When Anne Boonchuy and Sprig hang out for the first time, Sprig seemingly sacrifices himself by letting a giant lake serpent swallow him. Anne goes ballistic, thinking Sprig is dead, and starts whacking the snake in revenge. It's half-Played for Laughs, half-Played for Drama that Anne cares about Sprig despite having known each other for only a short time. (Fortunately, it turns out Sprig was fine and poisoned the snake with Hop Pop's pain peppers to buy them time to escape.) This scenario repeats in "True Colors" when Andrias tosses Sprig out of a window of his floating tower, and all a teary-eyed Anne can do is attack Andrias while shouting, "Give him back!"
The second episode reveals that Marcy Wu and Sasha Waybright goaded Anne into shoplifting the box that transported Anne to Amphibia. This makes Sprig understandably suspicious of Marcy when Anne explains this, since he saw that Sasha was a bully. However, Marcy's Endearingly Dorky nature and courage in saving Sprig's life seems to be at odds with the flashback we saw. The discrepancy becomes clear in the season 2 finale: Marcy knew the Calamity Box would transport her and her friends to Amphibia, with little regard for how neither Anne nor Sasha would be abandoning their families willingly and ignoring that it was Anne's birthday, with her parents throwing a party later. We find this out at the worst time, with Andrias revealing it, and Marcy is forced to confess that it's the truth.
The flashback of Sasha saying that one day Marcy "is gonna get herself killed" in "Marcy at the Gates" becomes a lot harder to watch after she gets stabbed and seemingly killed by King Andrias at the end of "True Colors".
The heron attack in "Prison Break" becomes this when it's revealed in "After the Rain" that Wartwood was attacked by herons when Sprig and Polly were very young, and their parents were among the townsfolk eaten by them.
In "Marcy at the Gates", Anne telling Marcy that she doesn't want to lose her and Marcy responding "You won't, I promise" can be hard to hear after what happens at the end of season 2.
Andrias and Marcy have developed a teacher-student friendship, and Marcy, in her theme-song takeover, explains that Andrias has promoted her to being his top adviser, and even gifted her with a giant statue as thanks for her help. When Anne and the Plantar family come to Newtopia, Andrias even generously gives them a place to stay and a credit card to meet all their needs. These sweet moments are undercut in "True Colors", when Andrias callously reveals that he was using Marcy to find and activate the Calamity Box so as to go on a conquering spree of other worlds, and impales her through the chest when she turns on him to save Sprig and Anne. In season 3, he's keeping her alive, "reassuring" her comatose form that she's still useful to him.
The season 2 finale already makes Marcy look bad when she claims that if she hadn't manipulated Sasha into guilting Anne to shoplift the box, then none of them would have had their great adventures in Amphibia, claiming that Anne owes her for setting up the circumstances to befriend Sprig. Everyone stares at her with blank disgust, including Sprig and Sasha. Her theme song takeover makes it worse: while Anne ended up in the Wartwood wilderness and Grime's men immediately captured Sasha, Marcy ended up in the dead center of Newtopia, where her first response was a big grin. The residents treated her with Sacred Hospitality and free healthcare after she broke her leg, and she got to go on all the adventures she always wanted back on Earth. Marcy couldn't comprehend that she endangered her best friends to live out her fantasy without considering either of their feelings on the matter, and was blissfully oblivious to the fact that her experience was much better than theirs was.
It's not that funny in the pilot, since Anne was alone and starving in the woods, but the moment she explains to Sprig that she tried to ask Wally for help and he ran from her, Sprig admits that is something Wally would do. Then subsequent episodes explain most of the creatures in Amphibia will eat frogs and humans alike, so you can understand Wally's viewpoint more.
Polly's annoyance at a tear-stricken Anne hugging her and the other Plantars after learning they're not dying in "Contagi-Anne" becomes this when she and her family, without complaint, give Anne a Cooldown Hug in the first season finale as Anne is once again sobbing her guts out because Sasha is alive but gone for now, and is now her enemy.
The Plantar house's lack of soundproofing is played for laughs in "Cracking Mrs. Croaker". Come "After the Rain", the house's lack of soundproofing allows Anne to follow Hop Pop out of the house and discover that Hop Pop lied about the Calamity Box and buried it, causing Anne to get angry and temporarily leave the family.
King Andrias's whimsy causes him to be treated as something like a fun uncle in most of season 2. He disregards etiquette and gives Anne and the Plantars an unlimited credit card paid out of the royal treasury, showing a lack of regard for any sort of rules. This might make him seem fun and cool, but the season 2 finale and all of his character thereafter reveals the dark side of his caprice. He's essentially one giant manchild as he's been festering in his own self-loathing over the loss of the Music Box and has embittered himself immaturely over it, with the Core in Season 3 being revealed to have made sure Andrias would gain these traits to keep him in line. As a result, he for the most part does not respect boundaries of those beneath him in the social ladder, such as when he decides to have fun attacking his own minions such as Triple B with the robot they gave him in Christmas to kill Anne with. Even in the middle of season 2, he was already being set up as a capricious ruler.
The Running Gag throughout the first half of Season 3, where people Anne knew on Earth mentioning they thought she was dead becomes a lot more awkward once Anne actually does die in the series finale, and if the Guardian simply did just made a backup clone, she died for good, no actual case of Disney Death.
Anne's flashbacks involving Marcy was at first Played for Laughs in her official debut episode Marcy at the Gates as Marcy often hilariously gets herself and her friends into some kind of mishap mostly due to her oblivious and clumsy nature, as she often times tries to get her friends into her interest while Anne tries to protect her from getting herself hurt while she and Sasha act apathetic towards said interest. However, "The Beginning of the End" shows Anne and Sasha have often treated Marcy as the Third Wheel in their friend group because of her interests differing from theirs as Anne and Sasha have always fell asleep while watching her favorite movie "War of the Warlocks" leaving Marcy to feel Lonely Among People. And when she asked Anne about a time she tried to get Anne and Sasha to play a game that she liked "Creatures and Caverns" and a time she asks if Anne remembers a time where they studied insect migration patterns in Biology Class. In both times Anne emotionlessly replies "No". Still showing apathy towards her hobbies. And while she was fresh off in shock of the revelation that Marcy stranded her and Sasha in Amphibia on purpose. When Andrias took Sprig hostage and threatened to drop him to his death. Anne called Sprig her "best friend in this world or any other world" when she begged Andrias to spare his life. But Anne eventually realizes that the way she and Sasha have treated Marcy is particularly to blame for her short-sighted decision and neither Anne nor Sasha were exactly "Best Friends" towards Marcy anyways. Even Darcy (though not because of any moral reasons) calls them out for their behavior towards Marcy.
Anne hasn't been sleeping in the run-up to "Fight at the Museum", and some of her entries in Marcy's journal give a likely explanation: fears about Marcy have been repeatedly welling up, but she's been bottling it up because she knows she'll cross the Despair Event Horizon if she lets herself believe Marcy is dead, she's still trying to hide the stakes from her biological family, and she fears she won't be able to get her found family home if she falls apart. With all that combined, no wonder the poor girl wasn't sleeping.
In "The First Temple", Marcy mentions that she got so good at Flipwart that she even beat King Andrias at it. However, in "Olivia and Yunan", Andrias reveals that his master, The Core, wants her as a host. The reason? She beat Andrias at Flipwart.
