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Recap / Total Drama: "Caved by the Bell"

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The final four collect coins in the underground caverns of Mt. Drama while avoiding the wrath of a vicious cave-dwelling monster.


Tropes:

  • And There Was Much Rejoicing: When she thinks Priya and Millie have died, Julia happily dances and sings that she's a finalist.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: Not Julia but Bowie definitely does, he got his biggest rival eliminated and destroyed Priya and Millie's friendship so they can't gang up on him in the finale.
  • Bait-and-Switch Comparison: After Julia tosses Bowie on a giant spider's web and the spider wraps him, he asks in the confessional what has eight legs and is the worst thing on the planet. His answer is "four Julias".
  • Call-Back: The logo on the coins is the same one used for Team Chris Is Really Really Really Really Hot during World Tour.
  • Chekhov's Gun: During the challenge explanation, Chef mentions that the cave monster was eating coins faster than he could place them. Later, after getting eaten alive by said monster, Priya and Millie discover a large pile of coins that far outweigh Julia’s collection of coins in number. This is what allows Priya to win the challenge and finally send Julia home.
  • Continuity Nod: Chris and Chef having a Side Bet in the penultimate episode is similar to "I Triple Dog Dare You!".
  • Eaten Alive: Priya and Millie get eaten by the giant monster fish. They survive, though.
  • Happy Dance: When she thinks her enemies Priya and Millie are buried under some rocks, Julia happily dances.
  • Hope Spot: Julia manages to collect enough coins for her to believe that she won the challenge once she and Bowie left the cave. She also believes she'll easily win in the finale thanks to teaming up with Bowie and having often beaten him in challenges before. However, when Priya and Millie return, it turns out that thanks to being Eaten Alive by the monster, they managed to collect even more coins, which the monster had eaten. Priya wins immunity, and Bowie betrays Julia to vote her out.
  • Hijacked by Ganon: A minor one. Having successfully gotten Julia eliminated, Bowie becomes the Big Bad of the season as he was set up to be in the first episode.
  • The Millstone: Bowie tries to be this during his alliance with Julia, but she's too strong to be slowed down by him. Millie is this with Priya since she ends up losing almost all of their coins.
  • New Rules as the Plot Demands: Subverted. Chris reveals a new rule: in the event of a tie, the person with the most immunity wins stays. This plants the idea that Bowie actually voted for Millie, but it turns out he still voted for Julia, much to the surprise of Chris and Chef.
  • No Honor Among Thieves: Much to Julia's surprise, she really couldn't trust Bowie to not vote her out. She rants about this as she walks down the Dock of Shame.
  • Playing Both Sides: Bowie plays the role of a triple agent like a pro in this episode, as he joins up with Priya and Millie to take down Julia, pretends to join up with Julia to take down either Millie or Priya during the challenge while secretly trying to sabotage her, and all the while, planning to use Millie’s notebook to tear apart Priya and Millie’s alliance to keep them too busy dealing with each other to stop him from winning the finale. Though Julia’s challenge prowess and Millie's lack thereof cause a hiccup here and there, the plan ultimately goes off without a hitch, Julia is finally sent home, and the last shot of the episode is Bowie smugly watching as Priya and Millie’s friendship crumbles into the dust.
  • Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Bowie giftwraps Millie's notebook and gives it to Priya, who reads every judgemental comment Millie had written about the others, her, her parents, and her life. Priya swears vengeance on Millie as a result, preventing the two of them from being united against Bowie in the finals.
  • Primal Fear: Bowie is afraid of spiders. In one confessional, he recounts that he didn't go to the basement in four years after he saw a spider there.
  • Running Gag: Millie mentions how the superhero costume that Priya made for the two of them is giving her a wedgie multiple times throughout the episode.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Side Bet: As revealed near the end of the challenge, Chef had bet Chris that the monster would eat at least one of the contestants.
  • We Win, Because You Didn't: According to Chris, a new rule of the series is that from now on, if the bonfire ceremony results in a tie, instead of a tiebreaker between the two contestants, the marshmallow will automatically go to whoever has the most immunity wins, though it's never established what happens if there's a tie before the merge or if the tie is between two contestants who both have either the same amount of immunity wins or no immunity wins at all. Since Julia won three challenges vs Millie’s one, this would’ve sent Millie home over Julia easily if it had come to that. Thankfully, Bowie upholds his end of the deal, and Julia is sent home instead.
  • Yank the Dog's Chain: Chris declares a new rule saying that instead of a tie breaker, the person with the most previous immunities wins all tie's. This would have saved Julia if Bowie had honoured their agreement, unfortunately he didn't. Whether Chris had already read the last vote and was deliberately invoking this or not is unclear.

 
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Julia's elimination

As the season's antagonists, Julia and Bowie were in a alliance, only for the elimination ceremony to reveal that Bowie managed to double-cross Julia. Julia is caught off-guard, ranting about how she couldn't trust a fellow villain after all.

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