Recap / The Owl House S2E9 "Eclipse Lake"

"We have a lot in common, Blight. We're both trying to show what we can bring to the table. And we can't fail, 'cause there's nothing worse than disappointing someone who thinks you're special. "

"And today, I'll show Luz that I am an awesome girlfriend."

— Amity

Original air date: 8/7/2021

Production code: 209

When Luz gets sick with the common mold, Amity, Eda, and King must find an important ingredient for the portal door - but they are not the only one on its trail.

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Tropes:

• Accidental Misnaming: Eda still calls Gus "Goops" while ordering him and Willow to watch over Luz.
  • Eda has apperantly started calling Amity "Boots" rather than "Mittens".
• Action Girlfriend: Amity shows this throughout the episode: she volunteers to join Eda and King in finding Titan's Blood, captures and later fights with Hunter, and manages to keep some of the Titan's Blood from the key when she's forced to give it to him. To be fair, Amity was hoping this mission would just be a milk run with minimal action, and then be home in time for supper. It went sideways with the Emperor’s Coven being present and the above happened.
• Actor Allusion: Amity carries around a jar of abomination goo on her belt for quick use, much like Katara's waterskin, and even controls it in much the same way. She also tries to convince a 16 year old boy with facial scars to have a Heel–Face Turn while in a green cave, only to fail due to his desire to please the Big Bad.
• Alien Arts Are Appreciated: Willow, Gus and Hooty spend most of their time listening to human music and mixing it in odd ways.
• Alien Blood: Titan's Blood has the ability to create portals between dimensions and witches used to mine the Titan's calcified veins for its powerful magical properties. It's also blue.
• All for Nothing: By the time they reach Eclipse Lake, it's long-since been depleted of any Titan's Blood. Even worse, though Amity retains at least half of the Blood in the key, she's forced to hand the rest, and the key itself, over to the Golden Guard.
• All Witches Have Cats: Amity now has a white cat palisman named Ghost.
• An Aesop: If someone truly loves you, they will stand by you and support you no matter what hardships you may face. They will also care about your well-being, and not just see you as a disposable means to get them what they want, and they certainly wouldn’t want you to bite off more than you can chew.
• Animation Bump: Amity and Hunter's fight has a very noticeable uptick in quality, being much smoother and more fluid than the rest of the episode.
• Anti-Magic: The veins of the Titan naturally reflect magic, causing projectile magic to ricochet dangerously.
• Arc Words: "Awesome girlfriend." Amity is determined to prove herself as helpful to Luz after their Relationship Upgrade. To this end, Amity volunteers to go get the Titan's Blood for Luz's portal. It plays into Amity's mindset as an Insecure Love Interest, believing that Luz will leave her if she doesn't prove herself useful.
• Armor-Piercing Question: When Hunter tells Amity that Luz's emoji texts to her mean "Come back with results, or it's over", Amity tells him that Luz would never say such a thing because Luz thinks she's "awesome girlfriend". In response, Hunter asks her if Luz ever told her that herself, which visibly upsets her. At the end, however, Luz does indeed say so.
• Artificial Human: In the Cold Open between Hunter and Belos, there is a quick shot of a book open to a page about the "Grimwalker". It lists ingredients for the apparent construction of a homunculus, with palistrom wood and selkidomus scales to form various aspects of the anatomy. A particular detail is the "Bone of ORTET", an ortet being a term for the genetic source of a cloned plant. The diagrams also have a distinct eye color and profile that, combined with the subtext that he's an ingredient in Belos' plans, suggests Hunter is a grimwalker.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Amity is initially caught off guard by Hunter's Teleport Spam during their fight, but she adapts very quickly. By the time of the fifth teleport she's already figured out his pattern and is turning to face his destination before he warps.
• Bad Boss: Kikimora threatens to throw the Coven Captain off the highest mountain of the Knee with a smile if they screw up her chances to get the Titan's Blood after the latter reminds her that they need to be careful.
• Bait-and-Switch: When Eda bargains with the Owl Beast, it sounds like she had to promise it something serious before it gave her access to her harpy form. But the end of the episode reveals that it simply wanted a meal, which Eda supplied by eating some voles on the way back home.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Played for Laughs. King complains about Luz hugging Amity instead of him when they get back from the Knee, only for her to pull him into a painful bear hug.
  King: I regret this!
• Bedhead-itis: Luz usually has messy hair, but it's more messy than usual when she has the common mold.
• Beleaguered Assistant: As in "Hunting Palismen", Kikimora is followed by the Coven Captain, a high-ranking coven member with a unique helmet who is constantly exasperated at her increasing paranoia and thirst for revenge towards the Golden Guard.
• Bittersweet Ending: Amity is forced to hand over the Portal Key to Hunter so he won't send Belos' army after the Owl House or her family. She breaks it, however, draining half of the Titan's Blood from it and giving both sides some of the substance to use, if potentially not enough for either to recreate the portal. Hunter is left worrying he's failed because he knows his uncle needs the Portal Key intact for the Day of Unity, though he also starts opening up to Li'l Rascal more. Luz's illness is fortunately not serious.
