Tropes:
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: Ludo is trapped in an outer space-like void for hours, perhaps days, yet is perfectly fine.
- The Beastmaster: Ludo tames a giant spider and a giant eagle.
- Black Comedy Burst:
- Ludo tosses a baby eagle out of its nest to impersonate it and get food. He later sees it on the ground when the eagle drops him twice.
- When Ludo first falls in the spider's web, a bug next to him tells him "Don't fight it, just give in." Later, as the spider starts devouring the bug, Ludo tries to catch the bits of gut that fall off.
- Call-Back:
- The episode starts with Star banishing Ludo to another dimension, which she did at the end of "Storm the Castle".
- Ludo finds the second half of Star's wand thanks to a hallucination of Star leading him to it.
- Cerebus Call-Back: Ludo being thrown into the dimensional rift was comedy in the first season finale, but then we are shown that he almost starved to death because he had no way of getting back.
- A Day in the Limelight: Ludo is naturally the sole focus of the episode, during the 90 days after the events of "Storm the Castle". Star only appears in the beginning during the events of "Storm the Castle" and later as a hallucination.
- Deadly Dodging: During his fight with the giant spider, Ludo manages to trick it into severing its own web, allowing him to get the drop on it and claim dominance.
- The Dog Bites Back: The Giant Spider keeps stealing Ludo's food, but he finally loses his patience when it steals the chip bag and defeats it in battle, turning it into a minion.
- Earth All Along: Or rather, Mewni all along. Due to the great number of dimensions, however, this one turns out to be rather shocking.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The skeletal hand holding the stone with half the star embedded on it lacks the phalanx on its middle finger, just like Toffee's hand.
- Giant Flyer: Ludo gets some trouble from a giant eagle early on, but he turns the tables on it and makes it one of his new minions.
- Giant Spider: One of these threatens Ludo, and fights with him over a bag of chips. He eventually ends up taming it and using it as a mount.
- Gross-Up Close-Up: After the spider steals Ludo's bag of crisps.Ludo: Big mistake!
- Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: After Ludo tricks the spider into destroying its own web, it doesn't fall until Ludo tells it to look down.
- Humiliation Conga: Ludo starts with hatching out of an egg only wearing the shell and the diaper, then tossed into another dimension in outer space.
- Irony: Star banished Ludo to another dimension and left him to die. Here, thanks to her actions, he finds the other half of her wand crystal.
- Kick the Dog: Whenever Ludo gets food the nearby giant spider snatches it and slaps him away. When it takes his Gold 'N Crispz, that's when he has enough.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Once Ludo has decided he's had enough of the spider's nonsense.
- Misery Builds Character: Ludo becomes much more resilient as a result of spending more than two months on his own and starving.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: Ludo, as it turns out, can be surprisingly cunning when pushed to extremes.
- Not So Remote: After ninety days in the wilderness, Ludo discovers that he was on Mewni the whole time.
- Not Worth Killing: Until Ludo angers it by invading its lair and attacking it, the spider disdainfully smacks Ludo aside every time it runs into him.
- Running Gag: Ludo's obsession with getting a bag of potato chips.
- Shout-Out: Ludo trying to get a bag of potato chips greatly parallels Scrat trying to get his acorn. It also bears a strong resemblance to the finale of The Incredible Shrinking Man, in which a starving main character fights a giant spider for the reward of a few crumbs of bread.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Ludo not only gets the bag of chips that he coveted, but also the other half of Star's wand.
- Title Drop: Ludo's narration towards the end of the episode.Ludo: Nature is a cruel mother and favors the merciless. And so, in order to survive, Ludo in the wild must find the wild in Ludo.
- Took a Level in Badass: In the first season, Ludo was a shrimpy, wimpy bully who hid behind his hulking minions. In this episode, he becomes a cunning, determined survivor that manages to tame two monstrous beasts into his servitude. And then he finds the other part of Star's wand...
- Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: The spider tastes Ludo and spits him out, cutting him free from the web to taste something more delectable.
- Villain Episode: The episode focuses solely on Ludo.
- Wham Episode: A few minor whams build up to a pretty surprising episode:
- Ludo is actually pretty cunning and dangerous, when pushed to it.
- The other half of Star's wand crystal is embedded in a rock clutched by a skeletal hand that is implied to be Toffee's, and Ludo has found it.
- Ludo is now obsessed with Star, to the point of hallucinating her.
- Wham Shot: Ludo finding the other half of the crystal from Star's wand, embedded in a rock and clutched in the skeletal remains of what appears to be Toffee's hand. Then he looks up and sees the Butterfly family's royal castle in the distance, and realizes he's been on Mewni the whole time. The day counter that's been punctuating his progress from near death to tamer of beasts then resets to 1, implying a similar rise to power under these circumstances.
