Hilda, her mum and Twig look for a way out of a mysterious forest full of trolls, while a worried David and Frida journey out of Trolberg to find them.
Song at the end: "The End" by Frankie Cosmos
Tropes:
- Adaptation Deviation: Hilda being sent to her room happens after being grounded here, whereas the former happened first in the comic.
- Adaptation Explanation Extrication:
- Hilda snaps at Johanna for not letting her go to Frida's, but the reason for Hilda wanting to go has changed (she needs to give Frida the last ingredient for a spell). The circumstances have also been reversed (in the comic, Hilda had already spent all day at home, and pushes back when her mother refuses to let her go out; in the show, Hilda had spent all day with her friends, and Johanna is the one who pushes back after Hilda insists on going back out when Johanna had already made arrangements), though both end with Hilda's outburst landing her in trouble.
- Hilda blackmails Tontu into letting her going into Nowhere Space, but for a different reason (she wants to see the lights of the Bird Parade in the comic, where she wants to go to Frida's here).
- Adapted Out:
- The Great Raven is removed from the adaptation. He was the one who saved Hilda from falling off a cliff in the comic, but here she is saved by a "lucky" white woff instead.
- The creature that looks like a patch of earth with legs is likewise absent. In the graphic novel, it ended up showing Hilda and Johanna the way out of the Stone Forest, and they took it home with them afterward. In the show, Hilda chases it down in opening scene of "The Troll Circle", but it doesn't appear after that.
- Aesop Amnesia: In "The Fifty Year Night", Hilda learned a lesson about the consequences of one's actions, and respecting her mother's wishes... but the episode also ended with Hilda telling her mother a lie-by-omission about sneaking out of the house, implying that the lesson didn't completely sink in. Here, Hilda once again gets into an argument with her mother and decides to sneak out, setting the episode's events in motion. After their tribulations in the Stone Forest, Hilda and Johanna reconcile properly.
- Ascended Extra: Frida and David were little more than guest characters in the graphic novel, with both of them vanishing from the story after the first quarter. Here, they have their own subplot.
- Break the Haughty: Hilda suffers this hard when her actions send her family to the unfamiliar, perilous, troll-filled Stone Forest.
- Broken Tears: When the first escape attempt goes awry and Hilda realizes that Twig was left behind, Johanna holds her back to stop her from getting lost again. This causes Hilda to try to twist away from her mother’s grasp, desperately saying to get off her and starting to cry over having to lose Twig again. And when Johanna decides to go back to get Twig herself and tells her daughter to stay put, Hilda looks torn and cries some more behind the rock, over fear of losing Twig and her mother.
- Call-Back: It's not the first time Johanna found another child in Hilda's bedroom with her daughter nowhere to be found — the first time being when Hilda switched places with David in "The Nightmare Spirit".
- Chekhov's Gun: Baba's little handmade figures of herself and Hilda. It's never made explicit whether the troll mother swapping the heads of the figures was a component of the body-swapping spell that she casts on the two, or simply a metaphor for the act.
- Cliffhanger: As in its comic counterpart, the episode ends with Hilda turned into a troll, separating her from her friends and family, with Johanna finding Baba in Hilda's bed and her fear and worries taking its toll. Meanwhile, the troll problem is continuing to worsen, no one knows why they're getting closer to the city wall, and Ahlberg and the Safety Patrol's efforts to combat them are only escalating.
- Cooldown Hug: After Twig is left behind in their escape attempt, Hilda tries to rush back in to save him. Johanna's first instinct is to grab Hilda, hold her, and try to calm her down before she runs off and gets lost again.
- Decomposite Character: With the Great Raven's absence, his role in the story is divided among multiple characters — Tontu is the one who tries to take Hilda to Frida's house, Alfur is the one who meets up with Tontu and helps in the search, and the "lucky" white woff is the one who saves Hilda from falling off the cliff.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: When Hilda turns into a troll, the theme music from Hilda and The Mountain King briefly plays in the background for a short period before the episode ends.
- Dramatic Drop: After seeing the now human Baba in Hilda's bed, a shocked Johanna drops a breakfast plate that was intended for her daughter.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Right before the cliffhanger, which kicks off another story arc, Hilda and Johanna managed to mend their deteriorating relationship, ending a story arc for season 2.
- Extra-Long Episode: The episode is double-length, clocking in at 44 minutes long excluding credits.
- Even the Dog Is Ashamed: When Hilda storms to her room right after being sent there by her mother, Twig is show to look on the scene of her outburst with worry and disappointment, showing that even he might be ashamed of Hilda’s behavior toward her mother. He also looks at Johanna with sympathy when she and Hilda get into another fight in the troll cave.
- Forced Transformation:
- Frida accidentally turns Ahlberg into a bug, not that he noticed.
- At the end of the episode, Hilda wakes to suddenly realize that she's been transformed into a troll.
- Go to Your Room!: Johanna sends Hilda to her room after her outburst.
- Gone Horribly Right: Johanna had hoped that her daughter would make "normal" friends after moving to Trolberg. Now, Hilda's become so preoccupied with her friends, both normal and supernatural, that she's never home at all and no longer has time for her mother.
- Heartbeat Soundtrack: The song "The End" was enhanced to include the sound of a heart beating.
