Recap / Trollhunters S1 E8 "Adventures in Trollsitting"

Draal gets accustomed to his new digs. Jim tries to find out if Claire's little brother is a changeling.

Tropes for this episode include:

• Badly Battered Babysitter: Jim, once he actually succeeds in getting the changeling to reveal itself.
• Climbing the Cliffs of Insanity: Jim spends his time in the forge climbing the side of a wall pitted with fire-spewing geysers.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Claire going to a rock concert didn't consider that her parents would arrive home early and bust her.
  • Jim didn't consider what he would do once the changeling was outed. When the changeling is revealed, it quickly puts up a fight and destroys the house.
• Enfant Terrible: Throughout the episode, suspicious things happen around Enrique (the gaggletack disappearing, Enrique getting to places he should not), until it is revealed that he is actually a changeling.
• Gaslighting: Toby, who has been with Jim since he found out about his Trollhunter destiny, takes Arbitrary Skepticism up to eleven at his best friend's expense. Jim sees a Goblin with a baby? Toby insists it's just a bird. Jim finds a child's toy that could belong to said baby? Toby thinks it's random filthy garbage. Jim holds fast that a baby has been switched? Toby says the stress of Trollhunting has made Jim hallucinate.
  • Subverted by Word of God. @goodaaron explains that Toby wasn't gaslighting, but was instead just expressing poor denial at the awful thought of a baby being kidnapped by goblins and replaced by changelings.
• Kidnapping Bird of Prey: Jim notices a goblin kidnapping an infant being switched with a changeling.
• Not What It Looks Like: By the end of the episode, Claire and her parents find the house in shambles, thinking Jim had a party at their house.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When AARGH resorts to violence, to save Jim and defy Blinky's orders, you know that he means business.
• Post-Kiss Catatonia: All Claire does is kiss Jim on the cheek but he's all daze-eyed afterward.
• Skewed Priorities: Somewhat justified in that the trolls don't actually hurt the babies, but Jim is more concerned that a changeling is in their midst than that a baby has been stolen from his home.
• Wouldn't Hurt a Child: It is stated that humans kidnapped and replaced with changelings must remain unharmed so that their disguises would hold. Because of this, the various babies that were kidnapped are being cared for and are in no danger.
  Blinky: And, in order for a changeling to maintain its appearance in our world, no harm must come to the human child in theirs. I assure you, there is no safer place for a baby to be than the bowels of the Darklands nursery.