• Brick Joke:
  • When Eda talks with the Owl Beast so she can transform, it demands something in exchange which she refuses to explain. After arriving home, King mentions that Eda ate nine voles along the way, and Eda insists she had to keep up her end of the bargain.
  • A few minutes after it's noted that Luz thinks that she has snakes for arms, she hisses at Willow and Gus.
• Brutal Honesty: When Hunter starts going on about how ancient witches used to mine Titan's Blood, Amity interrupts him to bluntly say that Eda and King aren't listening.
• The Bus Came Back: While he (presumably) isn't seen on-screen, Steve from "Senses and Insensitivity" is mentioned to be among the coven scouts working under Kikimora.
• Call-Back: Luz managed to settle a truce with Hunter in "Hunting Palismen" and convinced him to spare the Palismen with her kindness. Amity tries the same thing here... and Hunter doesn't bite. She complains that being nice usually worked out for Luz.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Belos claims that he needs Hunter alive for the Day of Unity, and would rather not risk his life if he's going to constantly return with failure. Hunter worries this means that his uncle doesn't have any use for him otherwise.
• Cassandra Truth: When Amity, Eda, King and Hunter find what they think is Titan's Blood, Hunter warns them to not touch it because it's actually Fool's Blood. Eda thinks Hunter is lying and just wants the blood for himself, but when she does touch it, it cracks the ground underneath them and Eda and King fall in. And then Amity gets a message from Luz moments too late warning her about Fool's Blood, which Amity can't understand anyway.
• The Cavalry Arrives Late: Harpy Eda flies into Eclipse Lake just in time to see that Hunter has already escaped and Amity and King are all alone after Hunter and Amity's brawl.
• Character Development: This episode demonstrates Amity's. When she was introduced, she was a stickler for the rules, too afraid of her parents to put a toe out of line, and was quickly established as a promising future member of the Emperor's Coven. Here, she willingly commits treason against the Emperor by working with Eda against the coven's interests. She even goes so far as to hold Hunter, Belos' right-hand man and the Coven's new leader, captive and even taking him on in a fight over the Portal Key — all because she has decided that Luz is more deserving of her loyalty then the Emperor's Coven ever was.
• Combat Pragmatist: The duel between Hunter and Amity isn't exactly fair for several reasons. Hunter is alone, while Amity is being helped by King. He has never used a palisman before, which works differently than his usual staff, nor does he have any magic of his own. And he is on the verge of a nervous breakdown that has been keeping him sleep-deprived for a while. Too bad: Amity is fighting for Luz's sake, so she's not pulling her punches.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Three of the ingredients for the Grimwalker are Galdorstone, Selkidomus scales, and palistrom wood.
  • Hunter mentions boiling rain when talking about the human world.
  • When Amity tells everyone that she's going to prove to Luz that she's an awesome girlfriend, King and Gus remind her that in their first meeting she almost got Luz vivisected.
  • Eda still can't remember Gus's name.
  • The Knee is revisited.
  • King recalls a time when Eda thought he was just a mindless animal.
  • Eda mentions to Hunter that she heard about his and Luz's adventure in Latissa.
  • Hunter once again does a cheerful "Byeeee!" when he runs to get ahead of Amity.
• Conveniently Interrupted Document: The echo mouse reveals part of Wittebane's diary, which explains that Titan's Blood can be found at Eclipse Lake. After Eda, King and Amity go there to get it, Luz accidentally coaxes the echo mouse into revealing the next part, which warns of the similar-looking but dangerous Fool's Blood.
• A Day in the Limelight: With Luz out sick, this is the first episode of the series where Amity gets to be the central focus, and gets to go on a mission with Eda and King.
• Deadly Euphemism: Belos assures Hunter that he is to play an important part in the Titan's plans, and finding a replacement would be inconvenient, so Belos above all wants him to stay safe. It's not entirely lost on Hunter that Belos could replace him, though the implication that whatever Belos plans to do requires Hunter as a literal ingredient flies over his head.
• Deal with the Devil: Played for Laughs. When Eda is negotiating with the Owl Beast for access to her harpy form, it asks her to do something implied to be very serious which she "isn't sure she can even do". When King asks what it wanted, Eda deflects the question as if it'll be something that will be plot-relevant in the future. At the end of the episode, it turns out the Owl Beast just wanted Eda to eat a bunch of voles, which she did offscreen on the way home.
• Death Glare: After Hunter attacks her to take the portal key, Amity spends the entirety of their fight with a scowl of extreme annoyance on her face.
• Defiant Captive: Although Hunter is taken prisoner by Amity, he tries to annoy her as much as possible.
• Deflector Shields: The Abomatons can create barriers to deflect magical attacks.
• Defrosting Ice King: Hunter starts out barely tolerating his palisman's attempt to get close to him. But after they fight together against Amity, he starts appreciating it more.
• Determinator:
  • Amity has become this to a fault. Amity will do whatever it takes to get the Titan's Blood, and she's insistent on taking care of everything and having the situation under control. Thing is, Luz doesn't want Amity to bite off more than she can chew, and only asks that Amity return alive.
