Recap / Amphibia S3-E29 "The Beginning of the End"

"Three stars burning Bright, Come from beyond to expel the Night..."

Anne: Marcy?! What are you wearing? What's going on?!
Darcy: We're not Marcy, not anymore.

The final battle for the safety and protection of both Amphibia and Earth begins as Anne and the resistance plan to infiltrate Andrias' castle and get the Calamity Box back, unaware that an old friend isn't herself...

Full Recap

In a flashback, Anne, Sasha and Marcy are having a sleepover while watching War of the Warlocks. While Marcy is invested, Anne and Sasha are only mildly paying attention until they both fall asleep; leaving Marcy to quietly enjoy the finale of the movie by herself.

In the present, at the rebel base, Anne and Sasha give their troops a rousing speech to prepare them for the upcoming battle. Just as they are leaving Sasha sheds tears of pride for Grime having learned how to set up a playlist to make himself look cooler.

As the resistance heads towards the flying castle, Sasha brings up how Marcy got them stranded in Amphibia. While she understands the reason was because she was freaked out about moving away, it still doesn’t change the fact what she did was messed up. However, Anne is driven to rescue Marcy and make things right with her after reflecting on how she and Sasha weren't exactly the best friends to her given how they dismissed her interests and personal issues.

After they reach Newtopia, the rebel army wastes no time attacking the Frobot Army. Mrs. Croaker, Tritonio and Beatrix lead the charge against the enemy forces, which included a group of new model of Frobot, the Royal Guard Frobot, and new versions of the Giant Frobot. Apothecary Gary uses his mind control spores to override the spores used on the imprisoned beasts so they can turn on Andrias' forces, The Moss Man returns to save Wally from a Frobot, the olms attack from underground, Loggle uses submission moves on the Frobots and with the robotic army distracted Anne, Sasha, the Plantars, Grime and Frobo fly up to the castle on Domino 2 and Joe Sparrow and sneak in. King Andrias personally enters the battlefield and pulls off an epic fight against the resistance forces.

While the gang is in the hallway avoiding Frobot guards, Sasha once again questions if she and Anne can fix their friendship with Marcy; Anne looks at Hop Pop, remembering her previous falling out with him, then looks back at Sasha telling her that forgiveness is not easy but it worth the effort and points out their own renewed and strengthened friendship. Sasha realizes Anne is right and they press onward.

As they are about enter the throne room Lady Olivia and General Yunan appear and are revealed to have been brainwashed with mind control collars; they attack the gang. Anne and Sasha manage to fight and free Yunan and Olivia with a perfectly synchronized dance. Once free, the two female newts try to warn them about what happened to Marcy but the human girls rush off.

Just as victory seems to be in their grasp, the Calamity Box that our heroes find turns out to be a hologram. Anne and Sasha are bound by robot tentacles and see their friend in the Core-possessed form known as Darcy. Darcy already knew that Anne and Sasha would use the same strategy from War of the Warlocks, so they set up a trap to capture them upon reaching the throne room. The girls demand the artificial intelligence to free their friend, but Darcy just mocks them saying that, after peering through Marcy’s memories, they doubt the 3 were ever friends to begin with.

Darcy goes out to the balcony and the resistance armies are whittled down due to the capture of their leaders. Darcy then declares their intent to kill Anne, as they believe it's risky using the Calamity Box so long as she retains her gem's energy within her. Anne realizes that Darcy and Andrias are just as clueless about the true nature of the Calamity Box as the heroes are, so Anne brings up the possibility that killing her could extinguish the power of the box altogether. This causes Darcy to decide to spare her only so they can vivisect her properly in order to extract the power from her. Sasha, the Plantars, Grime, Olivia and Yunan are hauled off to be fitted for mind control collars, and Andrias opens the portal right in the mid air of Los Angeles, California, USA, Earth where his Frobot invasion fleet to cross through, ready to conquer the unsuspecting planet. We see a quick few visuals of the city looking confused at the foreign Amphibian structures.

The episode ends with the onscreen caption, "To be continued".