- Heel–Face Turn: Downplayed. By the end of episode, Gerda is still taking orders from Ahlberg as her superior, but she's finally had enough of his grandstanding and self-aggrandizement and walks out on him mid-rant.
- Horrifying the Horror: The rock-chewing slugs terrify even the dreaded two-headed troll. And that goes double for the gigantic slug.
- Ironic Echo: When sent to her room again, Hilda offhandedly wishes she was a troll so she didn't have to be cooped up all the time. While she's reversed course by the end of the episode, that wish is granted anyway.
- It's All My Fault: Johanna, in regards to her breakdown in being trapped at cave-in. Her apology to Hilda really says it all. Hilda, also was brave enough to say that she broke the promise because she is missing out on the world, leading to Johanna finally understanding why she wanted to see it.
- Jerkass Realization: Once their second escape attempt goes off the rails and Hilda sees Johanna break down, she realizes how much she's taken her mother for granted and goes to comfort her.
- Kick the Dog: When Hilda is protesting against spending time with Johanna instead of going back to Frida’s house. Hilda mentions that she doesn’t have to hang out with her mother, and that it’s not her fault that Johanna sits around the house all day and doesn’t have anyone else to talk to. This shocks her mother, and after she sends Hilda to her room, she sulks back to the kitchen, clearly hurt by Hilda’s remark.
- Match Cut: At one point, a cut occurs where the eyes of the mother troll are replaced with two lines stars.
- Multi-Part Episode: Connected with the movie special.
- Never My Fault: Hilda blames Johanna for getting them sent to the massive troll cave because she grabbed her when she wanted to use the Nisse space to get to Frida’s. Johanna is indignant about this, pointing out that this mostly happened because Hilda was the one who was messing with this magic portal in the first place. Hilda counters this by saying that her mother was the one who messed everything up.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
- Hilda's refusal to stay put at home lands her, Johanna, and Twig in trouble from the start. When Hilda convinces Tontu to use his portal for a quick trip to Frida's. Johanna tries to pull Hilda back out, but the struggle throws them off mid-transport and far from home.
- Frida, twice. First she startles some Woff while trying to approach a white woff, and as they flee they cause the Zeppelin of Gerda and Erik to crash. Later, she accidentally turns Erik into a bug.
- Police Are Useless: Discussed; when Gerda asks Frida and David why they tried to find their friend on their own rather than contact the Safety Patrol, Frida states the Patrol isn't exactly helpful most of the time. After taking one glance at the now-transformed Ahlberg, Gerda concedes the point.
- Sequel Hook: To Hilda and the Mountain King.
- Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing:
- Averted by Ahlberg. He loses his clothes upon accidentally being turned into a bug by Frida, but regains them when she reverses the spell.
- Played straight when Hilda and Baba swap places — Baba's human form ends up in Hilda's pajamas, wheras Hilda's troll form is nude (though lacking anatomy).
- Shut Up, Hannibal!: In response to Erik Ahlberg trying to rant at them, Gerda Gustav wordlessly slams the door in his face.
- Seen It All: Gerda shrugs off seeing Frida using magic as if it's no big deal, and only worries about whether or not Frida can reverse the spell again.
- Smash Cut: Season 2 finished off with a bang with this, after Johanna finds Baba in Hilda's bed and Hilda finds herself back in the Stone Forest in a troll's body.
- So Much for Stealth: Zig-zagged, for laughs. When trying to escape the cave of the two-headed troll, Johanna accidentally knocks down a shelf, but the noise fails to wake up the sleeping troll. Then he wakes up when a bird he keeps in a cage starts whistling.
- Special Edition Title: The normal, upbeat end credits theme is replaced with Frankie Cosmos' "The End".
- Sudden Downer Ending: Everyone's home safe and Hilda and Johanna finally mend their deteriorating relationship for good... and then Hilda is turned into a troll and taken back to the Stone Forest
, leading into the events of Hilda and the Mountain King. - Teleporter Accident: The plot is kicked off by Johanna interrupting Hilda and Twig entering Nowhere Space, which results in all of them ending up dropped into the mountain caves.
- Trail of Bread Crumbs: The two-headed troll unintentionally leaves one behind when he takes the goat and everything it was carrying from the female troll. Hilda follows the trail of loose cargo back to his lair.
- The Stinger: Hilda is trapped in the body of a troll and Johanna sees Baba in Hilda's bed, with the two utterly confused about everything.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: There is the main plot of Hilda and Johanna getting lost in the Stone Forest, and a B-Plot of Frida and David trying to find them, only to get lost themselves. The two plots come together in the climax when Frida and David, with help from Gerda and Alfur, find and rescue Hilda and Johanna.
- Waking Up Elsewhere: The episode ends with Hilda waking up back in the Stone Forest, with no idea how nor why.
- With Due Respect: Gerda says this to Ahlberg before telling him that David and Frida have had a traumatic day, and thus will not be on the evening news with Ahlberg to promote his supposed heroism against trolls.
"And once again
I'm really glad you're my friend
We could do it all again
Doesn't mean it's the end..."
I'm really glad you're my friend
We could do it all again
Doesn't mean it's the end..."
— Frankie Cosmos, "The End"