  • Hunter manages to reach this throughout the episode. Even when he has been fired upon and captured by two separate opposing forces, he still manages to find a way to get to Eclipse Lake first. Even when he falters from finding the lake dry, realizing that Amity has the portal key reawakens this trope and then some. Even when he's outnumbered in the fight against Amity and King, armed with only a palisman he barely knows how to use when they have far more familiar powers at their disposal, he still manages to give them an incredible fight. Even when that fails to get him results, he manages to eke out a victory with a threat that nets him the portal key.
• Dig Your Own Grave: Hunter finds Eclipse Lake empty, but keeps digging anyway. Amity questions why, and Hunter replies that he expects Belos will punish him for returning empty-handed again, so he might as well cut out the middle man.
  Hunter: Long story short, this is m'grave. [cheerfully] Want me to make you one too?
• Dispel Magic: Li'l Rascal is able to deflect King's magical scream.
• Dramatic Irony: Kikimora spends most of the episode recklessly charging into an unstable mine shaft since she remains convinced that Hunter will show her up and make her look bad to Belos. However, the audience knows that Hunter has no magic of his own and feels he's on thin ice with Belos as well. As a result, it's clear to the audience that Kikimora's recklessness and paranoia caused her to botch the mission. To add further insult to injury, the lake was empty, so she would have failed to deliver either way.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: After being used to stop Eda and King's fall, Owlbert is damaged, leaving Eda with no option but to find a way to change into her harpy form to save everyone.
• Dressing as the Enemy: Hunter disguises himself as a normal Coven guard so he can sneak in with Kikimora's team and steal the Titan's Blood from under her nose. He doesn't even get the chance to try because she hears his distinctive voice from a distance and blasts at his hiding spot on reflex. He tries to pull the same act on Eda, King, and Amity when they capture him, and it fails again for the same reason.
• Epic Fail:
  • Amity has been misreading Luz's emoji messages the whole time, and she misinterpreted the first one (which was supposed to read "U R PRETTY") as a command, and the second (which was supposed to read "U R RAD, etc") as some kind of threat.
  • Eda telling King to use echolocation to find the lake, clearly not understanding that echolocation works only on solid objects, not liquids.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: It's implied that Hunter is so screwed up by Belos' abusive treatment that he can't imagine Luz's message to Amity as anything but a threat to bring back results or else, since he's likely never been shown unconditional love or kindness.
• Expecting Someone Taller: When Amity sees the Golden Guard for the first time, she remarks that she was expecting someone less scrawny.
• False Reassurance: During the Cold Open, Hunter asks Belos why he replaced him with Kikimora for the Eclipse Lake expedition. Belos reassures him (with a surprisingly gentle and almost paternal demeanor) that since Hunter failed his last mission, Belos doesn't feel he'll be "useful" for this one, so the next best thing is to keep Hunter safe since it would be such a "hassle" to replace him.
• Festering Fungus: The common mold is an illness which resembles the flu, except that it ends with a bunch of mushrooms sprouting from your head.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Hunter gives his ultimatum, Amity squeezes the key and there's an audible crack. Once she gets back home, it's revealed she cracked the eye to drain the Titan's Blood, soaking about half of it into her glove while the remainder is still with the key.
• Foreshadowing:
  • The book about the Grimwalker has one page with ingredients and another showing how the ingredients can be mixed into a humanoid. A humanoid with eyes eerily similar to Hunter.
  • When Eda and King leave to distract the Emperor's Coven, Hunter suggests to Amity that when Eda and King get caught, they should work together to get the Titan's Blood and split it 50/50. By the end of the episode, Amity gives the key to Hunter under threat of him retaliating against Luz but cracks the key to get half of the blood on her glove while the other half is with Hunter.
  • In the entry of the diary describing Fool's Blood, Phillip says that it's a sign that the vein is decaying. Sure enough, by the time that Hunter and Amity get to Eclipse Lake several hundred years later, it's dry as a bone.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • Belos has a list of ingredients for something called a Grimwalker, with the preceding page showing it to be some kind of artificial humanoid with red eyes and a familiar facial profile:
    Galdorstone (heart and power)
    Palistrom wood (keratin^note the protein that makes up skin, hair, nails, etc.)
    Stonesleeper lungs
    Selkidomus scales
    Bone of ORTET^note In botany, an ortet is the term for a parent plant which its lineage of clones descend from.
  • Amity's Tamagotchi is represented in their chats by a white cat, while Luz uses a bat icon.
• Funny Background Event:
  • When Willow, Gus, and Hooty are distracted listening to music over headphones, you can see a pot boiling over in the background.
  • When Eda, King, and Amity are trying to force the former through the door frame in her harpy form, Ghost walks off to the left with Owlbert riding on her head.
• Furry Reminder: The Owl Beast only agrees to let Eda use her harpy form after she promises to eat a bunch of voles—a favorite prey animal for barn owls, which the Owl Beast is visually based on.
