationalization of its destructive way of life has a lot of parallels to modern civilization's current relationship with Global Warming. Amphibia's civilization are comparatively a cultural and technological marvel, but they thrive on overconsumption of resources and ecological destruction, and their population have been indoctrinated by generations of living with this to the point that they have no overt moral issues with it and just regard it as the way things are. Furthermore, when the civilization's elite and political leaders who have the power to make relevant change are presented with hard proof that their exploitative way of life is fundamentally-unsustainable and will surely spell their civilization's destruction if it goes on, they at best miss the point about how much their society needs to change its ways if it is to survivenote or at worst they deny the evidence entirely and dismiss the voices of those citizens who speak out (Leif) in favor of maintaining the status quo. Makes you wonder if Earth a thousand years from now will be a post-apocalyptic farm world where only ruins and shadows of modern civilization remain, all thanks to the negligence, hubris and lack of foresight by those who held the power to effect change for the sake of survival but didn't act until it was too late.
- Downer Ending: After Leif escapes with the Calamity Box, Andrias is reprimanded by his father for allowing this to happen. Angry over her betrayal, Andrias sends Barrel to the outskirts for failing to stop Leif and disavows his friendship with both of them, planning to keep the frogs under heel going forward for Leif's actions. And in the present, Darcy has completed her optimization process (implicitly including some slight memory wipe) and is eager to conquer Earth alongside Andrias, continuing to manipulate Andrias by having his father tell him that he's almost proud of his son.
- Dumb Muscle: Barrel showcases the stereotypical traits of a toad warrior in full force here, strong enough to break out of a headlock he's put in by the younger Andrias, but also falling for the prototype 'Plantar Family dance' that Leif develops. This plays a role in Andrias severing his friendship with him, as he understandably hesitated over attacking Leif even with the dire stakes of her stealing the music box that powered their civilization, causing Andrias to view his former friend as unfit to continue serving him and being too easily led astray, effectively banishing him to the northern regions.
- Empire with a Dark Secret: While the fact that Amphibia gets its resources from invading other worlds was far from a secret in the Newtopia of the past, the fact that they are willing to exterminate other sapient species is.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Andrias thinks Leif betrayed him by stealing the Calamity Box and doomed Amphibia’s legacy.
- Faux Affably Evil: The Core/"Darcy" has picked up some of Marcy's mannerisms and personality traits due to having possessed her body, such as her clumsiness, fondness for affectionate nicknames, and favorite foods, with even the name - short for "Dark Marcy" - coming from one of Marcy's favorite video games, but it's still keeping her trapped inside her own mind and seeks to conquer the Earth and exterminate humanity.
- Final Solution: This is what Andrias's father had planned for humanity before Leif intervened. Andrias is still determined to do what his father couldn't.
- Foreshadowing: In-Universe, coming into contact with all three Calamity Gems at once has them inflict this on Leif, showing her visions of Andrias' strip-mining of the landscape and the royal palace floating above Newtopia... before switching to a vision of the Amphibian moon apparently crashing down to their planet, greatly implied to be a harbinger of events yet to come. It's uncertain what exactly results in such an event, but it's implied that this is the 'fall' that the Olm prophecy describing the girls' destiny alludes to.
- Gaslighting: Aldrich suggests to his son to leave behind his friends, and suggests that once he becomes king, Leif and Barrel could potentially betray him, placing in Andrias a seed of doubt. When Leif does steal the Calamity Box (because she had a vision of terrible things to come of conquering Earth), Andrias ends up believing she did betray him after all, and believes his own father was right.
- Given Name Reveal: This is the first episode to reveal the name of Marcy's Core-possessed form: "Darcy".
- Greater-Scope Villain: Played With. Aldrich, Andrias's father and the previous tyrant king before him, is long dead physically by the start of the story, but his views and actions have shaped Andrias into the would-be multiversal conqueror he's become, and his mind is revealed to be part of the Core's collective, meaning he's still technically part of the present narrative.
- Hidden Eyes: Aldrich has these as a sign of his age and closed-off nature to his subjects, keeping the secrets of the Core and the truth of their invasions of other worlds from people until he can reveal them to a 'trusted' few. He showcases his vivid yellow eyes underneath a few times to punctuate his statements.
