Recap / Amphibia S3E02 "Hop 'Til You Drop"

Three frogs walk into a mall...

Mr. Boonchuy: Something wrong, kiddo?
Anne: Where do I start?! Polly nearly got in a fight; Hop Pop was seconds away from getting scammed; and Sprig almost got turned into wood chips!
Mrs. Boonchuy: Wait, Sprig is made out of wood?
Anne: (groans wearily) I'm exhausted just trying to keep them all alive!

Anne brings the Plantars to the mall for a crash course on acceptable behavior and safety on Earth, but the results become disastrous.

Full Recap

The episode begins with Anne going to check the mail and agreeing to allowing the Plantars to come with her. However, things quickly get out of hand when Polly almost gets into a fight with two children for nearly crashing into her, Sprig almost falls into a wood chipper, and Hop Hop almost falls for a scam. Eventually, Anne grabs them and quickly takes them back inside. She then explains what happened outside to her parents and says to them it's exhausting work to keep the Plantars safe. They suggested to her that she takes it slow and steady.

Unfortunately, Anne sees Sprig trying to touch the ceiling fan with his tongue, Polly trying to attract the two children to fight her and Hop Pop talking to the same guy who's still scamming him, making her so furious.

Anne decides to take a trial-by-fire approach to getting the Plantars acclimated to the human world and takes them to the most dangerous place she can think of…the shopping mall. There, she gives each of the Plantars a challenge to complete, and if they don't they can never leave the house again…EVER. Polly must head to the "Create-A-Carnivore" plush building store and successfully build a toy with other children without getting into a fight. Sprig, who loves exploring the different textures and materials of Earth, must go through an art gallery without touching anything, and Hop Pop must go down Kiosk Alley without getting suckered into taking anything for free.

Everything seems to be going smoothly until a classmate of Anne's finds her and starts catching her up on the gossip that she missed while she was "visiting family in Alaska." While her back is turned, Sprig manages to destroy an art piece full of cranks and knobs and is sent barrelling through the mall, Polly reaches her breaking point and starts a fight with a bunch of babies who destroyed her plush creation, and Hop Pop goes diving into a chlorinated-fountain to round up all the free coppers (coins) in it after being pursued by mall security.

Anne breaks free of her classmate's gossip, and rounds up Sprig and Polly and redisguises them so they can get out of the way, and set the mall security guard on the angry baby moms, allowing a newly-green (thanks to the chlorine of the fountain) Hop Pop to get away.

The Plantars apologize to Anne, but Anne turns around and apologizes to them, saying that she shouldn't have thrown them in the deep end like she dealt with in Amphibia. The Plantars start laughing and we see quick clips of moments where they were looking out for Anne without her even knowing it to make sure she is protected and safe. They promise to listen to her next time and hug it out, before realizing that Hop Pop needs to take a shower because his skin is burning.

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Tropes:

• Amazing Technicolor Population: Besides the chlorine in the fountain turning Hop Pop's skin green, nobody the Plantars interact with in their human disguises seems to notice their purple, pink and orange skin colours.
• Aside Glance: When Sprig causes all the art to crash in one giant ball, a passerby notes that she can't tell the difference before looking at the audience.
• Batman Gambit: Anne sets the angry moms onto the security guard, knowing that they'd distract him long enough for them to flee.
• Big Ball of Violence: Polly starts one with little children at the mall after they break the toy she had just finished building, after so many struggles.
• Billions of Buttons: The sculpture that finally breaks Sprig is an incomprehensible thing covered in buttons, levers, wheels, and various hanging things.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: Polly pulls Mickey Mouse's nose and mouth from the pile of nose parts and then chucks it aside.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Played for Laughs. Mrs Boonchuy takes Anne's statement that 'Sprig was nearly turned into wood chips'— as in, he nearly crawled into a live woodchipper— to mean that the bizarre otherworldly lifeform living in her house really is made out of wood.
• Blatant Lies: When a fellow classmate of hers, Gabby, sees Anne at the mall and she asks her where she's been for so long, Anne replies that she was just at her family's farm in Alaska for five months. This is despite the glaringly obvious fact that two other classmates of hers went missing at the exact time she did. Though Anne was technically on a family farm for those months— just not her biological family's.
• Blunt "Yes": Anne tells Hop Pop that in her world, there is no such thing as "free", and that every deal has a price. An incredulous Hop Pop asks her if people think he's gullible and easily scammed. She immediately replies "Yep." He concedes that she has a point.
• Both Sides Have a Point: The Plantars correctly point out to Anne that Earth is 'soft' compared to a Death World like Amphibia, where the animals in a city don't try to disembowel them on sight and they have a ton of conveniences around in the form of supermarkets stocked with food, but Anne is also correct in that that Plantars don't know how to act normal or blend in, or in Sprig's case have a serious issue with personally investigating everything around them, no matter how inappropriate or dangerous it is.
• Brake Angrily: After Polly is outside and nearly run over by two bratty children on a bike, she calls them "overgrown stink bugs." This causes them to stop the bike they were riding.
• Breather Episode: A somewhat subtle one compared to the intensity of the season premiere, which had a killer robot pursuing Anne and the Plantars.
• Call-Back:
  • Once again, Hop Pop assumes a phenomenon with a scientific explanation behind it was caused by dark magic.
  • Like last episode Sprig and Polly form a Totem Pole Trench to form an impromptu human disguise when they're being pursued by angry mothers, except this time Polly actually does form the head. And once again, Polly nearly overbalances thanks to Sprig making unexpected movements beneath her.
• Comically Missing the Point: When complaining to her parents about her exhaustion from protecting the Plantars in this human world, Anne brings up how Sprig was almost turned into wood chips (she had to save him from crawling into a wood chipper). A confused Mrs. Boonchuy asks aloud if Sprig is made out of wood.
• Company Cross References:
  • One of the sculptures is of Bill Cipher.
  • When Anne and the Plantars escape the mall, a Li'l Gideon plushie can be seen behind the trash cans.
• Disaster Dominoes: Sprig plays with a giant sculpture that is a mish-mash of levers, buttons, and things of every texture. One little fuzzball on a string falls off, bounces around, and hits a lever that makes the entire thing collapse. From there, the giant eye on top rolls through the exhibits, creating a ball of art that eventually crashes into a wall.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Hop Pop keeps getting nearly scammed out of money. This is a clear reference to elder fraud.
• Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: Anne tries to work this mindset into Sprig with his insatiable need to see and specifically touch as many human objects around him as he can, from balls of cotton to cool artwork to the spinning blades of a woodchopper or a ceiling fan. It doesn't work out so well.
• Enfant Terrible: The babies at the toy store are suprisingly aggressive and violent.
• Evolving Credits: Beginning with this episode, Marcy is removed from the group shot at the end of the theme song and is replaced with Domino.
• Forbidden Fruit: Sprig has a serious problem with this, bordering on a compulsion to physically touch anything new or interesting that catches his eye, from some art sculptures to the spinning blades of a wood chipper. Anne's challenge to him to not touch anything around him even starts him scratching at himself to distract from the urge, akin to an addict missing a fix.
• Foreshadowing: Mr Boonchuy advises Anne to slowly ease the Plantars into living on Earth gradually, trying to use a metaphor of an egg he's frying being gently tapped to crack its shell first so the contents can be poured into the pan, only to accidentally tap the egg too hard/fast and causing it to crack in two and the whole thing to fall in. Similarly, Anne's attempt to forcefully adapt the Planters to Earth life asap by 'pushing them into the deep end' backfires massively because they're not ready for the challenges of Earth culture, causing the whole trip to go haywire.
• Gossipy Hens: Once Gabby sees Anne and meets her for the first time in months, she tells her information about romance going on at her school. Anne finds this really annoying, and it distracts her from the Plantars, whom she is supposed to be watching.
• Grievous Bottley Harm: One of the babies smashes its milk bottle for use as an improvised shiv against Polly.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Polly's Hot-Blooded temperament might have been socially acceptable back in Wartwood, but on Earth, it causes her to rub people the wrong way, with several human children she shouts at looking like they Would Hurt a Child. Anne therefore tries to give Polly a task that will test her patience at the mall, as a means of teaching her how to control her angry outbursts. It doesn't work out so well.
