Season 5, Episode 6
Oops!...I Did It Again
Debris from the cracked Moon will destroy Earth in 12 hours, but Margo and Eliot have help in the form of a time loop.Tropes That Appear In This Episode:
- Adaptation Title Change: Lampshaded. Josh wonders out loud why All You Need Is Kill had its title changed for the movie.
- All for Nothing: Westbrook's plan to party out the moon apocalypse wouldn't have worked because he didn't know about the Kraken, and thus would have gotten eaten with the rest of Earth.
- Apocalypse Anarchy: With the world about to end, people riot, have sex in the streets, and the local newscaster decides to air out past grievances on live television.
- The Bus Came Back: Charlton returns, having managed to hang on in Eliot's mind while the Monster and everything else he ate was sucked out.
- Call-Back:
- Margo and Eliot using Permanence on themselves to change history on Fillory allows them to remember the time loops on Earth.
- Margo and Eliot visit Stoppard in an attempt to go back further so they can stop the Moon breaking apart, but the time magic the whales already have running trumps his.
- Eliot and Margo suspect that Penny's still DJing on weekends.
- Charlton was able to escape being banished with the Monster by latching onto Eliot's "happy place", which is where he found Eliot when they first met.
- Cassandra Truth: Eliot tells Margo that the Monster is still in him and wants to be let out, but she assumes it's just memories of the Monster that he doesn't want to deal with. While the latter may also be true, something really is inside him and wants out, it just happens to be Charlton and he just has a horrible sense of being polite.
- The Chosen Zero: The pig man from the season premiere went to Todd for help, apparently because he felt any man would be better than a woman. Julia is understandably pissed, and Todd himself realizes he's out of his depth.
- Comically Missing the Point: After learning that whales mate in the fall, Charlton says it's sad that they'll never get to mate again.
- Cordon Bleugh Chef: In one of the loops Josh takes Eliot out to this fusion place he wants to try. Pierogi tacos turn out not to be as great as he'd hoped.
- Covert Distress Code: Eliot and Margo work out several passwords between them for a number of necessary actions, including running to Canada.
- Exposition Cut: Whenever Eliot and Margo wake up in a new time loop and have to inform the others, the scene just cuts to them finishing explaining the situation while the others take it in.
- Failure Montage: Eliot and Margo run through several failed attempts to stop the destruction of Earth, each time punctuated with the Moon rocks impacting the Earth as seen from orbit.
- Faint in Shock: Alice passes out when Penny tries to travel to the moon and ends up TeleFraging himself.
- Foreshadowing: Despite the moon breaking in half, the tides are unaffected...thanks to the whale Magicians.
- Funny Background Event: Eliot tells Margo she jacked off Todd in one of the loops, to her great embarrassment. Later, Todd swings by the penthouse. While he's talking to Julia, Margo can be seen in the background walking to the living room, noticing him, flailing, and running back inside.
- Genre Savvy: Josh is a big fan of the "Groundhog Day" Loop and cites several works that utilize it. He's the one who tells Eliot that these movies usually involve the characters having to face their inner demons in order to break said loop.
- Gory Discretion Shot: All we see of Penny's botched attempt to teleport is a pool of blood and his shoe with a foot still in it.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: Thanks to wards meant to keep the kraken sealed, Earth is stuck in a 12-hour time loop until the thing that broke the wards is fixed. Unfortunately, the problem being the Moon breaking is something of a quandary, as the whales lack the ability to solve that problem.
- Hive Mind: The whales are implicitly one of these, as Eliot is able to speak to all of them at once through a TV at Fisher Beach.
- If I Wanted You Dead...: Margo offers to tell Stoppard where Penny is so he can get revenge in exchange for his help, reasoning that it's a matter of priorities, but Stoppard tells them that he would have taken his revenge already if he wanted to. He's not so petty as to refuse to help in an apocalypse scenario.
- It's All My Fault: Eliot blames himself for Margo somehow losing her memory of the loops, but Charlton points out that it may not have anything to do with him and that she had a lead before she forgot.
