What do signs know, anyway?
Sprig takes Anne swimming in a nearby lake to help her feel less homesick. Full Recap
The episode begins not in Amphibia, but instead in a drab thrift shop in Anne’s world. The 13-year-old girl is staring up at the same music box from the pilot as it rests atop a cabinet. In the back of the shop, an elderly cashier is asleep at the register, while two other teenage girls stand just outside a window, thumbs pointing up and mischievous smiles on their faces as they watch Anne brace herself for what she is about to do. Reluctantly, Anne reaches up, grabs the box, and slips out the door, right under the sleeping cashier’s nose. That evening, Anne meets in the park with her friends from earlier, Sasha and Marcy. Her friends gather around as she slowly opens the box, and the trio is greeted with a swirling blast of light, colors, and electricity before everything goes white.
Anne immediately wakes up in a sweat, and, thinking that her time in Amphibia was all just a dream, hurriedly begins to describe it to her friends. It is only after she has already started talking that she realizes she is very much still in Amphibia, much to her dismay. Hop Pop, Sprig, and Polly are all in the room when she awakes, and despite being willing to shelter Anne for the time being, Pop is still at least a little wary around her, while Polly is basically itching for any excuse to lay the smackdown on her. After the two of them leave, Sprig has a conversation with Anne in which the latter reveals that she feels homesick, and misses her friends. Sprig suggests that he could be her friend, and after brainstorming some ideas of what they could do together, they decide on a trip to the lake.
Just as they’re about to head out the door, the duo is stopped by Hop Pop, who forbids them from going anywhere just yet. His argument is that the people of Wartwood have a history of being rather small-minded and that it may take a while for them to warm up to Anne. To drive his point, he locks the door with a padlock and retreats to his study. Sprig, though disappointed, resigns himself to staying indoors and suggests they pass the time by munching on Hop Pop’s Pain Peppers (“So hot they’ll make you wish you were dead!”). Anne is not so easily deterred, however, and insists on going to the lake anyway. Sprig is a bit taken aback by her open defiance, but she manages to talk him into it by saying that a true friend would help her get anything she wants.
They quietly peek their heads into Pops’ study, where he is sitting in his chair with a book in his hands. His coat is slung over the back of the chair and the key can be seen sticking out of its pocket. Sprig devises an "elaborate plan" to steal it that would involve him hanging from the ceiling, Mission: Impossible (1996)-style. It turns out to be unneeded when they hear him snoring, and realize that he simply fell asleep with his eyes open. And with that in mind, Anne and Sprig are able to easily snatch the key and be on their merry way.
On their way to the lake, the two stop to take a selfie (Sprig is deeply confused, having no equivalent to phones or cameras in his world), and Anne learns through a brief conversation that she is actually his first friend. She takes pity on him and insists that the other kids are missing out.
They arrive at the lake, and are initially enthralled by its beauty, but are stopped from going in when they see a sign reading “DON'T SWIM”. Sprig notes that the sign must be new, and Anne theorizes that it was placed there by someone who wants the lake all to themselves. Sprig argues that the warning seems to have been rather hastily scrawled, as though the writer was scared by something. Anne shrugs it off, but Sprig insists they leave. She manages to guilt trip him by reminding him that a “true” friend would help their friend get whatever they want. She cites several examples, including stealing a music box even if you don’t want to. It works, and Sprig goes jumping into the water.
Anne follows, and the two proceed to have a blast messing around in the water. Whether it’s clubbing one another with giant cattails, holding their breath underwater, or riding a giant water skeeter, the two are having the time of their lives. Or at least they are until a giant underwater snake makes its presence known. The two attempt to swim away, but it catches up to them and nearly eats them. Anne tells Sprig that she will only slow him down, and insists he go without her. He’s having none of it, refusing to allow his first real friend to die on his watch. As the serpent surrounds them, Sprig devises a plan that involves him crouching on Anne’s head. When the snake lunges for them, he jumps up and allows himself to be eaten.
Anne is naturally horrified and immediately begins bludgeoning the giant reptile with a stick. It turns out to be unneeded, however, when smoke comes pouring out of its nostrils and flames come shooting out of its mouth, as well as Sprig. The snake plunges back down beneath the water, leaving Anne and Sprig safe for now. When asked what he did, Sprig holds up one of Hot Pops’ Pain Peppers, revealing he had some on him when he was eaten. The two laugh at Sprig’s cleverness, but immediately turn tail and leave when they hear the snake’s roar once more.
