Production Code: 212
Cupid goes on vacation and leaves his arrows in the care of Jake. Jake decides to bring them along on his school's Love Cruise, using them to play match-maker for Trixie, Spud, and other peers of his. Hilarity ensues...until Jake makes the grave mistake of using one of the arrows on Rose.
Tropes
- Artistic License – Physics / Mega Maelstrom: While a series dealing with magical creatures was never strong on physics to begin with, the quarter-mile-wide whirlpool that Fu almost steers the ship into is nearly a hundred times larger than the largest whirlpool ever recorded (approximately only around 34 feet wide).
- Break His Heart to Save Him: Lao Shi advises Rose to do this after he observes how distracted Jake has become with his constant thinking about her. She is reluctant until Jake's desperation of hitting her with a love arrow proves to her that he's willing to use underhanded methods just to ensure she stays with him.
- Cargo Ship: In-universe, one girl falls in love with a hoagie sandwich (though after being cured, she claims she finds hoagies boring in comparison to other sandwiches), and the captain falls in love with Lady Liberty. The Stinger implies that the love is reciprocated at least.
- Changing Clothes Is a Free Action: Rose goes from wearing a formal dress to being dressed in her full Huntsclan uniform within seconds after she tricks Jake into closing his eyes by making him think she intends to kiss him.
- Contrived Coincidence: The storm just happens to cut Rose off as she's radioing back to Huntsclan base what Jake's human identity is.
- Critical Staffing Shortage: Apparently the only crew member on the ship was the captain who got hit with a love arrow. Any possible co-captain or even standard engineers/radar monitors are nowhere to be seen.
- Downer Ending: Rose breaks up with Jake (at least for the time being), breaking both his heart and her own.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The love hearts that spring out of Rose when she's first hit by a love arrow quickly turn black and fall rather than simply vanishing outward, implying that her love was killed in that moment.
- Gave Up Too Soon: Jakes sees Brad with his arm around Rose from a distance and rather than assuming that he's just being his usual pushy self, immediately concludes that Rose has dumped him and sulks off before he can see her splash Brad with a glass of punch.
- Green Around the Gills: Trixie suffers from a rather nasty case of seasickness that's only exacerbated by Kyle's tight hugging of her.
- Heartbreak and Ice Cream: When Cupid returns from vacation at the end of the episode and sees Jake depressed, he gives Jake chocolates and ice cream. For good measure, the ice cream is actually called "Heartbreak Butter-Butter Ice Cream".
- Love Hurts: Both emotionally and physically. Those hit by Cupid's arrows and unnaturally fall in love become obsessed and clingy with whatever they fall in love with. In Spud and Trixie's case, Stacey and Kyle respectively refuse to let go of either of them even when they need free space to help Jake. For Rose, her love being turned to hate results in Jake nearly being killed, and upon coming to her senses, she's distraught with her actions and ashamed that Jake had so little faith in her that he stooped to using a love arrow to try to keep her. In the end, she concludes that the best course of action is for them to break up.
- Love Potion: Cupid's love arrows.
- Meaningful Echo: At the beginning of the episode, when he's trying to convince Rose to break up with Jake for his safety because their relationship is making him distracted, Lao-Shi reminds Rose that "a distracted dragon is a slain dragon". At the end of the episode, after Rose is released from the effects of the love arrow and Jake tries to justify his actions, Rose softly repeats the phrase to herself and then breaks up with Jake, having realized Lao-Shi was right.
- Mood Whiplash: Rose breaks up with Jake...and then we cut to Rotwood dancing to a silly song.
- Narcissist: Fu ends up falling in love with himself after getting hit with a love arrow while looking into his own reflection.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero/Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Rose's attempt to protect Jake by saying they should stay distant only results in him becoming paranoid that she doesn't love him anymore, and Jake's attempt to fix things by shooting her with one of Cupid's arrows causes her to temporarily hate him and officially break off their relationship once she returns to her senses.
- Not Himself: Rose is in this state through much of this episode, due to the effects of being hit by Cupid's love arrow turning her love for Jake into hate and reverting her back to her pre-Heel–Face Turn Huntsgirl demeanor.Jake: Rose, this isn't you! You don't want to slay dragons anymore!
- Pinball Projectile: Cupid's arrows have a tendency to continue randomly ricocheting around an area until they hit someone. The only notable aversion is the arrow that embeds itself in the ship's guardrail that Jake later uses to return Rose to her normal self.
- Poor Communication Kills: The whole episode could have been avoided if Lao-Shi and/or Rose properly communicated with Jake. But, no. Instead, Lao-Shi goes behind Jake's back and tells Rose to break up with him. Then, Rose, afraid of hurting Jake, gets cold feet and backs out of going on the titular Love Cruise with Jake without explaining why. The result? Jake's fear of losing Rose makes him cause a big mess with Cupid's love arrows and leads to the episode's Downer Ending.
- Running Away to Cry: When seeing Brad pestering Rose in the ballroom makes him think that Rose is interested in Brad, Jake heads out while covering his eyes, saying that he's going to "go weep in the boys' room".
- Screw Yourself: A G-rated version. When Fu Dog gets hit by one of Cupid's love arrows while seeing his reflection in the window, he falls in love with himself.
- The Stinger: Fu Dog realizes that the captain of the Love Cruise hasn't had the effects of the Cupid arrow that hit him reversed, so he's still in love with the Statue of Liberty.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: Trixie vomiting from seasickness is panned away from both times, but the results always landing on Kyle's shoes are implied.
- Wham Episode: Rose decides to break off her relationship with Jake after seeing how his obsession with her resulted in her being brainwashed and him almost being killed.
- Yiddish as a Second Language: Fu drops an "Oy vey!" upon realizing Jake hit the captain with a love arrow.
