Recap / Amphibia S3E05 "Adventures in Catsitting"

The Plantars volunteer to take Domino to the vet when the Boonchuys have other things to do.

Full Recap

Anne is looking for some article about interdimensional portals on the internet, while the Plantars are happy to be living in the lap of luxury, with Hop Pop commenting on the two days they've been on Earth, only to be reminded by Sprig that they've been there for a week. Hop Pop declares themselves a "freeloader" and compares themselves to Cousin Stanley, a "relative" who had long ago been a freeloader on their farm and who they ended up literally throwing out the window. Mrs. Boonchuy arrives to tell Anne that they are going to the dentist to have her teeth checked, but this coincides with a vet appointment Anne had made for her cat, Domino. Mr. Boonchuy can't take the cat, because he has to work at the Restaurant. So the Plantars, in an attempt not to look like freeloaders, offer to help by taking Domino to the vet.

So, the Plantars try and round up the cat and get her into a travel case, which proves to be more difficult than they originally thought. The group puts on their disguises and ventures forth to take her to the vet with the help of a few tools from the Boonchuys, like a cell phone. They watch the local humans take the bus and follow the same actions they observe and climb aboard, but when the bus takes off, Hop Pop tries to latch on to something by shooting his tongue but ends up accidentally licking everyone on board, getting the group kicked off the bus.

Their quest continues and they finally end up at the vet's office, full of suspecting animals barking and hissing at them while they are disguised. Sprig also notices someone's pet frog and has a brief moment of connection with his brethren.

Domino is seen, but the Vet himself is bombarded with questions from the Plantars about back pain and frogs and their abilities, puzzling the doctor. As they leave, Domino unlatches her travel carrier and sneaks away, inevitably causing the frog family to panic to a point where Sprig calls Mr. Boonchuy and tells him they lost the cat, much to Hop Pop's chagrin.

Mr. Boonchuy tells them to go to the nearest Shawarma restaurant, as it is Domino's favorite food. That's where they find her, to the delight of all the customers inside, where the owner of the restaurant says aloud that the cat is a customer magnet and he's never getting rid of her. The family sees a smoke detector inside the restaurant and Hop Pop replicates the high pitched alarm, evacuating the restaurant. Polly rolls around, pretending to be a ball of yarn to entice the cat back into her travel carrier, and as the fire department approaches, so does Mr. Boonchuy, who says he'll drop the group back at home on his way to the restaurant.

Hop Pop feels bad that he has to go out of his way again for the Plantars, calling himself a freeloader. Mr. Boonchuy stops the scooter and says to them that they took his daughter into their home when she was most in need, and kept her safe and fed her for five months. The Plantars will never be freeloaders.

They get back home just before Anne and her mom show up, with Anne clearly under the influence of some pretty strong dentist medication, dreamily babbling complete nonsense while squeezing Hop Pop's cheeks. Mrs. Boonchuy explains that Anne had "eight cavities and a whole lot of cricket legs". The Boonchuys leave the loopy Anne with the Plantars as Hop Pop begs the human girl to let go of his face while Domino is seen casually licking herself.

---

Tropes:

• Amazing Technicolor Population: Lampshaded. When the Plantars start getting too specific with their questions to the vet about frog biology and asking him unusual questions, he starts taking a closer look at them, noticing their unusual skin tones and Hop Pop's fake nose, forcing them to quickly leave before they're discovered.
• Artistic License – Law: By the time the Plantars find Domino after losing her, they find the cat gnawing on the meat at a shawarma restaurant with the owner wanting to keep her due to the positive attention she brings. While the humans in this setting are meant to be eccentric, in Real Life he should have evicted the cat the second he saw it for fear of a health-code violation, regardless the amount of customers she attracts.
• Be the Ball: Polly loosens the string of her coat and rolls around to imitate a ball of yarn, causing Domino to chase her.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Mr. Boonchuy makes it clear to the Plantars that they have his and his wife's eternal gratitude for giving Anne a place to stay during her 5 month stay in Amphibia and how they kept her fed and safe.
  Mr. Boonchuy: You will never owe us anything. Ever.
• Big Shadow, Little Creature: The Plantars are scared by a heron this way, as the sun directly behind it makes it look like the giant ones from their world. They laugh when the heron turns out to be no bigger than Sprig, until it bites him.
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Discussed. The Plantars try to get information on frog biology from the vet once he's done seeing Domino, with Hop Pop wondering if there's anything to help with back pain, or medicine to make a frog look 40 years younger, Sprig wanting to know what the world record for the highest a frog's ever jumped is so he can beat it, and Polly wanting to know if frogs can grow extra limbs. All their questions start making the vet both confused and suspicious, especially once he starts noticing their unusual skin tones as well as Hop Pop's fake nose, forcing them to beat a hasty retreat.
• Body Paint: "Cousin Stanley" was a bluish-skinned frog who painted himself orange in order to pass as a relative of the redder-hued Plantars. The bucket he's getting the paint from is labeled "Plantar Orange".
• Call-Back:
  • Sprig expresses nervousness about taking Domino to the vet, noting that she's giving him Domino 2 flashbacks from their similar appearances.
  • The same woman from the Willow Pines shopping mall who noted that True Art Is Incomprehensible is shown at the vet's, having her pet snake Bobbet looked at.
  • The woman that Sprig and Anne passed by in the runaway food truck is a customer in the shawarma restaurant.
    • She's also one of the passengers whose face Hop Pop accidentally licks on the bus. Seems like her purpose in life is just taking the brunt of whatever madness the Plantars get up to.
  • When Hop Pop realises that they've stayed past the 3 day time limit as guests and are now more like freeloaders to the Boonchuys, Sprig is quick to point out that he's somewhat part of the Boonchuy family now.
• Cats Are Mean: Zigzagged. Domino can be quite vicious, attacking the Plantars and leaving them in scratches and bruises. On the other hand, she also gives a congratulatory pat on the head to Polly when the Plantar's finally succeed in getting her to the vets, showing that it's Nothing Personal.
• Chekhov's Gun: The start of the episode has Domino messing around inside the house at the start of her day, doing activities like eating bugs, knocking pictures off the chest of drawers and with particular focus given to her pouncing on and playing with a ball of yarn. Later, Polly uses her round body shape and a length of string to mimic a ball of yarn to attract Domino towards her cage.
• Chekhov's Skill: Somewhat. "Quarreller's Pass" showed that Sprig and Polly were excellent mimics of each other's voices, as well as other people's. It turns out that Hop Pop can do this too, but primarily uses it to mimic the machine noises of Earth in order to trick Earthlings whilst in his Secret Identity.
• Company Cross References: One of the dogs at the vet's looks very similar to Sid Philips' dog, Scud.
• Continuity Nod: In the previous episode "Thai Feud", Anne tasks Hop Pop and Polly to do research on interdimensional portals and travel. The first scene shows Anne doing her own research with science magazines but is frustrated to find diddly squat.
• Cuteness Proximity: The shawarma place's customers are all enamored by Domino's cuteness.
• Destination Defenestration: When the Plantars have had enough of Cousin Stanley, they throw him out a second story window, and into the swamp.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: After Domino escapes from the pet carrier, Sprig says that she feels lighter all of a sudden. That is until they realize that she's gone.