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Tropes:

• Big Entrance: Andrias joins the battle in a suitably over-the-top fashion, leaping down from his flying castle in a three-point-landing, rolling his Laser Blade across his shoulders before igniting it in a theatrical pose, and smirking while issuing a nonchalantly smug challenge to the newt, toad, and frog armies.
  Andrias: Well, don't stop on my account.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Darcy shoots one at Andrias when he tries to tell Anne the Core would've already considered the possibility of the Calamity energy disappearing from the box if they kill her.
• Black Box: Hearing Darcy discuss with Andrias that it was risky using the music box while a part of its power still resides in her, Anne concludes that they don't know much more about how it works than they do. She successfully manages to get herself a stay of execution by asking if killing her while she still holds power could potentially depower the box entirely.
• Bookends: The episode begins with a flashback to when Anne and her friends had a sleepover while watching a movie. During the end credits, it cuts back to that flashback as Marcy watches the rest of the movie by herself as Anne and Sasha slept.
• Both Sides Have a Point:
  • Before the battle, Sasha asks Anne if they could really forgive Marcy and mend their friendship after the latter trapped them with her in another world. Anne however points out that, while what Marcy did was wrong (and apparently, it’s not the first time she dragged them into something they’re not interested in), both Sasha and herself are as much as to blame for how their relationship unintentionally became toxic, from treating Marcy like "the friend who is just kinda there" to taking her interests and personal issues for granted. Furthermore, Anne reminds Sasha that both of them made some terrible mistakes, with the most glaring example being how they both contributed to the events of "True Colors", and that, if Sasha can be forgiven after proving her desire to atone, they must give Marcy one last chance.
  • Darcy notes that using the Music Box for their plans and specifically transporting their entire assembled army for a mass invasion is risky without said box having all its energy inside it, as they're uncertain of the precise nature of the Calamity Gems that power it despite having figured out enough to weaponise their power, motivating them to just kill Anne instantly the second they have her in their power to reclaim full control over the Box's complete power. However, Anne points out that said uncertain nature of the gems means that they're simply assuming that killing her will free the energy to go back into the box, when it could just as easily erase it along with her and permanently damage the functionality of the Music Box. Darcy is forced to concede her point and decides to compromise by making certain the energy is safely extracted from her, then killing her instantly.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Olivia and Yunan are revealed to have been brainwashed with mind control collars. After they are recaptured, Darcy orders them to be recollared. The same fate awaits the Plantars, Sasha and Grime.
• Brainwashing for the Greater Good: Gary uses his mind control spores to override the spores used on the imprisoned beasts so they can turn on Andrias's forces.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Bella the Bellhopping Newt appears as a resistance fighter.
  • The Moss Man (or rather, Woman) returns to save Wally from a Frobot.
  • Bog and Fen as well as the Grubhog also appeared in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment.
• Call-Back:
  • In "Scavenger Hunt", Anne admitted to Marcy her insecurities with being seen as "the dumb one" next to her ultra-smart friend, something the Core digs into here to demoralise her during its Breaking Speech, mocking her as being "dumber than a bag of rocks" despite being Amphibia's Hope Bringer and the one they're all counting on to win the battle. However, thanks to Anne's Character Development, it's ineffective, and Anne even manages to turn its point back on it by the end.
  • The grubhog and vulture-like bird from "Grubhog Day" — last seen readying to go to war — are shown charging into battle as air support alongside the kill-a-pillars.
• Call-Forward: In the War of the Warlocks movie Marcy is watching at the episode's beginning, the Lich King character has a similar X-shaped scar in his 24-Hour Armor as Andrias does, setting up how the girls are re-creating the movie's tactics by the present day with him as the intended target.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Thanks to Anne bringing up the possibility that killing her could hinder the powers of the Music Box, Darcy decides to spare her until they can vivisect her to make sure her energy returns to the box.
