Star and Marco's friendship has been strained due to the events of "Face the Music", affecting their enjoyment of the Diaz’ end-of-the-school-year party. While Marco copes and hangs out with Jackie, Star's friends convince her to ditch the party for a more dangerous bash.
Meanwhile, the members of the Magic Commission confront Ludo.
Tropes:
- Accidental Misnaming: Oskar keeps referring to Marco as Mango.
- Actor Allusion: Omnitraxus Prime being rendered only a skull in the palm of Toffee's hand after being defeated could be a nod to the fate of his voice actor Carl Weathers' role Dillon in Predator, who is killed by the Predator and then presumably have his skull and spine collected as trophies along with the rest of its victims.
- Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Marco's parents are first seen dancing to hip-hop music while wearing 90's style clothes, in full view of Marco's schoolmates. However, Marco is too depressed about what happened between himself and Star to be embarrassed by them.
- And Your Little Dog, Too!: Moon nearly dies at the hand of Toffee, an old enemy, who now has half of her family's wand. And he makes it clear before she escapes that he'll be coming for Star to get his finger back.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Before returning to Mewni, Star confesses to Marco that she does have a crush on him, and wanted to say so since she may never return from Mewni.
- Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?: Jackie has Marco try to guess what she's thinking to test how well they connect. He guesses she wants him to kiss her, but she actually wanted him to feed her pizza nuggets. She doesn't think the former is a bad idea, though.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Toffee's long scheme finally bears fruit when he completely takes over Ludo's body and merges Ludo's half of the wand with himself. He then curbstomps the entire Magic Commission and steals their magic, seemingly resulting in Lekmet's death when he overuses his Necromancer abilities trying to keep them in the fight. Queen Moon barely manages to escape with her incapacitated friends and Lekmet's remains. The season ends with Toffee undoubtedly victorious. And coming for Star.
- Big Brother Bully: Ludo relates to Moon an incident from when he was five; his big brother Chudo, while walking him home, took him to a burnt-out castle. Chudo then told him that their house had burned down, and they would have to live outside.
- Blatant Lies: Star tries to deny her crush on Marco with varying degrees of success. She's extremely unconvincing in front of her friends, but does a somewhat better job when she denies it to Marco personally. She ends up admitting it, anyway, since she doesn't want to leave for Mewni without doing so.
- Body Horror: When Toffee completely possesses Ludo, his skeletal hand regenerates over Ludo's arm and the wand fragment, giving Ludo mismatched arms.
- Book Burning: Played with. At Slurp-and-Stop's roof, there's a party of teenagers celebrating the end of the year by burning their school books and failed tests. But don't worry, it's a legal, controlled bonfire; they even have a firewoman just in case!
- Brick Joke: At the wild party, Oskar accidentally flings his keytar high into the air. During the credits, the keytar finally crashes down in front of the Diaz household. Also, Oskar suggested that the keytar would fly to Mars (the planet). Marco is an alternate name for Mars (the Roman god). So, in a way, it did fly to Mars.
- Broken Pedestal: With her crush goggles for Oskar now gone, Star has started to realize he's an idiot and not worth the attention.
- Calling the Old Woman Out: At first, Star has had it with her mother about her not letting her make her own choices, from forcing her to go to Earth, only to be told now that she has to leave. Once she's told Toffee is back, Star reluctantly agrees to leave with her mother to get to safety.
- Came Back Strong: Despite having Ludo's minuscule body, Toffee is more powerful than he was before his first death, having come back as a soul-draining creature with half a wand fused to his palm.
- Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Star finally telling Marco how she feels about him before having to leave with Moon, the Commission all dead (although it might be temporary), and the whereabouts of Glossaryck and the book remain unknown.
- Clingy MacGuffin: Ludo's wand was actually Toffee's hand, which regenerates and merges with Ludo's arm. As a result, the half of the wand that was in it is now merged with Toffee.
- Continuity Nod: When Rafael asks about Marco's partner in crime and Marco mistakenly thinks he's referring to Jackie, Rafael clarifies that he's talking about Star, and that unlike Star, Jackie is not a criminal. Star most likely has a criminal record of some sort due to the events of "Star vs. Echo Creek".
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Magic High Commission never even stood a chance against Toffee.
- Curb-Stomp Cushion: While she's still completely outmatched by Toffee, Queen Moon puts up a much better fight than the rest of the Commission, even managing to temporarily slow him down by burying him alive.