• Gaslighting: Played with. Hunter says that Luz's emoji messages to Amity clearly mean that Luz wants results, and that there will be consequences if Amity fails. However, this is based on Hunter's Psychological Projection. While Hunter is making Amity paranoid and confused, he isn't intentionally trying to gaslight Amity; he's just reading it the way he sees it because of his treatment by Belos. Luz was actually complimenting Amity by sending her cutesy messages as well as important safety warnings the whole time; it takes King to help Amity see that Hunter is just plain wrong when it comes to what Luz is trying to say.
• Gem Heart: The recipe for a "Grimwalker" shown in the Cold Open says that a Galdorstone is used for the "heart"/power source of the creation.
• Godzilla Threshold: Played for Laughs, when Eda is negotiating with the Owl Beast to turn into her harpy form, it seems like what it's asking is a rather steep price, but she agrees to save Owlbert from cracking and herself, Amity, and King from falling to their dooms. The price isn't immediately revealed, but it turns out that she just had to eat some voles.
• Hammerspace: Amity's jar of Abomination goo only appears on her belt when she needs it. It's not an animation error either, at one point it glows and disappears after she returns the goo she used to stop a magic blast to it, so she must have a spell that allows her to do it.
• Have I Mentioned I Am Gay?: From when she was genuinely confused over what she was feeling, to her happily asking Luz to go out with her, Amity is now obsessed with identifying and proving herself an "Awesome Girlfriend" to Luz.
• Headphones Equal Isolation: Luz tries to call out to Gus, Willow and Hooty for help warning Amity of the Fool's Blood, but they're all listening to really loud music at the time, so they don't hear her (or notice the soup on the stove is boiling over).
• He Knows Too Much: Amity takes Hunter prisoner because she can't risk him snitching on her, Eda, and King to the other coven scouts.
• How Do I Shot Web?:
  • Eda can't produce her harpy form on demand until King suggests she speak with the Owl Beast to secure its cooperation. Then afterwards, she's unable to turn herself back to normal and has to tell King to get her an elixir.
  • Hunter struggles a bit at using Li'l Rascal in his fight with Amity, but he eventually figures it out.
• Ignored Epiphany: Downplayed, but Eda is so used to thinking of the Owl Beast as a wild animal that it takes King's suggestion for her to try and get into Harpy Eda form by talking to the Beast instead of forcing it.
• Ignored Expert: Twice, Eda and King ignore Hunter's warnings about dangers in the mines. Both times, they almost die because of it. Justified in that Hunter is Emperor Belos' right-hand man, so they're naturally skeptical of everything he says.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction: Hooty smashes through a window in order to tell Amity that the Owl House's perimeter is secure.
• Impairment Shot: Luz's vision is shown to be blurry from the mold infection. This causes her to accidentally break the crystal ball she intended to use to call Amity.
• Insecure Love Interest: Played for Drama. Amity still isn't confident in her and Luz's relationship, despite their Relationship Upgrade in the previous episode, and is determined to prove to everyone that she is "an awesome girlfriend". Amity constantly refers to herself as Luz's girlfriend in the Owl House, to the point that Eda tells her to knock it off. However, because Amity can't properly read Luz's emoji messages, Hunter says that Luz is going to break up with Amity if she fails to get Titan's Blood due to his Psychological Projection of his relationship with Belos, which reveals a lot of Amity's insecurities and how they stem from her abusive parents. At the end of the episode, Luz shows that Amity has nothing to prove; Luz already thinks she's awesome. All Amity has to do is not die doing this, and Luz wouldn’t want that.
  • Played with in a platonic sense. When Hunter is at his lowest, having failed to locate Titan's Blood and literally digging his own grave in the face of failure, the cardinal palisman tries to snap him out of it by prodding him and trying to drag him out of the grave. Hunter simply sinks down into it, telling the palisman to "find a better witch to be with" in a despairing voice.
• Internalized Categorism: This episode explores how Amity and Hunter have both internalized from their abusive families that they have to constantly work to prove they're "useful" just to exist, or those they love will discard them. Hunter also internalizes that if other people aren't useful, then they deserve to be discarded. Amity is able to break out of this when King shows her how to read Luz's emojis, showing that Luz's only concern is for Amity's well-being, and tries to encourage Hunter to do the same.
• It Can Think: This episode confirms the Owl Beast is intelligent and has the capacity to understand concepts such as bargaining; it refuses to let Eda transform into Harpy Eda until she agrees to eat a bunch of voles for it. King actually Lampshades her thinking it was still a wild animal when she previously thought the same of him when Eda found the little demon.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Obviously, the character on the Dragon Claw Z cover is without a doubt Goku, but under a different title.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Kikimora is so determined to show up Hunter that she disregards her subordinate's suggestion to be careful. This ends up costing her dearly.
• Meaningful Echo: Amity says that this mission will be the chance to prove that she's an "awesome girlfriend" to Luz. However, she realizes later that this is a toxic way of thinking left over from her unhealthy upbringing. Later, when she actually arrives from the mission, the first thing Luz tells her, without any prompting, is "I'm so glad my awesome girlfriend is okay." This reassures Amity that she doesn't need to "prove" that she's an awesome girlfriend because Luz already thinks she is one.