• Eye Scream: While Domino attacks the Plantars, Sprig is heard screaming "My eye!" And sure enough, in the next scene he is shown to have a black eye, as does Polly and Hop Pop.
• Fire Alarm Distraction: The Plantars find Domino in a shwarma stand filled with customers, and they need to get her out of there without exposing themselves to the humans. Hop Pop gets the brilliant idea of mimicking the sound of a fire alarm to draw the people out of the stand thinking that there's a fire in the building.
• Fooled by the Sound: Hop Pop is capable of mimicking the sound of a fire alarm, which he uses to drive the customers out of a shawarma restaurant.
• Free the Frogs: Sprig swipes a native frog from a kid at the vet and sets it free.
• Furry Confusion: Sprig sees a non-anthropomorphic frog held by a kid and thinks a member of his brethren is being held hostage.
• Hellish Pupils: Domino's pupils turn to slits when she is provoked.
• Here We Go Again!: Mr. and Mrs. Boonchuy leave the drugged-up Anne for the Plantars to take care of while they attend to something else.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: Hop Pop says that guests are like noxious swamp gas^*fish — after three days they start to drive you crazy^*stink.
• Humanlike Animal Aging: Lampshaded when Hop Pop asks the vet if he has a medication that can make a frog look 40 years younger, which confuses the vet since most frogs (the ones from Earth) don't live that long.
• Incorrect Animal Noise:
  • Played for Laughs as when Domino is mauling the Plantars, a big cat's roar is heard.
  • For some reason, a red-tailed hawk's cry is heard when a heron flies over the Plantars.
• Intoxication Ensues: At the end, Anne comes back hopped up on pain killers after having eight cavities fixed and a ton of cricket legs pulled out of her teeth. This leaves her very delirious as a result.
  Anne: [squeezes Hop Pop's cheeks] Listen. Domino is not just a cat. She is the alpha and omega. An interdimensional being beyond all time and space.
  Hop Pop: Wh-What's that now?
  Sprig: Do me next! Do me next!
• I Resemble That Remark!: As her mother is pulling her to the car to take her to the dentist, Anne protests that her teeth only hurt a little bit.
• Nice Kitty...: Hop Pop says "That's a good boy..." to a Bull Terrier as it is putting its open jaws on his face.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Hop Pop becomes alarmed when, after saying they'll be seen as freeloaders after staying with the Boonchuys for three days, Sprig informs him it's been a week.
  • When a heron flies overhead, the Plantars freak out — remembering that the herons on their world are colossal (and ate the kids’ parents)— until it lands in a nearby fountain and is no larger than Sprig. They laugh until it bites Sprig's arm, causing them to freak out again.
  • Polly has a silent version as she sees a chihuahua in the vets gnawing on a chew toy that resembles her, realizing that the much-larger canines that are in the same room could potentially give her a worse mauling than Domino gave the three Plantars all at once.
  • When Domino pounces at her after she pretends to be a ball of yarn, Polly realizes she's in trouble and rolls away as fast as she can, pursued by Domino.
• Overly-Nervous Flop Sweat: Polly watching a chihuahua mauling a plush toy that looks like her starts to make her sweat. Similarly, Hop Pop starts sweating after he "licked everyone on the bus". This is despite it already established that Earth frogs do not sweat.
• Playing the Family Card: "Cousin Stanley" used his apparent ties with the Plantar'a to crash at their place. He was a big freeloader who constantly took advantage of the their generosity for months on end, with it even being implied that he's not even really their cousin. Eventually, the Plantars, understandably, got fed up with Stanley, and forcefully kicked him out of the house without regret.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: To Adventures in Babysitting.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: Anne rummages through science magazines and finds nothing on interdimensional travel. She asks out loud what science is even good for as she chucks a magazine aside, the open page revealing that diarrhea has been cured and world hunger solved.
• Rule of Three: Hop Pop believes guests that stay at their host's home for longer than three days become freeloaders.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: Sprig, having enough of Hop Pop's insistence on not calling for help, steals the phone back and calls for Mr. Boonchuy's help while allowing Polly to stuff Hop Pop into the cage to stop him.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The Boonchuys quickly exit the room after foisting the painkiller-addled Anne off on the Plantars, since they want to help out around the house more and Anne is way out of it from the sheer amount of painkillers in her system needed for her dental operation.
• Shout-Out:
