Where trust is questioned and toads are kicked.
Credit: Storyboard artist Kellye Perdue
Credit: Storyboard artist Kellye Perdue
Written by Justin Michael
Storyboarded by Kellye Perdue & Sam Spina
Storyboarded by Kellye Perdue & Sam Spina
Mirror Tulip and Jesse get stuck in a car and face an unusual dilemma.
Tropes:
- Absurdism: The Toad Car is easily the most bizarre of the cars shown. It's a completely blank room with a toad inside, and in order to leave you have to kick it. The Toad doesn't enjoy this life, though, and kicking it will make your number go up. However, it's put up against Jesse and M.T. being tailed by the Mirror Police, making the situation a great deal more serious.
- Continuity Nod:
- Again we see that Jesse visited the Cross-Eyed Ducks car, and another picture shows that he and M.T. visited Randall's car.
- M.T. gives Jesse the full story about her and Tulip.
- Good Cop/Bad Cop: While Agent Mace wants to use force to get inside the car, Agent Sieve tries to convince Jesse to let them in by playing to his sympathies.
- Hand Wave: Jesse questions, if the Mirror Police can jump out of anything reflective, why they can't jump out of M.T. herself when she is reflective. M.T. flicks him in the forehead for even thinking such a ridiculous thing, because people can't jump out of people.
- Heroic Sacrifice: The toad willingly asks to be kicked if doing so will save Jesse and M.T.. Bumping into Alan Dracula solves that dilemma for them.
- Internal Reveal: Jesse learns about M.T.'s past as a living reflection.
- Pet the Dog: Jesse grabs the toad on the way out of the car, not only saving the toad a life of pain but trapping the Mirror Police in a car they can no longer open.
- The Reveal: When Jesse watches a video on his phone from a time before he entered the train, it at first seemed like he was picked on by older kids when he was little. Turns out that it wasn't a younger Jesse getting bullied, but his little brother, and Jesse himself was recording the entire incident with his "friends" (though now, Jesse looks to regret letting that happen).
- Sadistic Choice: The entire setup of the Toad Car is a parody of this trope, with an extremely blatant choice set in a white room in a way that plays it for laughs. The context in this episode makes it more real, though: In order to unlock the doors of the Toad Car, Jesse or M.T. need to kick a clearly distressed toad or hold off with the risk of the Mirror Police tailing them managing to break in. What makes this even more complicated is that Jesse's number goes up if he's going to kick the toad and down if he refuses. In the end, it's Alan Dracula that kicks the toad to open the doors.
- Toxic Friend Influence: It's clear from the video Jesse watches that his "friends" are jerks and bullies who push him around, and even got his little brother hurt and showed no remorse for it.