• Morph Weapon: Amity brings a small amount of Abomination Goo along on the trip to the Knee and can shift it into any shape she wants. She uses it first to restrain Hunter and shield against magical blasts. During her fight with him, she forms a spiked gauntlet and a blade from her palm.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: Despite being weakened by disease and rather delirious, the skinny Luz immediately tries to leap out the door of her room to get to Eclipse Lake after the Echo Mouse tells her about it. It takes the rest of the group working together to force her back inside and tie her up so she can't run off, Gus even calling her "shockingly strong".
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Amity takes the Portal Key away from Luz so that she doesn't do anything stupid like swallow it, then takes it with her on the mission, unaware that Emperor Belos needs it to complete the rebuilt portal. Even when Hunter indicates how important it is, she doesn't think to hide it, causing the two to come to blows when he sees it peeking out from her coat. Even if Amity was unaware of those facts, it still went against common sense for her to take it with her. Heck, Eda, King, and Amity didn't even need to go on this mission because the key already had the Titan's Blood they were looking for, not that they knew that at the time.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Amity fights Hunter off so effectively that he's forced to pull a Victory Through Intimidation. Doing so leads Amity to crack the portal key, leaving her with a fair portion of the Titan's Blood in the key while Hunter, by contrast, is visibly dismayed to realize that the damaged key has leaked out quite a bit of the Titan's Blood and may now be worthless.
• No Biochemical Barriers: Luz somehow got sick with an illness called the common mold, presumably because it's a fungus, which are less picky than viruses. Amity expresses concern over the fact that, despite it being known as a safe disease to witches, they have no way of knowing how seriously it could affect a human. When it finishes, Luz has a variety of fungi growing on her head that quickly crumble off, though whether that is normal for witches or not is unclear.
• Non-Answer: In the Cold Open, when Hunter asks Belos if he's being replaced by Kikimora in the Eclipse Lake mission as "punishment" for failing in his last mission, Belos simply smiles, wishes him good night, and shuts the door in his face.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Belos has been to the human world before. But nothing about how he got there or what he did was shown, though he clearly remembers it fondly.
  • When and how Amity got her palisman, Ghost, is never made clear. They just show up with no one batting an eye, implying that Amity's had her for a while at that point.
  • Eda saw an anime movie in theaters thirty years ago in the human world.
• Not So Above It All:
  • As Hooty and Gus argue over whether to play whale songs or hip-hop to soothe Luz, Willow snaps at them to be quiet... and to their mutual delight suggests playing them simultaneously.
  • When riding in the Abomaton mine carts, Kiki and her goons cannot help but go, "Wheeeeeeee!"
• "Not So Different" Remark: After Eda and King run off to distract Kikimora and the Emperor's Guard scouts, Hunter suggests he and Amity ditch them and split the Titan's Blood 50/50, noting that both of them risk disappointing someone they care about if they fail to get it. When Amity protests that she doesn't know what he's talking about, Hunter simply gives her a knowing stare.
• Not So Similar: Despite what Hunter says about how he and Amity have someone they can't afford to disappoint—Luz for Amity, Belos for Hunter—the difference is, as Amity realizes once King shows her how to read Luz's emoji messages, that Luz truly cares about Amity and is more concerned about her safety than acquiring the Titan's Blood. Belos, meanwhile, views Hunter merely as a tool and only values him so long as he proves useful as shown at the start of the episode when Belos implies to Hunter that he could have him easily replaced.
• Now You Tell Me: Once King shows Amity how to properly read Luz’s symbols, Amity finds Luz’s warnings about Hunter and the Fool’s Blood. In this case, this was on Amity and not on Luz, which Amity acknowledges. The latter did warn her early on, but Amity didn’t know how to interpret the messages so she ended up finding out the hard way before knowing how.
• Offering a Hand: Upon seeing Hunter in despair about not finding any Titan's Blood, Amity tells him that he was right about there being similarities between them, and offers up a hand in friendship. However, Hunter, upon seeing the portal key around Amity's neck, tries attacking her in order to get the key.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Hunter gets this expression when he gets the implication from Belos that he can be replaced.
  • Amity gets this look on her face when she sees Hunter staring at the key around her neck and realizes he's about to fight her.
• Our Homunculi Are Different: In contrast to the Muck Monster Abominations, a "grimwalker" is apparently a more humanoid sapient construct, with the Cold Open strongly implying that Hunter is one.
• Pinball Projectile: The Anti-Magic properties of the Titan's veins cause spells to simply bounce right off of it. Hunter takes advantage of this during his fight with Amity by ricocheting a Magic Missile Storm off the ground to restrict her movement.