  • When trying to lure Domino out of the shawarma restaurant, Polly does a rolling maneuver similar to the Spin Dash.
  • The Plantars do a victory dance upon reaching the vet with the music sounding similar to Kirby.
• Skewed Priorities: As the shawarma restaurant is being evacuated, one customer complains that she hasn't gotten her order yet. The owner pointedly questions whether her order is more important than her life, and she concedes the point and evacuates.
• Spit Take: Hop Pop does this with the lemonade he was drinking. It hits Polly, who proceeds to do it back at him.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Sprig and Polly do this several times throughout the episode, only for Hop Pop to shoot their suggestions down out of a desire for them to be seen as competent and a benefit to their hosts, and not wind up as 'freeloaders'. When they're kicked out of the bus, Sprig suggests calling Mr. Boonchuy to get a lift, only for him to insist on walking the rest of the way there. When Domino goes missing, Polly and Sprig's first instinct is again just to call Mr. Boonchuy in order to get help with finding her, with Polly shoving Hop Pop in Domino's cage in order to stop him interfering when Sprig just goes ahead and calls him anyway and his in-depth understanding of Domino's behavioral patterns allows them to easily track her down. When they locate Domino in a nearby shawarma shop, Hop Pop suggests getting her at any cost, even risking their lives if necessary, only for Sprig to point out they just need a distraction to get everyone else out of the way so they can get her back unimpeded, like mimicking a fire alarm going off.
• Suddenly Always Knew That: Polly somehow knows what a burner phone is when offered Mr. Boonchuy's flip phone. Given that "Thai Feud" showed she and Hop Pop were enjoying Earth movies and series around the house (and "Temple Frogs" later establishes she learned Thai from watching them), it's possible she's picked up a partial understanding of aspects of Earth life through the media.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Most shows usually never have their characters worry about their dental health no matter what kind of food they ate. Anne spent months in a death world eating improvised food with practically no tooth brushing done resulted in her needing to get the multiple cavities she developed treated at the dentist.
• Take That!: As the customers are fleeing the shawarma restaurant, one complains about not getting her order. The owner points out that her order isn't worth dying for and calls her "Karen". She notes that her name is Emily, but concedes the point and runs.
• Tears of Joy: The Plantars shed these when Mr. Boonchuy assures them that he will never consider them to be freeloaders for helping his daughter during her time of need.
• Tempting Fate:
  • The Plantars assume that taking Domino to the vet will be an easy way to prove themselves not freeloaders, with Polly attempting to "seize" Domino by leaping onto her belly. Cue a Smash Cut to the outside of the house as the angry cat mauls them, and another Smash Cut to Domino in her carrier and the Plantars covered in cuts and bruises.
  • Hop Pop is worried that they'll be seen as freeloaders if they stay more than three days. Sprig immediately notes that it's been a week.
• The Thing That Would Not Leave: After learning they've been with the Boonchuys for a week, Hop Pop worries about becoming a "freeloader" like "Cousin Stanley", a distant relative who stayed with him for months on end until he, Sprig, and Polly got fed up when they realized he was just some rando looking for a family to freeload off of so he didn't have to work, and threw him into the swamp from a second-story window. Subverted in regards to the Plantars themselves, as Anne's parents are more than happy to care for them after they cared for Anne in their own world.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Domino apparently really loves shawarma. When she gets away from the Plantars, Mr. Boonchuy correctly guesses that she's heading to a shawarma restaurant.
• Underestimating Badassery: Downplayed. A couple episodes ago, the Plantars scoffed at the animals of Earth, saying that they don't try to tear them apart. Here, they find out that many Earth creatures, while not monstrous like their counterparts in Amphibia, are ferocious and threatening in their own way. For example, while Earth herons lack the great size and sharp teeth of their Amphibia counterparts, they can still bite. And the Plantars learn the hard way on why you shouldn't touch a cat's stomach.
• Voice Changeling: Hop Pop is able to mimic the confirmation sound of a bus card reader, and later copies a fire alarm to drive the customers out of a shawarma restaurant.
• Word Salad Philosophy: Anne's bizarre, very nonsensical painkiller-high-induced monologue about Domino:
  Anne: Listen. Domino is not just a cat. She's the alpha and omega. An inter-dimensional being beyond all time and space.

---