• Character Development: A subtle example. Back during "Scavenger Hunt" Anne admitted her insecurities to Marcy about her lacking intelligence compared to her genius friend, something that the Core, as Darcy, specifically single out to mock Anne with during its Breaking Speech, mocking her as being "dumber than a bag of rocks" and falling for their trap so easily. However, Anne not only ignores this, she actually turns it back around on Darcy at the end, quickly coming up with a logical fallacy in their reasoning based on their admitted ignorance regarding the Calamity Gems to prevent them just killing her immediately now she's in their power. Darcy is noticeably put out that Anne outwitted them, and makes it clear that if they can't break her, they'll make her death all the more painful instead.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: When Anne declares they're going to give Andrias a "big fat wedgie", Polly sports a feline smirk, snickers, and says that she wrote that line.
• Chewing the Scenery: Darcy during the whole episode.
• Childish Pillow Fight: Anne, Sasha and Marcy have one in the beginning flashback.
• Cliffhanger: The episode ends with our heroes captured and Andrias beginning the invasion of Earth, with an ominous "To Be Continued".
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Anne sadly notes to Sasha that neither she nor Anne were really the best of friends to Marcy, that they didn't really engage with or encourage her interests and nerdier habits despite hanging out all the time, and that if they had both been more encouraging and supportive friends, maybe Marcy wouldn't have been so emotionally distraught as to go to the extent of stranding them in another world to avoid them being separated.
• Dance Battler: Anne and Sasha manage to fight (and free) General Yunan and Lady Olivia with a perfectly synchronized dance.
• Darkest Hour: Anne and Sasha are subdued by Darcy and the resistance armies are defeated and on the run due to the capture of their leaders, the Plantars, Grime, Olivia and Yunan are hauled off to be fitted for brainwashing collars, Darcy intends to vivisect Anne in order to extract her Calamity energy, and Andrias opens the portal to Earth where his robotic armies cross through, ready to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting planet.
• Death Trap Tango: Played With. Olivia and Yunan are placed as the final forces guarding the calamity box after being brainwashed by The Core. The gang struggles to fight them until Anne comes up with a plan. Her and Sasha reenact their Super Dance Fusion routine to fight off the brainwashed pair in sync, complete with an Evangelion reference.
• Decapitated Army: Justified, as the army was mostly stalling and keeping Andrias's forces occupied to allow Anne and Sasha to enact the actual plan of retrieving the music box. With Anne and Sasha captured, the plan is a failure, and the army concludes it's better to retreat.
• Didn't See That Coming:
  • Darcy's existence is a major case of this, as it not only allowed the Core to predict the Resistance's battle strategy and counter them perfectly, having Anne dead to rights at the end if not for some quick thinking on her behalf, it also helped lower the girls' guard when they approached the throne room, unaware that there was another threat to be wary of besides Andrias himself, out fighting on the battlefield.
  • Shortly afterwards, Anne gets this again when she hears Darcy admit relief at the opportunity to reclaim the Calamity Gem energy that empowers her, noting they were worried about using the Calamity Box without all of its energy even for their previous smaller transportations, much less moving their whole army at once. Realising that the Evil Overlord duo are actually ignorant of the full function and capabilities of the Gems, Anne leverages this to avoid Darcy gutting her, pointing out that they can't guarantee that killing her will restore the energy to the gem and may even negatively impact the box. After a moment of pondering, the Mind Hive expresses surprise at its inability to reach a consensus over Anne's point, despite mocking her for her lack of smarts before.
• Didn't Think This Through: Discussed. Darcy initially intends to restore Anne's Calamity power to the Gem by just offing Anne, prompting Anne to stave off her murder by pointing out a gaping hole in Darcy's logic: they have no objective evidence to back up their assumption that killing Anne will restore the remainder of the Heart Gem's power (since they actually don't fully understand the Calamity Gems' workings themselves), and for all they know, killing Anne could cause them to permanently lose the Heart aspect within her. Anne's argument prompts this memetic response from the villains:
  Andrias: [to Anne] Don't be ridiculous. You think the Core hasn't considered-
  Darcy: SHUT UP, ANDRIAS!
• Did You Just Scam Cthulhu?: Lampshaded by Anne. She herself is surprised to have outsmarted Darcy (who is comprised of generations of Amphibia's most intelligent minds) and convinced her to (temporarily) spare her life.