• Human Snowball: Sprig ends up toppling a sculpture, which rolls through the art exhibit, gathering artwork into one giant jumble.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: PG version. After barely saving the Plantars from the various hazards on Earth just outside their door, due to their unfamiliarity with Earth social customs and such, Anne heads straight to the fridge and chugs a can of orange juice to help herself unwind.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: When Polly gets fed up with a little boy who keeps touching a toy she's trying to create, she complains about him to his nearby mother while calling him a "chubby spawn." Said mother is immediately offended by the use of the word "spawn".
• Instantly Proven Wrong: The Plantars were pretty sure they could navigate the human world pretty well, since it wasn't a Death World. Then they all fall down an escalator.
• Is That a Threat?: When a fed up Anne angrily tells the Plantars that they would be dead in two days if it wasn't for her, an offended Polly responds with this phrase.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: A woman briefly addresses the audience for a comical Take That! against avant-garde sculpture art.
  Woman: Honestly, I can't tell the difference. [looks at the camera and finger-guns] Ooh, hey! Bada-bing!
• The Mall: The episode's main setting is the Willow Brooke Mall in the human world, where Anne claims she learned about the world and is full of dangers.
• Major Injury Underreaction: Hop Pop dives into the mall fountain to collect the 'free coppers' he sees in there, not understanding that the processed water in the fountain contains chlorine. Initially the only effect appears to be that it turns his skin green, but towards the end he reveals that it's a very painful situation for him.
  Sprig: I think we need to get Hop Pop to a shower.
  Hop Pop: (very calmly) Oh, yes please. My skin is burning.
• Meaningful Name: Anne's old friend Gabby, a gossipy Motor Mouth.
• Noodle Incident: In-Universe. The Plantars have a laugh when Anne says that her experiences being 'thrown in the deep end' in Amphibia worked out for her, retorting that she barely survived her time Trapped in Another World and ignorant of its dangers. Polly mentions one time Anne was so distracted by her phone she walked into a pool of quicksand, and Sprig mentions one time she was napping outside and a swarm of Skullsuckers tried to carry Anne away, with the accompanying image showing the Plantars and the flying bugs struggling over Anne's unconscious body.
  Anne: Wait, I don't remember that last part!
• Offscreen Teleportation: Anne tries to get away from Gabby, but she keeps appearing from off-frame, much to her unease.
• Phoneaholic Teenager: Anne once walked into quicksand because she was distracted by her phone.
• Quicksand Sucks: One of the instances of Anne getting in danger in Amphibia that the Plantars bring up is how she almost got sucked down in quicksand which required the Plantars to pull her out.
• Rage Breaking Point: Polly was actually doing pretty well building her plushy despite the little kids constantly annoying her. It's only when one brat deliberately destroys it after she finally finishes that she snaps. Earlier, Anne hits one of these seeing the Plantars still getting into danger again after she just saved them not three minutes ago.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Anne gets these when she hits her breaking point keeping the Plantars in line and out of danger.
• Red Filter of Doom: Shown around Anne snapping out at the Plantars' antics, to show how furious she is.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: Sprig climbing a sculpture causes a chain reaction that trips a lever which disassembles the artwork. As in, that is literally what the lever is supposed to do.
• Shout-Out:
  • The store where Polly is sent is called Construct-A-Carnivore, which is a spoof of Build-A-Bear. Another store seem in the background is "Uniq-no".
  • Among the art exhibits are sculptures of a cactuar and a fly resembling Maggie Pesky.
  • The giant eyeball gathers debris as it rolls along, much like a Katamari.
• Shared Family Quirks: Both Sprig and Hop Pop comment 'chance!' to themselves upon seeing Anne is distracted from watching them by talking to Gabby before instantly giving into temptation.
• Shmuck Bait: Anne tries to get Hop Pop out of falling for scams or offers of free stuff that rely on these, getting him to walk down a vendor's isle without picking up a single offer or listening to anybody's deals. This too, doesn't work out so well.
• Sink or Swim Mentor: Anne figures the only way the Plantars will learn to survive in her world is to throw them in the deep end so they'll learn quickly. To that end, she takes them to the mall and gives them tasks designed to push the limits of their restraint.
• Spanner in the Works: Anne is observing all three of the Plantars from the mall's upper levels when one of her old friends comes across her, deciding to catch her up on all the local gossip she's missed since she was 'away at the family farm in Alaska', distracting her just as things starts going wrong for the Plantars. In Sprig and Hop Pop's case, seeing Anne is no longer watching them is what causes them to succumb to temptation and start touching the art exhibits/grabbing all the 'free coppers' he can.
• Super Gullible: Hop Pop falls for every scammer he runs across.
• Too Dumb to Live: Sprig nearly puts himself inside a wood chipper and tries to lick a ceiling fan.
• True Art Is Incomprehensible: A couple In-Universe examples.
  • Sprig collapses in front of a statue, slapping himself to keep from touching it. One of the watchers thinks it might be performance art.
  • When the pieces of several art installations crash into a wall and arrange themselves in a pile, someone in a nearby store admits that they can't see any difference.
• Wingding Pupils: When Sprig resorts to punching himself in the face to curb his compulsion to touch interesting objects in the art exhibit, his pupil briefly turns into a star.
• Wild Take: Anne pulls a couple of these seeing the Plantars pulling Offscreen Teleportation to somehow end up in immediate danger just by stepping outside her house to collect the mail.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks. Played With. Hop Pop mistakes a bunch of pennies in the mall's fountain as being equivalent to Amphibia's coppers currency, causing him to dive into it to claim the free money. The exact value of one copper to pennies has never been clarified but it's likely Hop Pop was vastly overestimating the monetary value of what he took out of the fountain, but they were certainly worth something to the wishers.

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