- Did Not Think This Through: While at the wild party, Star uses her "Sparkle Kitten Fireworks Shower" spell, creating fireworks that turn into falling kittens… which promptly attack the party goers as they land on the roof.
- Downer Ending: After Star and Marco reconcile, Moon tells Star that she has to leave Earth because Toffee has come back stronger than ever and drained the Magic High Commission of their magic. After Star tells Marco that she does have a crush on him, she tearfully runs to her room. Before Marco can catch up, she's already gone through the portal and her room is fading away.
- The Dreaded: When Moon first arrives to take Star back to Mewni, Star refuses to go, believing her mother is just trying to control her life again. When Moon reveals that Toffee is back, however, Star instantly understands and only stays long enough to tell Marco how she feels.
- Everyone Can See It: Played with. Janna, StarFan13, and Pony Head knew that Star has a crush on Marco. However, everyone else at the party, especially Jackie, is genuinely shocked when Star confesses it to Marco.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Rafael doesn't exactly understand why Marco is bummed out during the party but when he goes over the scenario, he realizes what happened and recommends that Marco and Star talk this out.Rafael: What could be weird? Two teenagers sharing a home. One boy, one girl. [Beat] Oh. Oh, no.
- Get Out!: Played for laughs when Mr. Diaz demands Marco leave the kitchen so he can make more pizza nuggets, which he says with ridiculous seriousness given how mundane the task is.
- Greeting Gesture Confusion: Star shakes Marco's fist when he punches her arm. When Oskar offers Star a fist bump, she confesses that she doesn't understand the gesture. When he says there's no wrong way to do it, she shakes his fist, just like she did with Janna in "Girls' Day Out".
- Hand Behind Head: Part of the awkwardness between Star and Marco is expressed by them doing the gesture. Star also does it around Oskar.
- Healing Hands: Lekmet's magic is Necromancy that saves his allies from staying killed by Toffee. Unfortunately for him, it's Cast from Lifespan and he only gets three uses out of it before he dies, two of which are negated when Toffee just kills Rhombulus and Hekapoo again.
- Heroic BSoD: When Star confesses her crush on Marco, Jackie is in a stunned silence and Janna momentarily glances at Jackie in order to see how she is during the confession.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Chancellor Lekhmet uses the last of his power to save Queen Moon, his body turning to dust except for a single horn.
- Hope Spot: It seems that Queen Moon is getting through to Ludo and may be leading him to a Heel–Face Turn... at which point Toffee takes complete control.
- I Don't Want to Ruin Our Friendship: Star is worried about losing her friendship with Marco after her crush was publicly revealed and they agree to pretend that her Song Day never happened. Star decides to have a fun summer with him and not act on her crush. Once she finds she's leaving with the possibility of never coming back, however, she decides she might as well admit the truth.
- The "I Love You" Stigma: After Star's crush on Marco was revealed in "Face the Music", Marco and Star can't speak to each other without becoming awkward. Marco is still absorbing Star's confession and therefore struggling to comprehend her feelings for him, while Star is too embarrassed to admit that the song was accurate.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: While at a restaurant, Pony Head finishes telling her date why she would be "the most reliable non-flaky girlfriend ever." She then gets a call from Star, and promptly ditches her date, leaving him with the four lobsters she ordered for dinner.
- Important Haircut: Oskar's new undercut hairstyle makes him look much less cool.
- Let Us Never Speak of This Again: Star and Marco agree not to talk about the embarrassing events of Song Day and try to put things back to normal.
- Love Triangle: This episode confirms that both Star and Jackie have feelings for Marco. And for the first time, all three of them realize it.
- Mana Drain: Toffee siphons off the magic from the Commission members when he beats them.
- The Matchmaker: Pony Head, Janna, and Kelly all urge Star to talk to Oskar, if only to help her get over Marco.
- Mood Whiplash:
- The episode often jumps between the serious, dramatic, plot involving the Magical High Commission and the humorous, at times awkward, plot involving Star on Earth. It's quite jarring after a deadly serious battle where people are killed to immediately jump to Star doing magic for a party.
- The solemn, quiet end credits sequence is punctuated by Oskar's keytar from an earlier scene falling and landing in Marco's front yard.
- Never My Fault: Ludo takes zero responsibility for his actions when the Magic High Commission confronts him, even insisting that he didn't steal the book just because Glossaryck said it was his. Then he states Glossaryck just comes and goes as he pleases, leading to a Touché remark from Rhombulus and Hekapoo.