• Diving Kick: Both Anne and Sasha do this during their sync dance battle in order to destroy the mind control collars Yunan and Olivia are wearing.
• End-of-Series Awareness: The episode title alludes to the show ending.
• Evil Gloating: Darcy clearly enjoys taunting the captured Anne and Sasha and rubbing their defeat in their faces.
• Foregone Conclusion: Considering the opening title showed Andrias's robots in the skies above Earth, it was obvious that the invasion was going to get through the portal.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The beginning of the episode has Anne, Sasha, and Marcy watching a movie called War of the Warlocks when they were still back on Earth. Considering the Resistance's battle strategy is based on the movie and Marcy is a part of the Core, it was inevitable that their plan would end in failure.
  • Andrias is a fairly pragmatic fighter, but makes a point out of creating a dramatic, theatrical entrance to draw the resistance's attention to him before he engages them with his Cool Sword, rather than his usual method of just attacking them in the most efficient manner. As it turns out, he and Darcy are leveraging the resistance's ignorance of the latter's existence to lure the Resistance's leaders into a trap, having Andrias pretend to have fallen for their ploy so Darcy can ambush everybody in the throne room.
  • "Mother of Olms" had Mother Olm revealing indirectly that the Music Box was an artificial addition to the Calamity Gems that Andrias's ancestors added to them to weaponise their powers for their Planet Looters ambitions, and that they should have been left alone to achieve their "true purpose", though what said purpose is is unclear. This means that despite the Core's age, intelligence, and utilisation of the gems' abilities for centuries, none of the minds inside Darcy actually know precisely how they work, a fact that Anne leverages to buy herself some extra time when Darcy is prepared to instantly kill her.
• Genre Savvy: Darcy already knew that Anne and Sasha would use the same strategy from War of the Warlocks, so they set up a trap to capture them upon reaching the throne room.
• A Glass of Chianti: When the battle begins near Newtopia, Andrias initially watches with amusement while sipping from a chalice of sparkling cider.
• Grand Finale: This serves as Part 1 of the three-part finale, where the Resistance must prepare for Andrias's invasion of Earth.
• Guile Hero: When Darcy is about to kill Anne, the latter points out their ignorance of what might happen to the the same Calamity energies that empower her if they just kill her, successfully delaying her intended execution until Darcy is ready to drain the remaining energies for their further plans beyond just conquering Earth.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • Darcy and Andrias exploit the resistance's ignorance of the former's existence to anticipate their battle strategy and ambush them with an enemy they didn't even know existed whilst Andrias pretends to fall for their trick.
  • In turn, Anne exploits Darcy's ignorance of the Calamity Gems and how exactly they work, noting that she's just assuming that killing her will restore the energy to the Gem, when it could just as easily cause the immense power to vanish with Anne. Darcy admits surprise that they didn't consider that before, nor that their Mind Hive can't reach a clear consensus over whether to risk it and kill Anne anyway, deciding to take the safer bet of draining her energy back into the box and then killing her.
  • Briefly, there's a scene where two Olms, who burn in natural sunlight, are able to emerge from underground and drag one of the bigger robot Mooks back beneath the earth, which they can implicitly do without getting hurt because of the rampant pollution Andrias' strip-mining and deforestation has caused has created a smog bank that obscures the sunlight around his castle, enabling them to join the rest of the resistance in fighting him.
• Hope Crusher: Having captured Anne and the others, Darcy declares publicly that the Resistance had lost in order to demoralize their army. While they haven't exactly given up, with their leaders captured and having no other plan, the army is forced into a tactical retreat.
• Hostage Situation: Darcy holds the leaders of the Resistance hostage to force the rest to retreat, and with the army moving on to Earth, they seemingly have no means of following. This also prevents Anne from activating her Super Mode against them even when Darcy plans to just gut her instantly once the Resistance falls back.
• Hypocrite: Sasha is reluctant to forgive Marcy for sending the three girls to Amphibia with the intent of permanently stranding them there, saying it's so "messed up" that she doesn't know if she can bring herself to consider Marcy a friend again. Anne points out that their treatment of Marcy back on Earth is probably what drove her to such drastic actions and gently calls Sasha out on her stint as a would-be Evil Overlord, pointing out that if they can fix their formerly toxic friendship, then there's still hope for Marcy. To her credit, Sasha quickly admits that Anne is right.