- Hypocrite: Leif's vision of the future is dismissed as rubbish, compared to the ramblings of the olms. Yet, after she's stolen the music box, Aldrich makes reference to the same prophecy as proof that the music box will return, showing that not only do he and the Core believe it's real, they will follow it when it benefits them to do so. It's implied that they know damn well that the prophecy and the danger Leif saw to Amphibia is real, they just don't care because their plans involve going beyond the borders of their world for good, hence why in the present Andrias has no issues with draining "this pitiable little mud ball" of all its resources with his strip-mining.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Since no one would believe Leif that using the Calamity Box would doom Amphibia's ecosystem, she pickpocketed the key and stole the music box to justify this, even if it meant committing treason.
- It's Personal: Leif's betrayal and his regret over losing the Music Box and dooming their advanced society to gradual decay cut Andrias so deep, he extended his Wrath towards her to the frog species of Amphibia as a whole, angrily muttering that they would need to be "kept in line", with the implicit statement that frogs being the bottom of the social ladder is solely due to his still-simmering anger towards his old friend's abuse of his trust to undo all that his family had created. By the same token, it's greatly implied that his attempted murder of Sprig was due to how much he resembled Leif, though Andrias apparently remains unaware of their familial connection, showing that he's willing to kill somebody merely for looking like his old friend.
- Keep Away: Leif and Barrel play this on Andrias involving the Calamity Box. It's during this that Leif inadvertently touches the Gems and sees the vision.
- Kick the Dog: Andrias's anger towards Leif is understandable, but he severs his friendship with Barrel because the toad understandably hesitated over attacking his friend, even as she was fleeing with the music box that powered their civilization. Unlike her, Barrel never explicitly betrays Andrias, but he just wasn't able to be as ruthless as the future king would need to become in order to fulfil his family legacy. Part of it seems to be him internalizing his father's views that friendship is nothing but a distraction that will prevent him from fulfilling his royal duties and deciding to sever it so he can focus whole-heartedly upon 'redeeming' himself for his mistake.
- Laughably Evil: Darcy reveals themself to be this, a side-effect of possessing Marcy's body and assimilating her quirks. For example, they gave themself the name as a reference to Marcy's favorite video game and fall flat on their face. Fans have noted that they are a lot like fellow Disney Channel villain Bill Cipher in this way.
- Let the Past Burn: Andrias tosses his slashed painting of himself, Leif, and Barrel into a fireplace at the end of the episode.
- Low Culture, High Tech: Before the Music Box was lost, Newtopia had frobots, Barrel's warhammer, the Core, and other advanced technology (as we already know), yet not only was it still a monarchy with a semi-medieval aesthetic, it was also reliant on using the Music Box to endlessly invade other dimensions and strip-mine their resources and saw no moral issue with this. Justified, as colonial-era Amphibia's advanced technology apparently grew around their discovery of and possession of the Calamity Gems, and almost all their tech still relied entirely on their continued possession of the Gems in order to work.
- Luminescent Blush: Andrias blushes several times in Leif's presence, implying that he may have had feelings for her, which makes her eventual betrayal sting all the deeper for him.
- Magic Dance: Lief is introduced demonstrating a hypnotic dance she's been developing, one familiar to viewer as the Plantar Family hunting dance. She entrances a room of moss men, and Barrel, into dancing along with her. Barrel is distressed and confused when he comes out of it, because from his perspective he blacked out.
- Medieval Stasis: Enforced when the music box is stolen. With their main power source and portal to other worlds gone, Newtopia has to retire its technology preemptively before the resources they have run out, to maintain what they have in preparation for the time when the music box eventually returns.
- Metal-Poor Planet: Implicitly the case with Amphibia, which is stuck in a thousand-year Medieval Stasis the moment they lose their ability to raid other worlds for materials. Note that, in the episode "Olm Town Road", Andrias had his robots drilling into the olm underground city because it sits directly on top of a valuable metal deposit.
- The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Thanks to possessing Marcy's body, the Core has picked up some of Marcy's personality traits, speech mannerisms and trademark clumsiness. Even the name "Darcy" is a reference to a video game Marcy likes.
