It's time for the Princess Prom, hosted by Princess Frosta. Adora wants to recruit her, but friend troubles and unexpected guests get in the way.
Tropes
- The Bad Guy Wins: Catra manages to capture Glimmer and Bow and grab Adora's sword.
- Bifauxnen: Catra rocks the suit she wears.
- Brick Joke: The Force Captain Orientation is mentioned again, and Catra is starting to regret missing it.
- Characterization Marches On: Frosta is stoic, mature and suffers from Honor Before Reason. Later episodes would show her as a bratty, childish kid who is a bit of a Blood Knight, though this could be explained by her trying at act mature when hosting her first event.
- Clothing Damage: Bow rips off his cummerbund to maintain this. Then, he has to go looking for it because he finds it's a bit cold to do without it.
- Costume-Test Montage: Both sides try on outfits for the prom.
- Crazy-Prepared: The Princess Ball has been held for decades, so its present-day invitations include vastly detailed information on how to act, just in case the recipients are new to being Princesses or raised in an army. Which Adora and Scorpia are.
- Creator Cameo: Caricatures appear at the party
of ND Stevenson, his fiancée (now wife) Molly Ostertag, and storyboard artist Diana Huh.note - Deadly Dodging: Adora sidesteps an elbow strike from Catra, and her momentum sends her off a cliff until Adora catches her.
- Diplomatic Impunity: All princesses have diplomatic immunity during the Princess Ball, which means they are protected from retribution, and attacking another princess or their plus-ones constitutes a political incident. But, since Scorpia is one such princess, she and Catra plan on abusing their immunity to destroy the kingdom.
- Dressing as the Enemy: A couple of Horde soldiers (Kyle and Lonnie) disguise themselves as guards in Frosta's kingdom so they can steal the Sword of Protection.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Double Trouble, not introduced or even alluded to until season four, appears in the background at the party.
- Establishing Character Moment: An In-Universe version. When Adora meets Princess Frosta, she makes a major gaffe by insensitively bringing up her age, a sore point to the young princess. This makes Frosta much less inclined to like or trust Adora.
- Fantastic Racism: Scorpia says the other princesses didn't like her and her family, “even before [they] joined the Horde”, which Catra interprets as snobbish elitism because of Scorpia's monstrous appearance. It's not clear if that's true— it’s possible she’s been lied to about life before the Horde, and the princesses have plenty of reason to be wary of a Horde soldier.
- Foe Romance Subtext: Catra goes into a tirade about the princesses, showing that she is resentful at them for "stealing" Adora from her. She also picks Adora as a dance partner, which provides a video example of the trope. To top it all off their fight at the end feels like the two are flirting, especially when Adora saves Catra from falling off the ledge.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Glimmer is very jealous that Bow took up Perfuma's offer of being her plus one and is hanging out with her. Bow eventually calls her out on this.
- Literal Metaphor: At the end of the episode, Catra kidnaps Adora's friends and leaves her hanging on a cliff.
- Mythology Gag:
- The Star Sisters, Peekablue, and Sweet Bee, characters from the original series, are mentioned on Adora's chart.
- One of the guests at the ball is a Kon-Seal, Loo-Kee's species.
- During Scorpia's dress montage, one of her outfits gives her bright green eye shadow that extends all the way to her eyebrows, similar to what her original incarnation wore.
- Oh, Crap!: A quite beautiful one from Catra as she's going off the roof.
- Paranoia Gambit: Catra, knowing Adora would follow her to see what she is doing, deliberately acts as cagey as possible to goad her, which succeeds in making Adora look weird and unstable when she eventually attacks her. Meanwhile, Scorpia and the disguised Lonnie and Kyle set off the traps they placed throughout the palace.
- Psychological Projection: After hearing Scorpia's reason for not going to the Princess Prom, Catra encourages her to go just to spite them while clearly drawing on her own resentment for the princesses "stealing" Adora from her:Catra: How dare those princesses pretend they're better then you, just because you're different. How dare they abandon people, just because they don't fit in with their perfect little lives. […] How dare they take best friends and turn them into giant sword ladies who run off with people clearly inferior to you!
- Sacred Hospitality: The ball is supposed to be strictly non-violent. Catra tricks Adora into violating this to get her into trouble with Princess Frosta.
- Seven Minute Lull: Naturally, the ball's participants stop being loud the second Adora makes a rude comment about Frosta.
- String Theory: Adora prepares herself for the ball by studying it this way, as if it were a mission.
- Troll: Catra goading Adora is part of her plan, but she is clearly having a grand time getting under her skin. Especially when the two of them are dancing.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Frosta is so concerned with looking like an all-important leader that she ends up making several fatal mistakes. She refused to listen to Adora and Glimmer when they warned her about the possibility of the Horde attacking her kingdom, twice when she is told that two of her guests are the Horde's top enforcers, and then traps Adora and nearly bans her from her kingdom after she confronts Catra over Bow's disappearance. Had she taken the time to think things through, her castle would have not ended up damaged from heat bombs and Catra wouldn't have escaped with Bow, Glimmer, and Adora's sword.
- Villains Blend in Better: Adora, a Socially Awkward Hero who gets off on the wrong foot with Princess Frosta after unintentionally insulting her young age, is left looking like a paranoid wreck trying to bring the war into a neutral kingdom by Catra, who in comparison acts like a perfectly respectable guest and makes sure to never do anything overtly villainous until the bombs go off.
- We Need a Distraction: Catra draws off Adora and deliberately acts guilty so Adora will think she's up to something. Meanwhile, Scorpia goes around planting heat bombs.
- Wham Line: Played for Laughs when Scorpia casually drops that she's a princess. Catra is flabbergasted; Scorpia thought everyone already knew.
- You Didn't Ask:
- Scorpia assumed that Catra knew she was a princess, since it's covered in Force Captain orientation.Catra: I'm beginning to think I shouldn't have skipped that.
- Adora is shocked that Princess Frosta is "like, ten" ("Eleven and three-quarters"). Glimmer says she assumed Adora knew because she spent days studying all the princesses.
- Scorpia assumed that Catra knew she was a princess, since it's covered in Force Captain orientation.