• Indy Ploy: At the last moment, Anne manages to get herself a stay of execution by pointing out that since the Calamity Gems aren't fully understood, there's no way to know if killing her might erase the Calamity energy inside her rather than restoring it to the music box. Darcy finds they're unable to refute the possibility and accordingly decides to spare her for the moment until the energy can be extracted from her.
  Anne: Wait, did I seriously just outsmart you?
• Internal Reveal: Anne, Sasha, Grime, and Plantars finally find out about Darcy.
• Laughably Evil: In an inversion of their last appearance, this time it's Andrias who comes across as the comedic one, despite his strong showing in combat against the resistance, enjoying some sparkling cider as a celebration of the impending invasion of Earth, commenting on what he thinks is the raspberry flavouring to his beverage and making an over-the-top, bombastic entrance to announce himself joining the battle, clearly enjoying himself all the while. Meanwhile, Darcy has completely dropped any comedic traits they demonstrated before, fitting with them assuming the role of Big Bad from Andrias as they are the truly evil one between them, using their possession over Marcy as a weapon to emotionally devastate her friends, breaking the resistance's hopes with a public announcement of their failure, and planning to immediately give Anne a painful death afterwards to remove the last variable hindering their plans. Darcy doesn't even demonstrate a single clumsy movement throughout their entire screen time to hammer it home.
• Lonely Among People: A flashback shows Marcy trying to watch a movie with Anne and Sasha, only for the latter two to pay very little attention and then fall asleep for what is confirmed to not be the first time, leaving Marcy to watch it alone. Anne even admits that she and Sasha could have been better in regards to Marcy's interests and issues, and that if they had, maybe Marcy wouldn't have done something as crazy as using the Calamity Box to send them to Amphibia.
• Mistaken for Quake: The portal opening up and the castle flying through it into Los Angeles makes the ground shake. One of the denizens yells, "Duck and cover! It's the big one!" thinking the ground is shaking from the big earthquake that California has been overdue for.
• Must Make Amends: Anne is driven to rescue Marcy and make things right with her after reflecting on how she and Sasha weren't exactly the best friends to her given how they dismissed her interests and personal issues. Whilst Sasha is more reluctant to bury the hatchet over that fact, Anne points out how she was forgiven by herself and the Wartwood villagers in turn over her own atonement, and so they owe Marcy the chance to at least try and make things right between them.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: With Andrias intentionally making a spectacle of his clash with the resistance to make it look like he's fallen for their plans, Darcy steps in to take over this aspect for him. They instantly snare Anne and the others with Combat Tentacles when they're distracted by the holographic music box, having been waiting in full anticipation of their exact battle plan from Marcy's memories and exploiting that to ensnare all the Resistance's leaders at once, broadcasts their capture and defeat to demoralise and scatter their united forces before they can do too much damage to their army, and plans to just instantly gut Anne now they have her in their power both to remove the threat of her Super Mode and remove any unknown variables concerning their use of it without all its assembled power. They even keep her loved ones as hostages nearby so she can't fight back against them like in "True Colors". Only Anne pointing out the fact that they don't know for certain that killing her will restore the gem's energy spares her, and even then Darcy makes it clear that they will kill her in the end anyway, but only after they've verified through vivisection that the energy has properly returned to the box first.
• No Ontological Inertia: Played with. Just as Darcy is about to execute her, Anne points out there's no way to know for sure that the Calamity energy inside her will go back into the Gem after her death. Darcy is forced to concede the possibility, and as such, intends to drain the energy out of Anne before killing her.
• Oh, Crap!: Once Darcy reveals to the Resistance and they have captured Anne and Co, the army can do nothing but back down.