- Monochrome Past: Once the flashback to Amphibia's past happens the colours and saturation change slightly, first with an old-fashioned-looking film reel with black lines through the images, then after this is corrected and we completely transition into the past, the colour scheme is slightly muted compared to the present-day scenes.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The Season 3 trailer
apparently has the Core asking Marcy if she was ready to say goodbye to her childhood friends before The Reveal of Darcy. In this episode, it's revealed that line was actually being said by Aldrich towards Andrias a thousand years in the past, criticizing his friendships with Leif and Barrel as being detrimental to his duty, and the end of the episode confirms that Aldrich has become one of the minds within the Core, and is implicitly now residing as part of the collective within Marcy's body. - Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It's revealed that since Amphibia was a Metal-Poor Planet, it gets the resources to build its technology by strip-mining the worlds it invades. Unfortunately, due to Leif taking the Calamity Box, requiring the remaining material to be conserved until it's regained, Andrias is forced in the present time to plunder Amphibia's own resources in order to build his forces back up. As such, it was Leif's fault that Amphibia ended up becoming a Polluted Wasteland in her vision.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Even if Amphibia is a Metal-Poor Planet, explicitly planning to exterminate humanity so they can strip-mine Earth for resources, with the heavy implication that they've done the same thing on other worlds before, is an explicitly evil act, with the Core and Aldrich showing that they understand how it would be viewed by the populace by covering it up (to the point that even Andrias has no idea of the true scale of his kingdom's evil until this episode), proving that beneath their claims of wanting to ensure that the Amphibian way of life can continue, all they want is to expand their power and lifespans.
- Origins Episode: This episode shows Andrias's backstory, his first meeting with the Core before he was crowned king, his friendship with the frog and the toad, and the events that would lead to the dissolution of that friendship and the loss of the Calamity Box.
- Planet Looters: The ancient Newtopians relentlessly attack other worlds to sustain their way of life, and the plan for Earth was always to exterminate mankind and strip-mine it for resources.
- Positive Friend Influence: To further his parallel with Anne, whose friendship with Sasha and Marcy had ventured into toxic territory, Andrias's friendship with Leif and Barrel was affecting him for the better, to the point that it threatened to break the mindset his father Aldrich had instilled him with. As such, Aldrich was forced to implant Andrias with seeds of doubt about friendship in order to keep his son on the path that he and the Core had planned for him.
- Psychotic Smirk: Darcy sports a maliciously snide expression when mockingly asking Andrias if he too needs to let go of some old memories after catching him staring regretfully at the damaged portrait of his younger self, Lief, and Barrel. When Andrias burns the portrait, Darcy slowly smiles as Aldrich speaks through her to say that he's almost proud of his son.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: For failing to stop Leif from taking the Music Box, Andrias has Barrel assigned to the northern regions.
- The Reveal:
- The Core is calling itself "Darcy", now that it's inhabiting Marcy's body, due to picking up some of her memories and personality traits, and the real Marcy is locked deep away in her brain.
- The frog that Andrias was once friends with was called Leif, and is implicitly a distant ancestor of the Plantar family, demonstrating what will eventually become known as the Plantar family hunting dance to both Andrias and Barrel.
- Barrel, the ancient toad warrior whose hammer Grime wielded last season, was Andrias's toad friend, and was Reassigned to Antarctica after failing to stop Leif from stealing the Calamity Box. It's also implied that the current Fantastic Caste System in Amphibia is the result of Andrias wanting to keep the frogs "in line" after Leif's "betrayal".
- The Moss Man that wanders the woods around Wartwood used to be a captive of the royal family, tended to and cared by Leif alongside their garden environment, and was freed by her as a mount when she fled Newtopia with the Calamity Box, implicitly staying nearby the hometown of its savior. And it's apparently a female of the species.
- The music box can show visions of the future, explaining why Leif betrayed Andrias, and how the prophecy exists in the first place.
- The invasion of Earth was the last one planned before Leif stole the music box, and the plan was to exterminate humanity and strip-mine Earth for resources.
- One of the minds that became part of the Core is Andrias's father. It is implied that all the former members of the royal family are part of it as well.
- Rewatch Bonus: Andrias' sadistic attempt to give Sprig a Disney Death back in "True Colors" gets another aspect to it here, revealing that Sprig bares a Strong Family Resemblance to Leif, his distant ancestor and the one who both stole the Calamity Box and betrayed Andrias' trust and friendship, for the greater good. Andrias wasn't only reminded of his Berserk Button by Anne by accident, he was holding somebody who greatly physically resembled said frog as well, though he's implied to be unaware of their familial connection... which arguably makes it worse, since Andrias was willing to kill what he thought was an unrelated frog merely for resembling Leif, again showing how badly warped he's become since her betrayal.
