One person guides. One person follows.
Credit: Character designer Allison Kim
Credit: Character designer Allison Kim
Written by Alex Horab
Storyboarded by Sofia Alexander & Ryan Pequin
Storyboarded by Sofia Alexander & Ryan Pequin
Mirror Tulip tries to help Jesse get his number down.
Tropes:
- Art Initiates Life: Jesse draws a door on a receipt to finish the map, and sure enough, the exit door appears. When Marcel blows it away, Jesse draws a sea serpent next to him, and it appears to distract Marcel while Jesse fetches the receipt.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Marcel seems nice enough at first, but he ends up driving the group in circles and expresses a desire to trap them forever.
- Brick Joke: In "The Black Market Car", MT saw one of the new passengers was a lunch lady. In this episode, Jesse mentions his bossy old lunch lady Mrs. Graham, and wonders if she's on the Infinity Train too, and MT says she might be. (The show's creator states that they are indeed the same person.)
- Chekhov's Gun: The receipt that Jesse carried in his jacket pocket is what he uses to finish the map.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends right as the Mirror Police appear.
- Comically Missing the Point: When Jesse manages to make his number go back down to 31 by talking about how he'd rather do something different than the rest of the swim team want him to, he and M.T. think that him talking about sports is what did it.
- Cutting the Knot: Marcel makes it clear he has no intention of letting the protagonists leave, driving them in circles instead of properly leading them to the part of the map with the door. So Jesse takes a scrap piece of paper and draws on a door, adding it to the map to provide them an exit.
- Exorcist Head: Alan Dracula decides to just start rapidly spinning his head around for no reason. M.T. uses this to turn him into a makeshift propeller for their boat. It's actually a funnier example than most, given how fast the head is spinning and just how random it is overall.
- Extreme Doormat: Jesse talks about how he joined the swim team but was pressured into learning the butterfly stroke when he wanted to do freestyle, and could not muster the courage to speak up. What's more, he volunteered to stay behind for nationals so no one else would miss out, even though again he wanted to.
- Fisher King: As long as Marcel is running the Map Car with an incomplete map, it's drab and made of paper. Once the map is completed, it becomes a vibrant, real landscape and he's turned into real wind and disperses.
- Godiva Hair: The mermaids seen in the car lack clothes and are instead covered with their hair.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Alan Dracula is electrocuted as he chews on the map, as only Jesse, the designated explorer, is supposed to be holding it. He doesn't seem to even notice.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Marcel has a moment when the setting of the car becomes realistic. He realizes he's the wind, seconds before turning in to harmless air.
- Jesse completing the map makes the map-like water turn real and reflective with the Mirror Police rising out to capture M.T..
- Out of the Frying Pan: Completing the map turns Marcel into wind, making him no longer a threat to Jesse and M.T.. However, it also makes the water reflective, which summons the Mirror Police.
- Reality-Changing Miniature: The map controls the appearance of the Map Car. As pieces are added to it, the landscape expands to reflect the additions. When Jesse needs to distract Marcel, he draws a crude sea serpent on the map, creating an equally crude life-size one that attacks Marcel (which becomes a real sea serpent when the map is finished). Finally, to complete the map, he draws a door on the back of a receipt he was carrying, causing the door to appear.
- Walk, Don't Swim: Since she's made of metal, this happens if M.T. tries to swim.