• Out-Gambitted: It seems as if our heroes have distracted Andrias long enough for Anne to grab the box and escape. But the box turns out to be a hologram, and Anne and her team are held hostage by Darcy.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • As revealed by the episode's end, Andrias and Darcy could have simply activated the Calamity Box at any point and moved their entire army through the portal to Earth without needing to engage the resistance at all. Instead, they delayed their transportation and engaged in a Big Badass Battle Sequence with the combined forces against them, costly as it was to their robotic army, in order to lure the resistance's leaders, and specifically Anne, into a trap, exploiting their ignorance of Darcy's existence in order to pretend they'd fallen for their strategy whilst prepared to take them off-guard once the heroes thought they'd won. Andrias himself engages the resistance to hold them off single-handedly after their efforts start getting a bit too damaging to their forces, and Darcy publicly announces the strike team's failure and subsequent capture to force the resistance to retreat before they sustain any further losses. They did all of that specifically to secure the missing Calamity Gem energy Anne contains, noting that it was a risky move to use the box even for their smaller transportations to Earth before with a piece of its powers absent, and fully intend to immediately kill Anne the second the resistance retreat to remove the threat of her Super Mode and obtain full control over the Calamity Box again. Anne only stalls their complete victory by appealing to this trope, pointing out that, since they don't fully understand the Calamity Gems' capabilities, they can't guarantee killing her will actually restore the energy to the gem, forcing Darcy to delay Anne's demise until they can forcibly extract the remaining power safely — and they make it clear that's their first priority after Earth has been conquered.
  • It turns out that, rather than execute them for their treason, Andrias and Darcy have instead stuck mind-control collars onto General Yunan and Lady Olivia, compelling them to physically serve their interests as capable soldiers even if their minds and wills are opposed to them and their plans. Darcy ordering said collars be re-attached at the end, with additional ones fitted for the resistance leaders and the Plantars, imply that they're making full use of the mind-control formula to secure as many physical workers and soldiers for their ambitions as they can, rather than just killing anybody who crosses them, not out of moral obligations, but because it's simply a waste of a useful resource.
• The Reveal:
  • It turns out that after their failed attempt to betray him, instead of killing them, Andrias put mind control collars on Olivia and Yunan. The Core repeating the tactic at the episode's end with the captured Resistance leaders implies that it's more out of practicality for making useful workers and fighters than any moral reasoning.
  • It's revealed that even Andrias and the Core don't fully understand how the Calamity Gems work, indicating what Mother Olm had been hinting to Anne and the others: that the Gems are of a mysterious origin beyond even Andrias's family.
  • After "The King and the Core" left it ambiguous as to how much of Marcy's memory Darcy had erased, this episode confirms that at least some of Marcy's memories remain intact. As a result, Darcy is able to anticipate the Resistance's strategy and point out to Anne and Sasha what lousy friends they were.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking: King Andrias personally enters the battlefield and stops the Resistance's advance, even restricting himself to only using his Cool Sword instead of defending with his energy shield, and gets out of it without a scratch.
• Run or Die: Since their plan has failed, the resistance army has no other choice but to run for their lives, as fighting Darcy would be suicide.
• Sadist: The Core showcases its sincere love of emotionally torturing its victims through Darcy, using her memories to specifically taunt both her 'friends' on their past failures and regrets once they have them in their power, despite having no logical reasoning to. It mocks Sasha for being such a bad friend to Marcy even before coming to Amphibia and taking her for granted, which actually gets through to her, and makes a point of mocking Anne's intelligence after she admitted to Marcy that she was insecure about being 'the dumb one' next to her in "Scavenger Hunt". It clearly relishes destroying the resistance's hopes by publicly announcing the strike team's failure and when it announces its intent to Kill Anne shortly afterwards, it intends to do the deed with a laser knife, rather than shooting her or going for a swifter death than gutting her, and even allows Anne the chance to beg for her life despite clearly not intending to show her any mercy. When it's forced to delay killing her immediately its noticeably upset and makes it clear that it's still very determined to kill Anne at the next opportunity, but now, it's going to vivisect her, both to safely extract her Calamity Gem energy and really make it hurt for her.