Back at the house, Hop Pop awakens from his slumber and panics when he sees that the key is gone. He races for the door to see what kind of havoc Anne might have caused outside, but is surprised to see the door is still locked. He takes a look down in the basement, and sees Sprig and Anne down in the basement playing a board game. The two claim they’ve been home the whole day, and give him back his key, saying he must have dropped it. Hop Pop leaves, apparently satisfied, while Polly comes down the stairs as soon as he’s gone. The tadpole is fully prepared to beat Anne senselessly with her rolling pin (which she calls Doris) but is dismayed by the mundanity in the basement. She leaves them, irritated and grumbling. After she’s gone, Anne apologizes for very nearly getting Sprig killed, but counters that today has been the most exciting day of his life. He’s not lying, given that he falls asleep from exhaustion almost immediately after. Anne carries him down to her sleeping mat and lets him rest there. She then pulls out her picture of Sasha and Marcy, and looks at it, before looking back up at Sprig and smiling.
We abruptly cut to an ominous shot of a castle as lightning flashes behind it. Inside, a burly toad dressed in armor stands outside the bars of a dungeon.
*Cue happy credits music*
Anne immediately wakes up in a sweat, and, thinking that her time in Amphibia was all just a dream, hurriedly begins to describe it to her friends. It is only after she has already started talking that she realizes she is very much still in Amphibia, much to her dismay. Hop Pop, Sprig, and Polly are all in the room when she awakes, and despite being willing to shelter Anne for the time being, Pop is still at least a little wary around her, while Polly is basically itching for any excuse to lay the smackdown on her. After the two of them leave, Sprig has a conversation with Anne in which the latter reveals that she feels homesick, and misses her friends. Sprig suggests that he could be her friend, and after brainstorming some ideas of what they could do together, they decide on a trip to the lake.
Just as they’re about to head out the door, the duo is stopped by Hop Pop, who forbids them from going anywhere just yet. His argument is that the people of Wartwood have a history of being rather small-minded and that it may take a while for them to warm up to Anne. To drive his point, he locks the door with a padlock and retreats to his study. Sprig, though disappointed, resigns himself to staying indoors and suggests they pass the time by munching on Hop Pop’s Pain Peppers (“So hot they’ll make you wish you were dead!”). Anne is not so easily deterred, however, and insists on going to the lake anyway. Sprig is a bit taken aback by her open defiance, but she manages to talk him into it by saying that a true friend would help her get anything she wants.
They quietly peek their heads into Pops’ study, where he is sitting in his chair with a book in his hands. His coat is slung over the back of the chair and the key can be seen sticking out of its pocket. Sprig devises an "elaborate plan" to steal it that would involve him hanging from the ceiling, Mission: Impossible (1996)-style. It turns out to be unneeded when they hear him snoring, and realize that he simply fell asleep with his eyes open. And with that in mind, Anne and Sprig are able to easily snatch the key and be on their merry way.
On their way to the lake, the two stop to take a selfie (Sprig is deeply confused, having no equivalent to phones or cameras in his world), and Anne learns through a brief conversation that she is actually his first friend. She takes pity on him and insists that the other kids are missing out.
They arrive at the lake, and are initially enthralled by its beauty, but are stopped from going in when they see a sign reading “DON'T SWIM”. Sprig notes that the sign must be new, and Anne theorizes that it was placed there by someone who wants the lake all to themselves. Sprig argues that the warning seems to have been rather hastily scrawled, as though the writer was scared by something. Anne shrugs it off, but Sprig insists they leave. She manages to guilt trip him by reminding him that a “true” friend would help their friend get whatever they want. She cites several examples, including stealing a music box even if you don’t want to. It works, and Sprig goes jumping into the water.
Anne follows, and the two proceed to have a blast messing around in the water. Whether it’s clubbing one another with giant cattails, holding their breath underwater, or riding a giant water skeeter, the two are having the time of their lives. Or at least they are until a giant underwater snake makes its presence known. The two attempt to swim away, but it catches up to them and nearly eats them. Anne tells Sprig that she will only slow him down, and insists he go without her. He’s having none of it, refusing to allow his first real friend to die on his watch. As the serpent surrounds them, Sprig devises a plan that involves him crouching on Anne’s head. When the snake lunges for them, he jumps up and allows himself to be eaten.