- Say My Name: Andrias shouts Leif's name when he sees she's escaped Newtopia with the Music Box.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Amphibia becoming a Polluted Wasteland only makes sense as a result of Leif acting on her vision, and the Ominous Floating Castle seems the perfect way to prevent anyone else from escaping with the box like Leif did, implying that Leif's attempts to stop the horrors she saw are causing them to happen.
- Sense Freak: The Core is very happy to have a body now, eating some of Marcy's favorite cupcakes as "Darcy".
- Shout-Out: When Andrias ends the optimization cycle, it makes the iconic Apple Mac(intosh) boot-up sound that was in use from the late 90's to 2020.
- Sins of Our Fathers: Andrias instituted the oppression of the frogs, which continued over a thousand years, to keep them "in line" after Leif betrayed him.
- Special Edition Title: Instead of the end theme, the credits show the portrait of Andrias and his former friends burning in the fireplace.
- Strong Family Resemblance: Leif looks exactly like a female version of Sprig, and the fact that she apparently invented the Plantar family hunting dance more or less confirms that she's a distance ancestor of his.
- Terminally Dependent Society: The existence of the Calamity Gems, channeled through the Calamity Box, is the sole reason Amphibia was able to uplift itself from a medieval society. Being able to travel to and pillage other worlds gave them access to much-needed resources their world otherwise could not provide. When Leif stole the box and hid it on Earth, the Newtopians had to retire their technology and wait over a thousand years for the box to return, because they couldn't maintain it otherwise.
- Time Skip: After Leif escapes, there's a cut to "days later" and it's now known that the music box is no longer in Amphibia.
- Tragic Villain: Andrias is revealed to be one, due to being shaped by his father's beliefs, along with being hurt by the betrayal of his friends.
- Trying Not to Cry: Barrel tries not to cry after his former best friend banishes him from Newtopia out of disgust.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: When Andrias was the prince of Newtopia, he was cheerful, compassionate, and very good friends with Leif and Barrel. Unfortunately, due to the combination of Leif's betrayal, pressure from his father, and the intimidation of meeting the Core, he ended up being warped into the twisted king he is in present day.
- Vagueness Is Coming: With the Calamity Box being back in Andrias's possession, it's hinted that Leif's vision about the destruction of Amphibia will soon become prominent.
- Vicious Cycle: Heavily implied with the conquering ways of the Newtopian kings. They invade other worlds to sustain their prosperous way of life, but they end up needing more and more resources, which they then get by invading even more worlds...
- Villain Episode: For King Andrias, showing how his friends' "betrayals" and his fathers toxic influence eventually led to his Start of Darkness and transition to the brutal dictator he is now.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Leif steals the music box and dooms the advanced society they've built, but the vision she experienced has convinced her Amphibia will be totally destroyed if the music box continues to be used.
- We Used to Be Friends: This episode explains how Andrias's friendship with Leif and Barrel was broken. After seeing visions of Amphibia being doomed, Leif betrays Andrias and steals the box, and as a result Andrias breaks his friendship with Barrel, both out of hurt and because the latter failed to capture her.
- Wham Shot: The most horrific of the events in Leif's vision is Amphibia being struck by what appears to be its moon, something never even alluded to previously, save a vague allusion to a 'Fall' during the Olm prophecy that describes the girls' destiny in Amphibia. And given that the same vision also shows the mural depicting Anne, Sasha, and Marcy, Newtopia Castle rising above the city, and Amphibia being strip-mined for resources, the chances this won't happen don't look good.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Leif and Barrel's final fates go unrevealed in this episode. Leif is last seen fleeing the capital with the music box and the Moss Man to visit Mother Olm and figure out what to do, and is known to have fled to Earth with the music box several days later. Barrel is last seen being redeployed to the northern regions as punishment for his hesitation in stopping Leif from fleeing with the music box and is presumably killed defending a village with his life. The fact that Grime inherited his fabled war hammer means Barrel is long dead.
- You Have Failed Me: Andrias, angry over Leif's betrayal, punishes Barrel for failing to stop her by exiling him to the outskirts of Amphibia where he will spend the rest of his life protecting the villagers there, with the last words he says to him telling him to get out of his sight.