• Poor Communication Kills: Amity starts to believe that Luz's Tamagotchi messages are more sinister than they are because she can't understand what Luz is saying with the emojis. Hunter, drawing on his own experience with Belos, assumes these messages to be a threat. It turns out she was just spelling things with the emojis that looked closest to the letter she wanted, which King reveals by turning the Tamagotchi so the message can be read vertically instead of horizontally. Instead of some sort of strange code or hidden meaning, the messages just said things like "U R RAD". Clearly, things would've gone a lot smoother if Luz had shown Amity beforehand how to properly read them. Or if Amity had simply asked what they meant instead of pretending she understood. (Given that Luz was pretty out of it at the time...though explaining a compliment would’ve cheapened its value.)
• Portal Pool: The titular lake is Titan's Blood mixed in water. Its surface reflects a view into the human world of trees and the sky, and is apparently how Philip Wittebane first came to the Demon Realm.
• Present Absence: Alador and Odalia's abuse of Amity and how it influenced her view of healthy relationships is the driving force for almost all of her actions. Despite this, neither of them are seen or even directly mentioned at any point.
• Pride: Once again, Amity’s pride kicks in. She knows just how important returning home is for Luz, that she WILL do what it takes. However, she’s too proud to admit and tell Luz that she doesn’t have things under control and that she’s having a lot of trouble at the moment, under the impression that Luz thinks she should. Every time things go wrong, her instinct is to just to bury it. Once she finds out the lake is dry, she’s at a loss of what to do. Because of her pride, she’s too obsessed with making sure to fulfill whatever Luz needs that she didn’t take the time to understand how to read Luz’s messages and she ends up intercepting warnings from her way too late.
• Properly Paranoid:
  • Amity makes it a point to double down on the Owl House's defenses, as their portal project might draw a lot of attention. Amity's suspicions are confirmed when Hunter reminds Amity that the Emperor's Coven knows where Luz and Eda live.
  • Kikimora is becoming increasingly paranoid that Hunter is out to get her much to the guards' detriment... and is right on the money that he was skulking nearby, though not for the reasons she assumes.
• Psychological Projection: Hunter convinces Amity that Luz's strange emoji messages are a cryptic warning to come back with results or there will be consequences, because that's what Belos would tell him. It takes King's input to help Amity realize Hunter's views are based on his own twisted experiences with Belos, and that Luz isn't like that; Hunter is just flat-out wrong.
• Pyrrhic Victory:
  • As detailed in Philip's journal, though he was able to retrieve Titan's Blood, his companions unfortunately lost their lives in the process, rendering his journey to Eclipse Lake "a success, and yet a tragic failure."
  • Hunter successfully blackmails Amity into getting the key by point out that he knows where Luz lives, but Amity surreptitiously and spitefully crushes it so that the Titan's Blood inside leaks out, potentially rendering it useless.
• Queer Colors: In addition to spending the entire episode in her purple-toned pajamas, Luz wears pink and blue socks on each of her hands.
• Redemption Rejection: After seeing him having a breakdown over finding the lake empty, Amity tells Hunter that she understands what it's like to feel like you have to justify your existence to other people and tells him that there are people out there who won't make him feel worthless while offering him a hand. Unfortunately, once Hunter sees the key around her neck, he attacks Amity so he can deliver it to Belos.
• Remember the New Guy?: Amity's new palisman, Ghost. No-one seems surprised to see it, implying it's been around for a while. Justified as Willow mentioned that Amity has been hanging around the Owl House a lot lately, implying that she got Ghost during this time period.
• The Reveal:
  • Belos' face is finally revealed. He looks like a normal, humanoid witch, but with a plant-like streak that runs across his face and down his neck and a notch in his ear matching Hunter's. He's been to the human world before.
  • It's strongly implied that Hunter is an Artificial Witch — a type of homunculus called a Grimwalker — with Belos planning to use him for something during the Day of Unity.
  • Eclipse Lake was where Philip crossed over from the human realm to the Boiling Isles.
• Rewatch Bonus: Once it's revealed that Luz's emojis are vertically-aligned words, you'll find the first thing she sends is "U R PRETTY", which makes her look of confusion at Amity responding with "you got it" a lot more understandable.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Kikimora is correct that Hunter was skulking nearby, though she assumes in her paranoia that it's because he's out to get her when he's actually just trying to prove his worth to Belos.
• Rollercoaster Mine: Subverted; King was looking forward to a Chase Scene on the mine carts, but Kikimora's group trying to ride a mine track at high speed simply causes their cart to derail.
• Running Gag:
  • Amity's repeated reminders that she's now Luz's girlfriend, much to Eda's and King's annoyance. Eda eventually gets so fed up with it that she tells Amity to knock it off.
  • Kikimora and Eda both remark that Hunter's voice is distinctly annoying — the former narrowly missing shooting him with her Abomaton after she thinks she hears his voice.
    Hunter: [sadly] Why does everyone say that?
• Sadistic Choice: Once Hunter realizes Amity would be able to outfight him and get away should the fight continue, he gives her an ultimatum: give him the key now or, since he knows where Luz lives, he will go get it later with an army.
• Sanity Slippage:
  • After her failed attempt to assassinate Hunter, Kikimora has grown increasingly paranoid and delusional that he's deliberately trying to sabotage her position with Belos.
    Kikimora: Why are we stopping? Is it the Golden Guard?! [looks around, ready to fight]
    Coven Captain: No, ma'am. This is a dangerous area. We need to move carefully.
