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Recap / Star vs. the Forces of Evil S4 E17 "Meteora's Lesson"

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While Eclipsa is away at an important meeting, Glossaryck takes Meteora on a secret training session with a time travel twist.


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  • Been There, Shaped History: Glossaryck half-heartedly helped the first mewman settlers by giving them Meteora's rattle and converting it into the Wand. He then gifted it to a random woman and warned them to seek shelter from a storm under a nearby stump. He also fueled the monster-mewman war by provoking Toffee into attacking him, so Meteora would use magic in retaliation for what he did to his arm some time ago. This attack was set prior to Comet's attempt of peace.
  • Brainy Baby: Despite her infancy, Meteora is shown to be able to understand everything Glossaryck communicates to her and is able to dip down near the end of the episode.
  • The Bus Came Back: Glossaryck and Meteora's time travel trip brings them to the reign of Comet Butterfly where they see Toffee before he and his splinter faction assassinated her and went rogue.
  • Call-Back:
    • Glossaryck uses the same pop-up book from "Mewnipendence Day" to explain to the first Mewni settlers who they are.
    • He also tells the settlers to huddle up near a giant stump to protect themselves from an upcoming storm. This would result in the first ever "Stump Day".
    • Eclipsa is seen refreshing her pigeon speak at the start of the episode; she was first shown speaking the language in "Tough Love".
  • Decoy Protagonist: The first scene of the episode implies it will be A Day in the Limelight for Janna and Meteora, then as soon as Eclipsa leaves she pulls out her phone and completely checks out at which point the true protagonist Glossaryck appears from under Meteora's crib.
  • Evil Is Petty: Past Toffee thought the green leaf hat Glossaryck was wearing was stupid, so he just snapped his right arm. Glossaryck did not take that well, to say the least.
  • Exorcist Head: Meteora demonstrates several times that she can rotate her head around a full 360° with no harm.
  • Fantastically Indifferent: Past Toffee is not surprised at seeing a time-travelling Glossaryck, with him recalling Glossaryck's fairly recent encounter that ended with his arm getting snapped.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • There were early hints that Glossaryck's arm was never truly broken and that he could simply replace. For the former, he moves said broken in the same manner as his unbroken arm in his early conversation with Meteora, finding Father Time, and annoyed at the thought of seeing Reynaldo. For the latter, he makes copies of arms during his teaching of Meteora of the beginning.
    • While on Reynaldo's boat, Glossaryck instructs Meteora to continue to learn to "dip down" and then comments she's getting closer. And when she gets angry at a young Toffee for trying to break Glossaryck's other arm, she finally learns to "dip down".
  • Gang Initiation Fight: For a Septarian to join Toffee's army, they need to have an appendage bitten off and grown back to prove they're invincible.
  • Identity Amnesia: The settling Mewmans were doused in the golden goo of the Realm of Magic and had all their memories of who they are and what they're doing erased.
  • Irony: Toffee's hatred for Mewmans and belief in monster supremacy, was escalated by Meteora. A child of Mewman and monster lineage.
  • It's Personal: One of Glossaryck's trips to the past got his arm broken by Toffee, so he decides to bring baby Meteora with him to teach the jerk a lesson.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: It's hinted that Glossaryck's revenge against Toffee is what fueled his decision to kill Comet Butterfly.
  • Noodle Incident: It's implied Glossaryck made a time-travel trip to the past that ended with Toffee snapping his right arm because of the green leaf hat he's wearing. Glossaryck bringing baby Meteora for a second trip was to teach Toffee a lesson.
  • Parental Neglect: Reynaldo is another being created by Glossaryck whom he can hardly stand to be around because he only speaks in rhymes and riddles.
  • Phoneaholic Teenager: While she's supposed to be babysitting Meteora, Janna spends the whole time playing a game on her phone, never aware that Meteora and Glossaryck have gone off in their own adventure.
  • Rhymes on a Dime: Reynaldo speaks this way, much to Glossaryck's annoyance.
  • Riddle for the Ages: The Stump and how it came into existence.
  • Shrouded in Myth: Mewman women didn't have innate proficiency with magic because of their sex, Glossaryck literally just chose someone at random and hastily made a wand so he can carry on with his duties. In reality, magic just manifests differently depending on the user's sex. They just kept the tradition of having queens be the ruling body because that's how it's always been, the men just weren't given a chance to display their abilities with magic.
  • Stable Time Loop:
    • While in the past, Glossaryck uses Meteora's rattle to create the first version of the Wand and hands it to a randomly-picked settler, suggesting this was the founding queen of the Butterfly dynasty.
    • On a minor note, Glossaryck may have caused Comet's death and Moon's ascension to the throne. While his past self is seemingly none the wiser.
  • Trickster Mentor: Par for the course for Glossaryck. He makes a point of showing Meteora his broken arm and revealing that Toffee was the one who broke it, which triggers Meteora's dip down moment. At the end of the episode, he simply swaps his injured arm in exchange for an intact one, showing that he'd either been faking or could have gotten rid of it at any time.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: It's heavily implied that Glossaryck's decision to teach Toffee a lesson by making him Meteora's training dummy is the reason Toffee decided to assassinate Comet. Considering how upset Glossaryck was at her death, he inadvertently caused his own misery.
  • Wounded Gazelle Gambit: After Meteora's lesson is over, Glossaryck drops his injured arm and reveals an intact one its place, indicating that he'd either been faking the injury or could have healed himself at any time. He most likely made such a show of it as part of his plan to get Meteora to dip down.

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