Recap / Amphibia S3E04 "Thai Feud"

Sprig tries to fit into the Boonchuy household and accidentally escalates a budding rivalry with the family restaurant business.

Full Recap

The episode begins with Sprig walking around the Boonchuys' house, treating it like he owns the place while Hop Pop and Polly still recognize that they are guests in their new home. Hop Pop and Polly remind Sprig that they aren't part of Anne's family, and that's where this episode takes flight. Now, Sprig wants to help out around the house with chores and sees the opportunity to pitch in when the family heads to work at the restaurant, where he is sent to a corner to sip Thai tea.

While there, Anne introduces Sprig to Ned, the family's most loyal customer of their restaurant, Thai Go. As it turns out, Ned has started a new food truck and wants to partner with Mrs. Boonchuy and bring her great recipes to all of Los Angeles with his new truck that he keeps parked outside, "Thai on the Go".

However, Mrs. Boonchuy tells him no, and that the recipes are part of the family and he isn't part of it. She then points out to Anne that the title and placement of his truck right outside actually hurts the business since people and potential customers are confused.

Sprig sees this is an opportunity to help business, and tries to concoct a scheme to get Ned to move his truck, starting by ordering food and ripping his disguise off and saying that Ned's food turned him pink. Of course, LA residents and acting-wannabes think this is a good thing, and rush the truck to order what Sprig ate. But then, Sprig calls them fools and then he starts calling them morons, making them mad. Anne and Mrs. Boonchuy then hear the commotion and end up dragging Sprig back to the restaurant.

Anne tells Sprig to stay out of it, but he writes a fake note to Ned saying Mrs. Boonchuy wants to talk business and gets him to leave the truck where Sprig attempts to sabotage the vehicle. Anne catches him mid-act and the two begin fighting in the middle of the truck, accidentally knocking it into gear and taking off through the streets of Los Angeles.

Ned goes to talk to Mrs. Boonchuy per the note when she realizes that the tiny frog wrote it. By the time Anne and Sprig get the truck to stop via a conveniently placed skate park, Ned and Mrs. Boonchuy arrive on scene, where Sprig takes full responsibility because he wanted to help and be part of the family. Mrs. Boonchuy apologizes and says that she shouldn't have made him feel like an outsider.

Then Ned starts crying saying the same thing and echoing the sentiment that he too feels like an outsider and Mrs. Boonchuy offers him a job running deliveries in lieu of getting the family recipes.

Sprig thinks that the situation has been solved. Unfortunately Mrs. Boonchuy starts yelling at him for putting himself and Anne in danger (among other things) and it's official, Sprig is now part of the family, and he begins to burst into tears and hugs Mrs. Boonchuy (to her confusion) as the episode ends.

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Tropes:

• The Alleged Car: Ned's food truck, namely in the fact that the brakes are criminally shot, which is why Ned hasn't moved it in a while.
• Anger Born of Worry: After apologizing for making Sprig feel like an outsider, Mrs. Boonchuy scolds him for his reckless behavior. Much to her surprise, Sprig is touched by this, as this means he's now part of the family.
  Sprig: Well, I guess we're all done here. (starts to walk off, but is grabbed and lifted by his hood)
  Mrs. Boonchuy: Not so fast! If you think you're getting out of here without an earful, you've got another thing coming. Firstly, how dare you disobey me?! Secondly, how dare you put Anne and yourself in danger?! Thirdly… why are you smiling?
  Sprig: (teary-eyed) You’re… you're scolding me. Which means…
  Anne: Yep. You're family now, Bud.
• Beyond the Impossible: Food trucks are generally slow-moving vehicles, with poor maneuverability. Even with the huge momentum, there is no way it would've been able to rail-grind, instead crumpling on impact
• Call-Back: The ramping stunts Anne pulls off with the food truck in the skate park to kill its momentum resembles the stunts Polly pulled off with Bessie and the Fwagon back at the Ruins of Despair.
• Chekhov's Skill: Somewhat. Anne admits she has no idea how to drive a car, but notes she's had experience driving Bessie and has played a ''Mario Kart'' knockoff, which Vlogs From the Bog showcased she aimed to transfer into getting herself a driving license back home. There's obviously a world of difference between driving a snail and driving an automobile—not to mention Anne is too young to get a license yet anyway—which isn't helped by the fact Ned doesn't have working brakes.
• Comedic Sociopathy: Sprig breaks into the food truck to, in his words, "destroy an Earth man's livelihood."
• Dramatic Drop: As soon as she sees Sprig about to mess with the food truck, Anne lets the garbage bag slip from her hand, aware of what is coming next.
• Exact Words: Anne asks Polly and Hop Pop to research portals and similar dimensional displacement theories whilst she and Sprig are helping at the restaurant. They choose to do this through watching variants of Stargate and Quantum Leap on fictional Earth media.
• Foreshadowing: Mrs. Boonchuy complains that Ned has had his food truck parked outside for a while. It turns out there's a very good reason for that: the brakes are shot and Ned can't exactly drive it. Anne finds this out the hard way when trying to stop the truck when it takes off from its spot.
• Full-Name Ultimatum: When Hop Pop scolds Sprig for being a bad guest, he uses his full name.
• Happily Adopted: Discussed. Sprig points out that the Plantars fully accepted Anne as one of their own, and is initially under the impression that this will make the Boonchuys family to him as well. Finding out this isn't the case makes him determined to find some way to be accepted as more than just a guest in Anne's home.
• Hellish Pupils: For a brief shot when Sprig breaks into Ned's food truck to "destroy [his] livelihood", his pupils are drawn as vertical slits similar to Maddie's instead of his usual round ones.
• I Know Mortal Kombat: Subverted and Played for Laughs. Anne believes that playing 900 hours of a Mario Kart Expy will have prepared her for driving Ned's van. It hasn't.
• Implausible Deniability: After getting extra work because of Sprig, Anne tells him not to cause any more trouble. When he thinks she's out of earshot, Sprig says aloud he plans to bother Ned again.
  Anne: (peeking her head around the corner) I heard that!
  Sprig: (runs away) NO, YOU DIDN'T!
• Innocently Insensitive:
  • Mrs. Boonchuy treating Sprig like a guest instead of a family member makes him feel as if he is not a part of the family, something he very much wants due to always desiring a bigger family and how the Plantars ended up accepting Anne as their own, which he mistakenly believed would automatically make her family part of the Plantars as well. In her defense, both Hop Pop and Polly are totally fine with being treated as guests in the house and aren't as pushy as Sprig about trying to get accepted as 'family'.
  • Ned didn't realize that parking his Thai food truck outside the Boonchuy's Thai restaurant would be hurting their business, but in his defense, the brakes were shot, so he couldn't drive it elsewhere for the moment sadly. However, he failed to explain this to Mrs. Boonchuy, which made her think he was trying to drive her out of business.
• Made of Indestructium: When attempting to control the runaway food truck, Anne and Sprig end up running into a tortoise which was crossing the road, which hides inside its shell from the oncoming vehicle. Rather than crush the animal underneath the tires, the collision actually sends the food truck flying through the air like it just hit a ramp, without so much as a scratch on the shell.
• Magic Brakes: The brakes on Ned's food truck are broken and the truck is on an incline, so when Sprig's struggle with Anne sets it in neutral, they can't stop it. The fact that Anne doesn't know how to drive beyond using the pedals (her first instinct even being to "mash the brakes") means it also doesn't occur to her to put in park or use the emergency brake (which, incidentally, Ned also carelessly left off despite knowing the condition of the vehicle).
