Storyboarded by Kellye Perdue & Sam Spina
Exiting a train car filled with baseball-playing dinosaurs, the trio is about to enter the next one before the train suddenly shifts and places a new car in front of their path: a personal study filled with miscellaneous paraphernalia owned by the cat previously seen in "The Beach Car". The group isn't thrilled about meeting her once again, Atticus having been told about the past incident, though the feline points out that it was really Tulip who betrayed her by going back on their deal. The cat forgives her for the slight, but Tulip still refuses to trust the feline and decides to head straight for the door, only to be stopped when the cat makes a series of videotapes fall from a shelf.
Tulip helps the cat pick up the tapes and discovers that one of them is labeled with her name. Atticus isn't sure if viewing the tape is a good idea, but the cat forces her to hit play regardless, mentally sucking Tulip into the device. Now inside the videotape, Tulip finds herself viewing happy memories from the past, but slowly realizes that some of these memories have been altered or completely fabricated. Her body starts becoming television static at the realization, but as she reconstructs the actual events — a family trip filled with arguing, talking to her father who has been banished to the living room, and her parents telling her about their separation — the static dissipates and Tulip regains consciousness in the train car.
Enraged that the cat tried to trap her in a series of false memories, Tulip and the others start storming out. The cat tries to placate her by saying her number should be going down if she managed to make it past that trial, but Tulip no longer cares about the mystery of the number and sarcastically responds that it is great to know that the train thinks she's becoming a better person. Now alone, the cat is made to confront the Steward and another mysterious robotic creature hidden in the shadows, who had come to collect Tulip. Facing death for her failure, she begs for another chance to prove herself, which she is granted, with the Steward destroying her collection as punishment instead.
Tropes:
- An Aesop: You don't need to lie to yourself about your past. Even if your happy memories aren't as happy with hindsight, maybe your painful memories aren't as painful either.
- Chekhov's Gun: The Cat takes a videotape when the Steward comes knocking — we'll be seeing that come into play in "The Past Car".
- Foreshadowing:
- The Cat tells Tulip that her tape and number are connected. A season and a half later, we find out how.
- After it's mentioned that the number going down means the train thinks she's doing well, Tulip sarcastically states that the only reason her number went down is that she's "growing as a person" and is "glad" to see that the train cares about her. She happens to be right on both accounts.
- The Cat not only mentions that Tulip escaped, but that she took "the ball" with her, showing that her mysterious employer wants One-One in addition to Tulip.
- Jerkass Realization: Tulip goes through this when she ends up reviewing the scene where her parents discussed their divorce with her. Having previously viewed her parents as having divorced as part of a way to torment her, she realizes that it was just as hard on them as it was on her and that she was acting unreasonably hostile to them.
- Lotus-Eater Machine: Tulip's tape traps her inside altered versions of her worst memories. In order to escape, she has to remember how those memories actually happened.
- Noodle Incident: Tulip and co.'s encounter with the baseball-playing dinosaurs.
- Oh, Crap!: The Cat freaks out when Tulip escapes her tape in under a second, at least from the Cat's perspective, clearly having expected it to incapacitate her for much longer than that. It turns out she was supposed to deliver Tulip and One-One to the one controlling the Steward.
- Once More, with Clarity: Once Tulip realizes she had altered the memories herself, they play again as they really happened.
- The dolphin show that Tulip was cheering at turned out to be depressing, made even worse by her parents arguing.
- It wasn't Tulip watching TV late at night, but her father Exiled to the Couch.
- Obviously, Tulip's parents did not turn into monsters as they told her they were getting divorced, nor did the house suddenly catch fire; the actual discussion was quite civil, it was Tulip who got angry and acted out.
- Properly Paranoid: Atticus is suspicious of the tape that the cat is goading Tulip into watching. Turns out he has good reason to be.
- Self-Serving Memory: Tulip realizes that she herself was the one altering her memories so that events seemed happier than they really were.
- Shout-Out: At DolphWorld, there is a girl in the audience with light blue hair and a beret, an apparent nod to the titular character's attire in Hilda.
- Stepford Smiler: The first sign that Tulip notices that her memories are being revised by the tape is her parents declaring all her dreams to come true with big, creepy forced smiles on their faces.
- The Unintelligible: The Steward's boss speaks in machine language.
- We Named the Monkey "Jack": The dinosaur's name is forgotten after leaving his car, then One-One goes with Mildred.
- Year Inside, Hour Outside: Tulip spends around six minutes in the tape, while outside Atticus doesn't even have time to finish his warning before she escapes.
- You Have Failed Me: The mysterious boss of the Steward (possibly the Conductor) nearly has the Cat killed for failing to capture Tulip and One-One, but she convinces it that she is still its best chance. As punishment, the Steward instead destroys all her possessions.