• Sarcasm Mode: When the Resistance army is forced to fall back after Anne and the others are captured, Andrias quips "I'd say you put up a good fight, but I'm not that good of an actor!".
• Saw It in a Movie Once: As noted in the previous episode, the plan devised in the previous episode is similar to a strategy from a movie called War of the Warlocks, Marcy's favorite movie. Unfortunately, Darcy has access to Marcy's memories and anticipates such a strategy.
• Saying Too Much: Darcy lays out their reasoning to Andrias for just killing Anne immediately now that have her in their power as being a combination of removing the threat her Super Mode poses to their plans as well as removing the unknown variable that comes from using the box whilst part of its power lies within her. This gives Anne the idea to leverage their ignorance of the gems and their power against them, pointing out that they can't guarantee killing her will restore the energy to the Calamity Box, convincing Darcy to give her a stay of execution until she's ready to safely extract the energy and then kill Anne.
• Schmuck Bait: The Calamity Box is sitting under a spotlight in the middle of a dark room, seemingly unguarded. It turns out to be a hologram and the infiltration team is captured.
• Shout-Out:
  • At the start of the episode, Anne, Sasha and Marcy are watching a fantasy movie that has a lot of elements from The Return of the King, which is implicitly what their big flashy We Need a Distraction tactic is based on. The Lich King also bears more than a passing resemblance to Skeletor, having a Skull for a Head but muscular arms.
  • Andrias joining the battle is framed very much like Sauron showing up in the prologue of The Fellowship of the Ring.
  • Anne and Sasha's synchronized Dance Battle against the mind-controlled Olivia and Yunan, ending in a dual jump-kick that shatters their collars, is a reference to Unit-01 and Unit-02's synchronized dance-battle against Israfel in Neon Genesis Evangelion.
  • When Anne demands to know where Marcy is, Darcy answers that she's "in here with us".
• So Proud of You: Sasha sheds tears of pride for Grime having learned how to set up a playlist to make himself look cooler.
• Special Edition Title: The credits show Marcy watching the rest of War of the Warlocks while Anne and Sasha are sleeping during the sleepover.
• To Be Continued: How the episode ends, the first Amphibia episode to end this way.
• They Would Cut You Up: Darcy plans to vivisect Anne so she can learn how to extract her powers properly.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: The plan to take back the music box and thwart the invasion of Earth is explained in detail multiple times, both in this episode and the previous one where it's thought up. Naturally, the plan fails, though it's mainly due to Darcy having Marcy's memories of watching the movie the plan was based off of.
• Villainous Breakdown: A minor one, but Darcy noticeably loses their smug composure when Anne successfully points out a flaw in their reasoning behind recovering the Calamity Gem energy via her death, angrily telling Andrias to shut up when he tries to defend his master by claiming they would have planned for every angle in defeating Anne and the resistance. While they swiftly reason out an alternative method to achieve their goals safely, they're still noticeably put out that Anne actually outwitted them, and make it clear that they'll make her eventual demise all the more painful for it.
• Villain Has a Point: Darcy wastes no time to tell Sasha and Anne that they weren't such good friends for Marcy back in the human world, something that even Anne acknowledges earlier on. However, it's made clear that they're doing this not out of any moral reasoning, but just to hurt and demoralise their enemies as they advance with their plans, to prevent further interference as well as to enjoy their pain and regret. When it tries to point out Anne's lack of smarts as a reason she fell for their trap so easily, Anne actually turns this back on Darcy at the end, pointing out a logical argument that they can't ignore, which noticeably upsets the Mind Hive and makes them stop trying to torment its captives.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: Olivia and Yunan are freed from their brainwashing. A few minutes later they are already recaptured and about to be recollared.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One: Despite their best efforts, the Resistance is blindsided by Darcy's existence and their attempt to thwart the invasion is foiled.
• You Keep Using That Word: After deciding to spare Anne for the moment, Darcy gloats that she plans to "dissect [Anne] alive." If dissection is done while the subject is alive, however, it's called vivisection.

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To be continued...

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