    Kikimora: Careful takes too long! My butt is on the line, and so help me Titan if you ruin this I will throw you off the tallest peak of the Knee with a smile!
    Eda: Ugh... that poor girl is going through something...
  • After having let Luz escape with the palismen in "Hunting Palismen", Hunter is desperate to prove his worth to Belos. Finding Eclipse Lake empty causes him to crack, and Amity finds him sitting in the empty lake bed, manically cheerful as he digs his own grave with his bare hands. Seeing Amity has the portal key causes him to snap out of it.
    Hunter: (flatly) Don't worry. I won't pick a fight. There's no Titan Blood.
    Amity: Then... why are you digging?
    Hunter: (smiling brightly) O-ho-ho, it's simple, really. Belos needs Titan Blood to make a new portal key. Can't get to the Human Realm without it! [...] Since I failed my last mission, I thought "hey, a chance to make up for it". But I can't go back empty-handed! (unhinged laugh; suddenly serious) Not again... (cheerful again) Long story short, this is m' grave! Want me to make you one too?
    King: This is really bumming me out...
    Hunter: That's just life, rat. Everyone has a use. And if you don't... (blows raspberry) Buh-bye!
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Eda plans to scare away Kikimora's group by pretending to be a ghost miner.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Once Kikimora hears him, Hunter decides to run and find another way into the mines, only to encounters Eda’s party and get taken prisoner by Amity.
• Self-Disposing Villain: Non-fatal version. Kikimora and her guards end up knocking themselves out when they tried to take a high-speed minecart ride through a mineshaft that hasn't been maintained for many years, saving Eda and King the trouble. Though the Captain of the Guard was able to recover, Eda's fight with her was over fairly quickly.
• Shout-Out:
  • Belos' notes about how to make a grimwalker resemble Mary Shaw's notes about puppet building in the opening of Dead Silence. Pretty ironic, given what we learn about Belos' grimwalkers later on.
  • King has a CD called "lo-fi beats to study and relax to".
  • Eda's "Human Workout" VHS is called Dragon Claw Z and has what appears to be a parody of Gotenks on the cover.
  • The CD Gus finds called "Twenty-Four Hours of Whale Noises"? It's real (although it's actually only about half an hour long).
  • One of the stuffed animals in Luz's room is Puu.
  • Eda's suggestion for a distraction is covering her face with her hair to disguise herself as "The Ghost of Miners Past".
  • Hunter digging his grave in the dry lake to escape Belos' wrath is evocative of Tom doing the same to not be spanked by Spike the dog.
  • Luz and Amity use Tamagotchi pets as communication devices.
• Shadow Archetype: The relationship between Belos/Hunter is one to Luz/Amity. Amity and Hunter are both devoted to their loved ones, and proving their worth to them. But while Hunter is willing to go to nearly any lengths to gain Belos' approval, Amity has lines she won't cross, even for Luz. And while Belos' affection for Hunter relies on him proving himself useful, Luz's love for Amity is unconditional, thinking she's "awesome" no matter what.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: Amity, Eda, and King head to a location at the Knee of the Titan to acquire some of its mystical blood at a spot known as Eclipse Lake. Unfortunately, when they get there, nearly killing themselves in the process, they find it's bone-dry. And as it turns out, the Portal Key already had Titan's Blood in it, making the entire trip pointless. Worse, Amity ends up being forced to give the portal key to Hunter. The only consolation is that Amity was able to crack the key before she handed it over, managing to catch some of the blood on her glove while depriving Hunter of about half from the key, so the mission wasn't a total loss.
• Shapeshifter Mode Lock: Eda suffers this at the end of the episode, being unable to revert back to her normal form after finally managing to transform into Harpy Eda. Fortunately, it appears that the elixir is enough to undo it.
• Sick Episode: Luz is sick with "the common mold", so she can’t make the window to obtain the Titan’s Blood, allowing her new girlfriend to take the spotlight. Meanwhile, Gus and Willow are left to tend to Luz.
• Sickness Equals Redness: The common mold gives Luz a red nose.
• Silly Song: The delirious-from-sickness Luz sings a little ditty to the echo mouse:
  Little mouse, Owl House, frilly blouse, boop!
• Sincerity Mode: After Hunter forces Amity to give him the portal key he thanks her for her service in his usual sarcastic tone of voice. However, before he leaves, he tells Amity that he genuinely means it in a more sincere tone of voice.
• Skewed Priorities: Kikimora is more interested in getting revenge on Hunter than getting the Titan's Blood.
• Sole Survivor: Philip's diary states that he was the only one of his group to survive a cave-in caused by Fool's Blood.
• Stating the Simple Solution: When Eda is having trouble going into Harpy Eda mode and complains that nothing she's tried has worked, King suggests that she tries talking to the Owl Beast to get it to work.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: Both Kikimora and Eda think Hunter's voice is annoying.
