Hilda and Frida launch an in-depth investigation to prove the fire-breathing resident of Cauldron Island isn't responsible for a wave of boat attacks.
Song at the end: "The Life of Hilda" by Bella Ramsey
Tropes:
- Adaptation Explanation Extrication: Hilda is grounded like she was in the graphic novel, but for a different reason (lying to Johanna in the episode, as opposed to sneaking out after being sent to her room in the graphic novel).
- An Aesop: Lying for a prolonged period of time will always catch up to you.
- Anger Born of Worry: Sure, Johanna certainly gave Hilda quite a scolding — but how else would you react to your child lying to you and heading off to what might as well be certain death?Hilda: If you could let me explain—Johanna: That you lied to me and then disappeared while there's a sea monster attacking the harbor?! I was WORRIED SICK!
- Big "WHAT?!": Hilda says this when Johanna grounds her. Johanna also silently says to herself "What?" at the end of the episode when she realized what she had just done.
- The Cast Show Off: Bella Ramsey has a huge talent for writing and singing music, and this episode gave them the chance to show their hidden talents.
- Conjunction Interruption: When Johanna reveals to Hilda that she knew that there was no scout activity today, Hilda tries to defend herself with "But-", but Johanna snaps with "But nothing!" in an enraged tone.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Hilda believes that the dragon is not the one causing ruckus in the sea, but a different sea monster altogether. She later finds out that she is completely right.
- Death Glare: When Ahlberg is telling Hilda that the Lindworm is a monster that should be hunted, she gives him a severe scowl.
- Later at the end of the episode, despite Johanna's best efforts to help Hilda out, she is rewarded with an enraged look on Hilda's face, which worries Johanna.
- Derelict Graveyard: Hilda and Frida find one while looking for Wood Man’s body. They later tell the Kraken about it so her children will have enough to eat without her having to attack more ships.
- Didn't Think This Through: Hilda, along with Frida, lie to Johanna by saying that they’re going to a beach cleanup as part of a Sparrow Scout activity. They didn’t take into account that Johanna could just call their Raven Leader and ASK her if there was a scout activity that day.
- Also, Hilda arrives home sure that she can still maintain her beach cleanup lie. However, she doesn’t realize that the massive kraken that was causing chaos near land would gather a large amount of attention. Indeed, Hilda realizes too late that footage of the sea monster was broadcast on the news on the television.
- Engineered Heroics: Discussed; Hilda knows the Lindworm has no interest in ships, and that Erik Ahlberg is a Glory Hound, so she suspects Erik himself sunk those ships and pinned the blame on the Lindworm so he can look heroic when defeating her. This theory is proven wrong when Wood Man tells her there really is a creature attacking the boats.
- Fake a Fight: When the Lindworm refuses to leave the island and fight instead, Alfur calls the Lost Clan and asks them to pretend to battle the Lindworm and throw the battle. Unfortunately, Bartel tells them that when the Lost Clan fights, they fight for real, and they engage the Lindworm in actual combat.
- Glad I Thought of It: David tries to take credit for Alfur’s plan to have the Lost Clan put up a mock fight with the Lindworm. Alfur lets him have the credit once the plan goes south.
- Horrifying the Horror: the unnamed Draugen captain that Hilda and Frida encounter at the sea bottom is terrified of the kraken.
- Image Song: "The Life Of Hilda" by Hilda's voice actress, Bella Ramsey, was played as a bonus scene, following the silent credits, to close it out.
- Interrupted by the End: When Johanna realized that she was a little hard on Hilda, and just as she tries to fix things, the episode ends.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: None of the harpoons fired by the Safety Patrol and the sailors manage to hit the Lindworm. Lampshaded by Alfur.Alfur: Wow. They are really bad shots.
- Jerkass Has a Point: The sailors whose boats got destroyed may be biased towards the Lindworm, but they are right about the fact that there is something dangerous in the harbor, and that Ahlberg (whose job it is to protect Trolberg) is too focused on Trolls to even notice, let alone take action.
- Karma Houdini: Frida as she was the one who told the scout activity lie to Johanna. However, Frida is never punished for engineering the lie while Hilda gets full blame for it and is grounded.
- Know When to Fold Them: Although both the Lost Clan and the Lindworm have a code that forbids them from backing down from a fight, they refuse to fight the kraken because it's a fight that they can't win.
- Let No Crisis Go to Waste: The sailors are livid with Erik for not doing anything about the monster destroying the boats in the area and focusing too much on trolls. However, he manages to turn things in his favor and continue painting himself as the hero by routing them into killing the Lindworm.
- Multi-Part Episode: Connected with "The Fifty Year Night". If aired weekly, this would have been the mid-season finale.
- My God, What Have I Done?: The final shot of the episode has a guilt-ridden Johanna realizing she had been a little too hard on Hilda, and that she never meant to do that
◊. It was later seen again in the following episode. - Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Johanna probably did the right thing about helping Hilda, but what is she gonna do now that Hilda loses trust in her...?
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Hilda lying in order to blow out on a picnic with Johanna has noble reasoning behind it (helping to absolve the Lindworm of whatever's lurking around the harbor), but it also gets her grounded in the end.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Thanks to Johanna grounding Hilda, Johanna accidentally strains her relationship with her daughter. Surely, Johanna was doing this for her daughter's safety, but it's hard to not see the look on an adventurer's face when no adventures are done when you are grounded. This lead to Johanna worrying about what her daughter loves as well as her own safety. Their friendship strain lasted up until "The Stone Forest".
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: As Johanna is testing Hilda by asking her how her day was, Tontu looks from one to the other, seeing if the latter will actually tell the truth. But when Hilda again lies, Tontu promptly leaves the kitchen, likely because he knows what is coming next.
- Secret Test of Character: When Hilda arrives home, Johanna (who by then had already found out that there was no scout meeting that day like Hilda said) asks her how her day was, giving her a chance to come clean about what she was actually up to. Hilda maintains the fib, resulting in her being grounded.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Tontu pointedly leaves shortly before Johanna confronts Hilda about her lies after giving her a chance to come clean.
- Silent Credits: In light of Hilda's grounding, "Hilda's Theme" was dropped and replaced with silence over the credits. This makes perfect sense, since it marks the ending of Hilda getting grounded and the fact that she isn't allowed to go on adventures with her friends. That is until, after the credits, the hidden track begins to play.
- Sudden Downer Ending: The episode ends with Hilda being grounded after Johanna finds out that she had lied to her and snuck off, and Johanna accidentally strains her relationship with Hilda.
- That's No Moon: Cauldron Island is revealed to be the shell of a mother kraken.
- To Be Continued: Hilda's lying results in her first grounding and Johanna is last seen silently questioning herself if she had been a good parent or not.
- Tough Love: Johanna had no choice but to ground Hilda at the end. The look on her face in the final image of the episode shows that she still loves her but she really wants her safe from harm. She later states this in the following episode.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The Water Spirit is not seen again after the Kraken hits it with a tentacle and separates it from Hilda and her friends. Given that it's a being made of water, it presumably survived.
-
Written by Cast Member: The hidden song at the end was both written and performed by Hilda's voice actor, Bella Ramsey. - You Are Grounded!: The episode ends with Hilda getting grounded by Johanna, who clearly felt guilty about it.