- No Time to Explain:
- Queen Moon insists she has no time to explain why Star has to return to Mewni, but Star's refusal to go forces her to tell Star that Toffee has returned, which gets Star's cooperation.
- Star tells Marco her feelings towards him but she doesn't have time to explain why she has to leave or why she had to tell him. Marco still tries to get one, but she's already gone.
- Oh, Crap!: Star has this reaction when her mother tells her Toffee has returned.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
- Star and Marco spend nearly the entire episode being uncharacteristically distant from each other, which goes to show just how heavily their extremely close friendship has been strained.
- When Star makes her Anguished Declaration of Love to Marco in front of everyone, Jackie can only stare in Stunned Silence with an absolutely shocked, almost distraught expression on her face.
- Race for Your Love: A (maybe?) platonic version, after Star admits her crush on Marco and tearfully runs for her room. Though Marco doesn't feel the same way, he chases after her for an explanation, but by the time he catches up Star has already left and her room is fading away.
- Rapid-Fire "No!": Star does this twice. Once out of defiance when Moon tells her she has to go back to Mewni and again out of distress when Moon explains why.
- Senseless Sacrifice: Lekmet ultimately drains his lifespan entirely to revive Hekapoo, Rhombulus, and Moon. Moon's revival ended up being the only one that mattered, since Rhombulus and Hekapoo immediately returned to battle and got killed by Toffee again (probably giving him even more power as a result) while Moon was able to survive, keep Toffee at bay, and retrieve the comatose bodies and remains of the others when she retreated.
- Sequel Hook: Toffee tells Queen Moon that he's coming to get his missing finger back.
- Shipper on Deck: StarFan13 squees when Star admits that maybe she did have a crush on Marco once, and is disappointed when Star claims she no longer does. And then when Star confesses to Marco, StarFan13 faints. Also, Pony Head scoffs at Star's denial of her crush, and gleefully gloats during Star's public confession (which has the entire rest of the room in stunned silence).Pony Head: Who called it? I called it! Boom!
[StarFan13 faints]
Pony Head: I called it. - Silence Is Golden: After Marco chases Star to her room, seeing that Star has disappeared and the room is following suit, there is nothing but dead silence during the credits. There really are no words to describe what had just happened without killing the moment.
- Special Edition Title: The usual bouncy credits theme is replaced by one that gives off the same vibe as those seen in Gravity Falls. We see a quiet exterior shot of Marco's house, minus Star's additions, to drive home what a big deal this episode is.
- Stunned Silence: The audience — especially Jackie and Marco — when Star publicly confesses her feelings to Marco. Except for Pony Head, who brags that she "called it."
- Super Mode: Moon turns into her winged, six armed fairy-like form as she unleashes all her magical might against Toffee. She ultimately can't stop him, but it gives her a chance to collect the bodies of the rest of the Commission.
- Suspiciously Apropos Music: The song "Just Friends" that Love Sentences sings at the concert describes Star and Marco's relationship at this point.
- Sympathy for the Devil: As horrible as Ludo is, Moon just couldn't help but feel bad for him. She knows that, beneath his insecurities stemming from his childhood, there is a shred of decency in him.
- Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Now that her crush on Oskar has faded, Star isn't very thrilled by the prospect of seeing Oskar during the summer. On the other side of things, when Star held his fist, Oskar was clearly flustered, and even asks to spend more time with her over the summer in the same capacity that Marco usually does.
- The Un-Smile: When Star tries to act casual around Jackie and Marco, she ends with a wide and unconvincing smile. Jackie leaves her and Marco to talk it out.
- Wham Episode: Where to begin?! Glossaryck and the spellbook are still missing, Toffee's completely taken over Ludo's body and turned into some kind of magic-sucking monstrosity who incapacitates the entire High Magic Commission, and Star has to return to Mewni, "probably forever," for her own safety… but not before confessing her crush to Marco in front of everyone at the party, including his parents and his girlfriend.
- Wham Line: Several.
- "Ludo's not here."
- "Tell Star I'm coming for my finger."
- "We are in danger, we must leave for Mewni immediately!"
- "I do have a crush on you!"
- Wham Shot:
- The Council of Magic finding Queen Moon's half-dead body.
- Ludo's wand regenerating into Toffee's hand and merging with the now Toffee-possessed Ludo's hand.
- Star's empty room which is fading away.
- Wild Teen Party: In an effort to get her mind off Marco, Star attends one of these on the roof of the Slurp-and-Stop with Kelly, Pony Head, Janna, and StarFan13.
