Elena helps Antonia, the Royal Seamstress, follow her dream of becoming the first female member of Avalor's Royal Guard.
- Action Girl: Antonia turns out to be this, having learned how to fence from watching her father train with his fellow royal guardsmen.
- Breather Episode: After the Wham Episode nature of the last episode, this is more standalone and upbeat.
- Call-Back:
- Elena knows what it's like to be excluded because of sexism due to her first Royal Retreat.
- Nacho and Rocco are members of the Villalobos family, so they're presumably related to Rico.
- Elena still practices fencing with Gabe.
- Continuity Nod: The pirate dummy has Captain Chiloya's clothes.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Shown by Francisco, who believes that women don't need to be in the Royal Guard because it's the job of men to protect women. Elena and Luisa promptly chew him out.
- Elephant in the Living Room: There never was a rule against women joining the Royal Guard, but since no women have ever joined, it's been the status quo and no one ever questioned it.
- First-Name Basis: Elena tells Antonia to drop the formalities and allows her to call her Elena because they're friends.
- Hate Sink: Rocco, who is a jerkass especially towards Antonia and causes his team to fail the teamwork test by leaving her behind.
- No Man Left Behind: What Gabe tries to invoke with the labyrinth test, but Rocco tricks his teammates into leaving Antonia behind in favor of trying to break the completion record in time, so he took this trope far too literally. Gabe ends up failing them.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Gabe. While Elena goes in expecting to have to hard-sell him on letting Antonia join the Royal Guard, he has no issues with a woman joining at all and doesn't require convincing. Yes, he does know women are allowed to join, and he only cares about recruiting the best candidates, whoever they might be.
- Schmuck Bait: The labyrinth challenge was this. Gabe explains that they must use wilderness skills and teamwork to survive, and that anyone who doesn't make it before sunset fails. After seeing them come back sans Antonia, that's where he gets them. He reveals the real objective was to make it back with the whole squad, so it was an obvious trap for anyone who puts winning above teamwork.
- Secret Test of Character: The objective of the labyrinth test was to survive and whoever makes it back to the barracks by sundown passes. Rocco's team makes it back by sundown without Antonia. But, Gabe revealed this was first and foremost a test of teamwork, so they failed.
- Shout-Out:
- Elena tells Antonia to go the distance.
- Something about a Rose: Francisco, realizing he's said too much about gender roles in front of two fierce women that he loves, tries to change the subject by seeing Luisa's begonias and commenting on how beautiful they've bloomed this year. He pricks himself on one and Luisa corrects him, saying that they're roses, before covering his prick with a handkerchief.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- While Antonia is great at fencing because she's been practicing it in secret, she hasn't partaken in the kind of physical activity tested by the obstacle course and doesn't do well in it on her first try, needing further training. Whereas Rocco has worked towards joining the Guard, like his ancestors before him, his whole life, and does well on that test despite being a Hate Sink.
- Unlike most cartoon examples, the Avalor Royal Guard is one that actually puts effort into living up to its reputation of having the best of the best in terms of talent and character, and Gabe doesn't have to be a Drill Sergeant Nasty to accomplish this. Gabe definitely wants to avert the Red Shirt Army and Police Are Useless tropes, so he washes out Rocco for being unprofessional, and Nacho for being The Load.