• Subverted Rhyme Every Occasion: Given how Luz likes to be clever, her latest message to Amity reads like a poem, though only the first two lines rhyme:
  U R RAD
  FOOLS BLOOD BAD
  U OKAY
  COME HOME
• Super Cell Reception: Luz is somehow able to use her Tamagotchi to send messages to Amity when the latter is halfway across the Titan and inside a mine shaft.
• Sympathy for the Devil:
  • Eda appears to be concerned over Kikimora's Sanity Slippage, saying that "the poor girl's going through something".
  • Amity ends up feeling sympathetic for Hunter after she sees how similar their situations are and tries to reach out to the guy when he starts (literally) digging his own grave. The latter part even gets King feeling bad for him.
• Take a Third Option: Amity hands over the portal key to Hunter, but not before breaking it open so she could catch some of the Titan's Blood contained in it.
• Take That!: The Dragon Ball franchise is mocked for being "ancient", and for the characters' practice of transforming by yelling and posing.
  Eda: Thirty years old?! I remember seeing this in theatres.
• Totem Pole Trench: Discussed when King suggests to Eda about a trenchcoat disguise when they plan possible distractions.
• Transforming Mecha: The Abomatons display the ability to turn into mine carts for Kikimora and her goons to ride.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • Hunter convinces Amity to release him so he can escape, only to immediately trip her and try to reach Eclipse Lake first. After that doesn't pan out, he goes to any lengths he can to steal the key from her, even though she tried to help him. Amity even complains that kindness usually works for Luz. He does, however, genuinely thank Amity for handing over the key.
  • Hunter is utterly and completely devoted to Belos, loves him like a father, wants nothing more than to help him, works himself to the bone to prove himself worthy of him, and would rather die than disappoint him. Meanwhile it's implied that Belos is planning to murder Hunter.
• The Un-Reveal: At the end of the episode, the cardinal palisman reveals its name to Hunter... but because only Hunter is able to understand him, the audience doesn't get to hear what it is.
• Verbal Backspace: Amity says that "Luz is counting on me" as the group is trudging up the Knee looking for Eclipse Lake, then after seeing Eda and King shoot a look at her, revises it to "us".
• Victory Through Intimidation: How Hunter ultimately "wins" the fight. He admits that Amity is strong and would likely be able to escape, but he and the Emperor's Coven know where to find both her and Luz. After that Implied Death Threat is spoken, Amity relents and gives him the Key as long as he stays away from Luz... but not before breaking the Key and collecting some of the Titan Blood in her glove.
• The Villain Knows Where You Live: When he sees that he can't beat Amity in a straight fight, Hunter tells Amity to hand over the portal key, or else he'll show up to the Owl House and the Blight family home with an army to get it by any means necessary.
• Villain Opening Scene: Just like "Hunting Palismen", the episode starts with a scene at the Emperor's castle as the maskless Emperor Belos is trying to activate the portal.
• Violently Protective Girlfriend: Amity swears to protect Luz at all cost, and Hunter discovers this the hard way.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Played with. Eda can transform into her owl harpy form, but she has to ask for permission. To turn back she has to take an elixir.
• Wham Episode:
  • Belos' face is shown for the first time without his mask on, revealing a vine-like mark across the left side of his face. In addition, the audience learns that he's been to the human world before.
  • There is a heavy hint that the Golden Guard is an Artificial Human creation called a Grimwalker, and that he's a literal ingredient in Belos' plans.
  • Amity gets a white cat palisman named Ghost. The portal key is also broken by Amity, with Amity keeping half of the Blood found inside while Hunter steals the rest.
• Worf Had the Flu: Hunter isn't at full power in this episode because he isn't using his advanced Magic Staff (which would've given him away to Kikimora). Later, when using Li'l Rascal, he has a learning curve with how to use a palisman in a fight, finding the magic he can use different from what he's used to. Both of these factors make it much easier for Amity to fight against him, to the point he's forced to admit he'd likely lose in a straight-up fight; Hunter has to resort to Victory Through Intimidation instead of physically defeating Amity.
• Would Hurt a Child: The Captain has no problem throwing Amity down a crevice, just because she's bored.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Hunter sounds absolutely terrified when Kikimora is about to find him and Amity, voice cracking as he begs Amity to either take him with her or untie his hands so he can escape. When Amity obliges and unties his hands, he promptly sweeps her legs out from under her and takes off towards Eclipse Lake, leaving Amity to be found by Kikimora. Downplayed, as despite his fear being at least partially an act, Kikimora still poses a serious threat to Hunter's life and would've either killed or detained him if she'd found him.
• You Have Failed Me: Invoked and discussed by Kikimora and Hunter, who assume that Belos will have them executed or otherwise harshly punished if they fail to bring back Titan's Blood. After finding Eclipse Lake empty, Hunter even starts digging his own grave to save Belos the effort. His flawed analysis of Luz's text messages leads him to unwittingly gaslight Amity — who constantly had to prove her worth to her Social Darwinist mother — into believing that this could the case for her with Luz if she fails to show results — though once Amity discovers that Luz was shooting her compliments, giving warnings and showing concern for her safety she scolds herself for even thinking that Luz would be capable of such a thing.

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