- Kraken and Leviathan: Double Subverted. The whales keep the kraken sealed by tracing sigils onto the ocean floor. Eliot convinces them to release the kraken, something ominously bubbles beneath the surface...and a human scuba driver pops out. Eliot asks him if he's the kraken after all. That's when the giant tentacled behemoth shows up and ends the world.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Eliot notes that Margo is one of these for him, and feels that may be unfair to her.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Margo finds out about the whales, but pisses them off and they wash away her Permanence, thus taking away her Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory. Eliot is forced to save the day alone from there.
- Magic A Is Magic A: Since releasing the Kraken winds time back exactly 12 hours, releasing it early lets them go back earlier than the usual start of the loop.
- Master of the Mixed Message: Charlton was behind the whispering, messages in blood (red paint), and knocking. He concedes that his attempts to be polite may have come off more sinister than he intended.
- Mistaken Identity:
- During three of the looped ragers in a row Margo jacked off Todd thinking he was someone else. She blissfully gets to forget this once the whales get rid of her Permanence, but Eliot makes sure to remind her.
- Eliot thinks The monster is still inside him and sending him messages. It's Charlton.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Margo discovers that the whales are powerful enough to potentially save the world, but being Margo she pisses them off. They take away her Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory which means Eliot, already on the point of a mental breakdown, has to figure out how to save the world on his own.
- Not-So-Imaginary Friend: Once he's let out into Eliot's conscious mind, Charlton takes on this role.
- Oh, Crap!: Eliott realizing Margo no longer remember the loops.
- Planet Eater: The moon rocks hitting the Earth destroys the whales' sigils, setting the Kraken free, who will eat the Earth.
- The Reveal: The pig man that wanted to offer Quentin a quest back in the season premiere was talking about the destruction of Fillory, not Earth.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Thanks to Jane Chatwin's Permanence, Eliot and Margo realize they're in a time loop. Eventually Margo gets hers washed off.
- Sapient Cetaceans: Whales are actually intelligent magicians who made a pact with the old gods to prevent the rise of the kraken.
- Sense Freak: Since Charlton's been without the ability to feel sensory input (besides sight and hearing) for ages, he's very pleased to switch from being in Eliot's subconscious to his conscious so he can enjoy the other senses vicariously through El's memories.
- Set Right What Once Went Wrong: Thanks to the time loops, Eliot is able to avert the tug-of-war that shattered the moon.
- Special Edition Title: The world's destroyed before the theme song can finish.
- Start X to Stop X: In order to prevent the destruction of the Moon and the release of the kraken, Eliot convinces the whales to deliberately release it ahead of schedule so he'll be sent back far enough to stop the destruction of the Moon, which will in turn keep the wards intact.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Josh suggests that Eliot just open the door in his mind and let out whatever's trying to get out. I mean, it's not like it'll kill him.
- Tele-Frag: In one of the loops, Margo convinces Penny to teleport to the Moon to open a portal of sufficient size to stop the falling Moon rocks. Lacking his psychic GPS, Penny instead minces himself about ten feet away.
- Throwing Out the Script: During one of the loops we hear a newscaster tossing out his script in order to tell people to be brave and good to each other while they can.
- Titled After the Song: The episode is named for Britney Spears's "Oops! ...I Did it Again", referring to the "Groundhog Day" Loop.
- Time Loop Fatigue: Eliot eventually sinks into depression after repeated failures and Margo getting kicked out of the loop. A pep talk from the time loop story-savvy Josh helps snap him out of it.
- Time Travel: Subverted. Stoppard tries to jump Margo and Eliot back two days, but is foiled by the time magic lockdown.
- Trust Password: Eliot tells Margo "credenza" so she'll go along with his new plan after he's sent back to before the Moon breaking apart.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Breaking the moon apart causes chunks of it to fall on Earth, causing widespread death and destruction. But also, it will break the Kraken out of its imprisonment, who will proceed to eat whatever's left of the Earth. Our heroes knew about the former, but not the latter.
- While Rome Burns:
- As moon rocks are poised to hit the Earth a lot of people are partying or having orgies in the streets.
- After numerous failed loops, Margo and Eliot get the idea to drop by the Physical Cottage and get wasted, as they managed to find inspiration that way in the past.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: The whales' initial reaction to Eliot's proposition to release the Kraken early.
- Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: Earth is saved and Julia thinks it's the last time, only to learn from Todd that Fillory is still in apocalyptic trouble.