Anne is naturally horrified and immediately begins bludgeoning the giant reptile with a stick. It turns out to be unneeded, however, when smoke comes pouring out of its nostrils and flames come shooting out of its mouth, as well as Sprig. The snake plunges back down beneath the water, leaving Anne and Sprig safe for now. When asked what he did, Sprig holds up one of Hot Pops’ Pain Peppers, revealing he had some on him when he was eaten. The two laugh at Sprig’s cleverness, but immediately turn tail and leave when they hear the snake’s roar once more.
Back at the house, Hop Pop awakens from his slumber and panics when he sees that the key is gone. He races for the door to see what kind of havoc Anne might have caused outside, but is surprised to see the door is still locked. He takes a look down in the basement, and sees Sprig and Anne down in the basement playing a board game. The two claim they’ve been home the whole day, and give him back his key, saying he must have dropped it. Hop Pop leaves, apparently satisfied, while Polly comes down the stairs as soon as he’s gone. The tadpole is fully prepared to beat Anne senselessly with her rolling pin (which she calls Doris) but is dismayed by the mundanity in the basement. She leaves them, irritated and grumbling. After she’s gone, Anne apologizes for very nearly getting Sprig killed, but counters that today has been the most exciting day of his life. He’s not lying, given that he falls asleep from exhaustion almost immediately after. Anne carries him down to her sleeping mat and lets him rest there. She then pulls out her picture of Sasha and Marcy, and looks at it, before looking back up at Sprig and smiling.
- Anne: ”Sasha, Marcy, I hope you guys are okay, because I am.”
We abruptly cut to an ominous shot of a castle as lightning flashes behind it. Inside, a burly toad dressed in armor stands outside the bars of a dungeon.
- “Take a look at this, please, Sasha,” he says, holding up the shoe Anne lost earlier. “It was found far from here in the south forest. Now we know that you have been lying to us.”
Another flash of lightning illuminates the cell, and we can see that he is indeed talking to Anne’s friend Sasha.
- Toad: “Now we know there are more of you.”
*Cue happy credits music*
Tropes:
- A Birthday, Not a Break: This is the first episode to show how Anne and her friends were transported to Amphibia on her birthday.
- Animation Bump: During Anne's flashback to how she got transported to Amphibia, it re-uses the same shots from the opening of the Music Box's activation.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's unclear whether or not Sasha telling Grime that she was the only human in Amphibia was because she genuinely believed it, like how Anne thought she and Marcy were still on Earth, because she was just refusing to help her captor, or an attempt to protect Anne and Marcy from him.
- Answer Cut: When Anne asks Sprig if he has any friends, we cut to him scaring two kids by pretending to be eaten by a snake skeleton.
- Aren't You Going to Ravish Me?: A variant; Polly is disappointed that Anne won't even try to eat her and her family, so she can fight Anne to the death.
- Beach Episode: Anne and Sprig try to have a relaxing day swimming.
- Blatant Lies: Anne and Sprig pretend that they've been home all day playing board games, and she says that Hop Pop's key must have fallen out of his pocket. Hop Pop buys it.
- Blazing Inferno Hellfire Sauce: Hop Pop's death peppers, which are so hot "they make you wish you were dead." Sprig barely touches one with the tip of his tongue and he's running around with his mouth on fire.
- Catapult Nightmare: Anne wakes up from her dream springing upright and screaming.
- Character Development:
- Within minutes, Hop Pop goes from treating Anne like a potential threat to being her Parental Substitute. He also becomes genuinely worried for her, even though part of him is still paranoid that she'll start eating townsfolk.
- Anne realizes that she can't make Sprig do what she wants, especially when he's the sensible one. She apologizes to him for nearly getting them killed.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- Hop Pop's pain peppers. Sprig kept several on hand and tosses them into the Sea Serpent's mouth to incapacitate it.
- A dark one; Anne keeps mentioning that she lost her shoe and needs a new pair. It turns out someone malevolent found it, who is interested in humans being in the land.
- Defiant Captive: Sasha has been captured by Grime, locked up, and chained in a cell. How does she respond to him calling her a liar? By giving him an icy Death Glare.
- Dramatic Drop: Anne drops her phone when she sees the snake behind Sprig.
- Dramatic Irony: Anne thinks Sasha and Marcy are still on Earth, but it turns out they also wound up in Amphibia in different areas of it. The former has been captured by Grime and the latter's whereabouts are currently unknown.