• Misplaced Retribution: When Sprig insults customers outside and makes the family business look bad, Mrs. Boonchuy chews Anne out instead and makes her work overtime as punishment. Sprig even wonders why she punished her over something he did. He's accordingly happy when she does directly admonish him for his actions, instead of Anne by proxy, taking it as a sign that she's willing to see him as somebody who's part of the family now and can can be held directly accountable for his mistakes.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Upon having the epiphany that him selling Thai food and requesting the Boonchuys' family recipes are cultural appropriation, Ned is horrified and breaks down in tears. Fortunately, Mrs. Boonchuy takes pity on him and offers him a job as a deliveryman. He accepts, even if it comes with a meager salary.
• Mythology Gag: The music Ned is listening to when cleaning the food truck is "Welcome to Amphibia", which was originally intended to be the lyrical theme song before Matt Braly had it changed to an Instrumental Theme Tune due to not matching the 'feel' of the series.
• No Name Given: Mr and Mrs Boonchuy's first names haven't been mentioned thus far, which gets partially Lampshaded in Sprig's letter when he just signs it 'Mrs B'.
• Ocular Gushers: Ned does this when seeing Sprig apologizing to Mrs. Boonchuy.
• Offscreen Teleportation: How exactly Anne’s mom and Ned arrive as soon as Anne and Sprig stop their joy ride in a food truck remains a mystery.
• Pun: The title is one on 'Thai Food'.
• Parental Substitute: Double Subverted. Initially Sprig is under the impression that Anne being an honorary Plantar makes her mom and dad this to him and Polly by default, only for Anne and the rest to spell out that that's not the case. It took Anne about 5 months of bonding time to consider the Plantars family, and the Boonchuys have only known the Plantars for less than a week, so obviously they don't look on Sprig and the rest as new family members, and are more comfortable thinking of them as guests in their home. Sprig's desire to reverse this and be accepted as a Boonchuy leads to him escalate the situation with Ned's food truck, and by the end of it, while she's still not comfortable thinking of his as a son, Mrs Boonchuy is at least willing to hold Sprig accountable for his own actions like she would with Anne, which is a level of familiarity he's comfortable with.
• Poor Communication Kills: Mrs. Boonchuy is bothered by how Ned is parking his food truck right outside the family restaurant, thinking that he's trying to drive them out of business. As it turns out, the brakes were broken, and Ned had no idea how much it was hurting the restaurant instead of helping. He's horrified when he realizes how Innocently Insensitive he was both by that and by requesting the Boonchuy family recipes.
• Ramp-rovisation: Spoofed. As the runaway food truck careens down a hill, Anne and Sprig see a piece of sheet metal and some garbage which form a crude ramp. They scream, but the truck crashes right through the flimsy structure. Then they see a tortoise crossing the street in front of them, which hides inside its shell from the oncoming vehicle, and colliding with that does send them flying. All the jumps in the skate park can also count for this.
• Sheet of Glass: Done with a big screen TV that two neighbors are inexplicably passing over a gap between two fire escapes, only to be hit by an airborne food truck.
  Neighbor: Just be careful. This thing is Like a Son to Me. (The food truck flies straight through the TV and smashes it to pieces) Junior!!!
• Shout-Out:
  • Polly and Hop Pop have been getting into Earth media, namely Starzgate (complete with cover art that's a direct parody of the poster for Stargate) and Quantum Hop.
  • Ned is seen wearing a T-shirt for Romance Academy 7.
  • Sprig is wearing a T-shirt with a cat version of Pikachu.
• Something Only They Would Say: On the fake note he put in Ned's truck to send him away, Sprig makes it seem as if it's written by Anne's mother. Only "she" refers to herself in the letter as "Mrs. B," which is what he uses to address her since he doesn't know her first name. Thus, when Ned shows the real Mrs. Boonchuy the note, she sees it and immediately realizes that Sprig is behind it.
  Mrs. Boonchuy: Wait... "Mrs. B."? (grumbles furiously) PINK FROOOOOOOOOG!
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: When Anne and Sprig are careening down the road in the runaway foot truck, they see a flimsy improvised ramp made out of garbage and a piece of sheet metal in their way. They initially think it's going to send the food truck flying through the air, only for them to smash straight through it, as the food truck is too heavy and the ramp too weak to support its weight and give it air time. Amusingly enough, Rule of Funny ends up being applied when they bounce off a turtle's shell.
• Take a Third Option: Mrs. Boonchuy decides to employ Ned as a delivery driver so he'll at least be a part of the business without having to give up her recipes.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Sprig, an anthropomorphic frog, wants to be part of the family, and he's desperate to be accepted by Anne's mom.

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