- Dream Intro: The episode opens with Anne's dream where she relives how she ended up in Amphibia.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Marcy has an expression on her face that would suggest that she is more menacing than she would turn out to be down the line. This is due to a combination of factors that initially did have Marcy planned to be comparatively cold and calculating, but Haley Tju's charming personality among other things had her personality revamped.
- Eat Me: Sprig lets himself get swallowed by the snake so he can throw death peppers down its throat.
- Eye Awaken: Anne does this when she wakes up from her dream of the day she got transported to Amphibia by the music box.
- Fire-Breathing Diner: A side effect of eating death peppers. It happens to Sprig when he barely touched them with his tongue.
- Five-Finger Discount: Anne shoplifted the music box from a thrift shop by stuffing it in her backpack when the shopkeeper was dozing off.
- Foreshadowing:
- In the beginning flashback, Sasha and Marcy are hit by the same light coming out of the music box that transports Anne to Amphibia. The end of the episode reveals that they were also transported to Amphibia.
- On a smaller scale, in a flashback, we see Sprig pretending he's being swallowed by a snake skull. In the episode's climax, Sprig is swallowed by an actual snake.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: If a viewer pauses the episode when the music box's magic activates, Sasha and Marcy are shown to have disappeared the same time Anne did, revealing that they also wound up in Amphibia.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Sprig gives a friend-punch to Anne when she tells him to leave her since she can't outswim the snake.
- Good-Times Montage: Between Anne and Sprig as they enjoy swimming in the lake together.
- Hypocritical Humor: While warning Anne that the frogs of Wartwood can be small-minded and paranoid, Hop Pop squints suspiciously through his blinds at a neighbor who says hello.
- I Will Only Slow You Down: Upon being hunted by the water snake, Anne realizes that she put her and Sprig in danger, and swims too slow in comparison to Sprig, and tells him to leave her.
- Jerkass Realization: Anne apologizes to Sprig for nearly getting him killed at the end of the episode.
- Losing a Shoe in the Struggle: Grime finds Anne's lost shoe, which clues him in that there are more humans in Amphibia than Sasha.
- Peer Pressure Makes You Evil: Even though she didn't want to, Anne stole the music box her friends wanted because Anne was afraid they'd stop being friends otherwise.
- Second Episode Introduction: Anne's friends are shown for the first time—both in a flashback dream at the beginning, and Sasha in the present at the end.
- Second Episode Morning: Anne dreams of how she left Earth, and when she wakes up she initially assumes everything after was just a dream.
- Sleeps with Both Eyes Open: What Anne discovers about Hop Pop when she and Sprig manage to snag the key to the house from him to go to the lake—Anne finds it creepy, but Sprig assures her that it happens a lot, to the point where Hop Pop's apparently been used as a scarecrow.
- Snakes Are Sinister: Anne and Sprig are attacked by a gigantic frog-eating water snake.
- Take a Third Option: Anne tells Sprig to leave her because she can't swim as fast as he can. He refuses, but if he stays, the snake will eat them. So Sprig poisons the snake with Hop Pop's peppers so that it buys them enough time to leave together.
- That Came Out Wrong: After convincing Sprig to help her steal the key from Hop Pop, Anne declares "Let's go rob an old man!", which causes Sprig to lose his enthusiasm and Anne, realizing what she just said, admits that it didn't sound as cool as she wanted it to.
- That Was Not a Dream: Anne wakes up and starts to say that she dreamt she was in a world full of frog people, only to stop herself when she realizes she's talking to the frog people.
- Toxic Friend Influence: Sasha and Marcy are strongly implied to have been this to Anne, if outright, not really her friends at all. Later, Anne temporarily becomes one to Sprig when she convinces him to leave the house against Hop Pop's wishes and swim in the lake despite the sign's warning. She gets better.note
- Unexplained Recovery: Anne drops her phone in the water when the snake attacks, but has it back in the next episode without explanation. Given how later episodes show how attached Anne is to the phone as her best reminder of home, it's possible she made the effort to recover it even when fleeing from the snake.
- Wasn't That Fun?: Sprig's response to the traumatic experience of nearly getting eaten by a snake. He tells Anne that was the most fun he had in a while and he's happy to be her friend.
- Wham Episode: We learn of Sasha's fate, and that there may be a potential antagonist in the future.
- Wham Line: Anne's explanation to Sprig about what friendship is about set up the show's overarching theme of toxic friendships.
- Wham Shot: We find Anne's missing shoe, in the hands of someone who has taken one of her friends captive.
