A magical photo booth at a wedding goes on the fritz and captures Star and Marco inside.
Tropes:
- Ambiguously Evil: With Ben, it's hard to tell if he was a Well-Intentioned Extremist or a romantic voyeur who was looking for a bit of entertainment from Star and Marco by hooking them up.
- Ambiguous Situation: The kiss itself isn't that clear on whether or not it was consensual or romantic.
- Adam McArthur (Marco's voice actor) explains that Marco was the one who kissed the unexpecting Star and not both of them sharing a kiss, Marco was under the impression that he had to kiss Star to get them both out of the booth before it trapped them permanently.
- When you look closely at the photos, you'll see that this might not be the case (Star does seem to return the kiss judging by her body language, but, again, that doesn't mean it was mutual or romantic).
- The ambiguity of the situation is whether or not this is classed as cheating on Tom. Marco was doing what he thought would get them out of the booth and Star didn't initiate the kiss, but you still have to consider their feelings for each other or if they liked their kiss.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: Marco is still unwilling to admit it to her face, but ends up indirectly confessing his feelings to Star when she tells him to clarify what he meant by their adventures feeling different from before, replying that they're different "for him". She takes a while to fully understand what he means.
- The Big Damn Kiss: Convinced that the photo booth won't let them out otherwise, Marco kisses Star for the final photo.
- Blatant Lies: Kelly claims not to have taken Nachos for a joyride… while her hair is blown back and covered in twigs.
- Call-Back: Marco finally brings up Star's confession from "Starcrushed", which was a big Elephant in the Living Room throughout the whole of Season 3.
- Continuity Nod:
- Both Star and Marco bring up specific dialogue from "Starcrushed", such as Marco talking about his guts or his feelings that things were becoming different to him.
- Marco's dragoncycle Nachos returns, having last been seen in "Night Life".
- Star goes diving through Marco's jacket looking for money, knowing he 'will' have $650 on him.
- The Blood Moon again makes an appearance. Its third overall, after "Blood Moon Ball" and "Bon Bon the Birthday Clown". (Or fourth if Marco's dream sequence in "Red Belt" counts.) The Blood Moon Waltz musical motif is also briefly heard both in the booth and at the end of the episode when the Blood Moon is seen.
- When Star picks up the photo strip in the final seconds of the episode, Marco's crescent cheek marks from "Deep Dive" appear on the photo of their kiss, even though they weren't present during the actual kiss.
- Dramatic Irony: Tom, at the end, kissing and being playfully sweet with Star after she and Marco kissed, blissfully unaware of the emotional turmoil she is facing. Heck, he doesn't even notice how unresponsive Star is.
- Forgot About His Powers: While one can excuse Star and Marco not using their wand/dimensional scissors to escape the booth as them simply having left both at home (they were at a wedding after all), Star never once attempts to use her Mewberty form to create a portal to freedom or to unlock the door like she did when Marco was trapped. On a more mundane level, Star didn't attempt to use her phone (which she was revealed to have on her the whole time), to call Tom. Although it's clear that Star was interested in staying until she got their perfect "bestie" picture anyway.
- Freak Out: Star and Marco have this reaction when they realize they kissed. Star especially is freaking out over the fact that she just cheated on Tom, whom she's already happy to be with and did nothing to deserve this.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: As mentioned above, it's possible to see Star and Marco's (hidden, in the latter's case) cheek marks glowing in the kissing photo as Star takes them.
- Frothy Mugs of Water: Before Ben will start fixing the booth, he declares that he has to get his "mind juices warmed up". He goes to a six-pack of bottles marked "Cold Ones" and downs an entire bottle in one long drink. It's clearly supposed to be beer, though of course "Soda" is written on the side of the carton.
- Genre Deconstruction: Think of this like eating dark chocolate for the first time and having a bitter aftertaste; So Star and Marco have finally kissed. Do they get a Relationship Upgrade, or anything close? Under the best of circumstances maybe, but at this time, they don't; they instead feel horrible for having cheated on the people they're currently in relationships with and realize that they have crossed boundaries in their relationship as knight and squire, not to mention their friendship. To be fair, the only thing running through Marco's mind was that he had to do it, so it wasn't like he was expecting anything good afterwards.
- Godzilla Threshold: Believing nothing else will get them out, Marco had to kiss Star and risk revealing his feelings to her in the process. Of course, this was a pretty mean-spirited joke by Ben—The kissing part at least.
- Gross-Up Close-Up: We get a very close look of Ben Fotino's staring eyes during his introduction.
- Heroic BSoD:
- After seeing Marco take Kelly on Nachos when the whole experience was over, Star freezes up, with a blank face, her voice completely devoid of emotion, and is almost unresponsive. Star died of embarrassment, to say the least.
- Before that, she goes through a short brain blackout when Marco brings up her confession for the first time since "Starcrushed".
- The "I Love You" Stigma: After Marco kisses Star, she is in shock since she believes that she has cheated on Tom. At the same time she may have just realised that her feelings for Marco haven't entirely left. Things are also awkward for Marco since he was just forced to kiss his friend and he's violated his code as a squire by kissing her. Not only that, Marco has just kissed a royal woman who is in a relationship with one of his closest friends who is also a prince. The Butterfly and Lucitor families may not take this well if they ever find out.
- Implied Love Interest: Kelly appears to be Marco's date in this episode, but nothing is explicitly stated. She may as well just be his date.
- Innocently Insensitive: Ben sensed some romantic tension between Star and Marco and genuinely believed he was helping the two be honest with each other. However, he wasn't aware that he was encouraging an affair because Star was already in a relationship and how close Marco was to Kelly.
- Invisible Subtle Difference: Star insists on taking photo after photo despite them being identical to the past ones (apart from what they are wearing) because she senses something wrong with the new ones.
- Is the Answer to This Question "Yes"?: When Marco and Star meet Ben Fotino, some kind of goblin repairman who comes out of the broken photo booth.Marco: Does Pony Head know you live in her photo booth?
Ben: Does a hot dog have bones in it?
Marco: Dude, I dunno! Can you let us out of here? - Jerkass Has a Point: While keeping them in the photo booth until they kissed was probably going too far, Ben Fotino was right in that Star and Marco needed a serious talk about their relationship, but if he did believe that, he could've said so.
- Jump Scare: Marco finds a creepy sand spider-crab creature roaring back at him while looking for a escape route under the booth seat.
- Karma Houdini: Ben intentionally traps two teenagers inside a photo booth and makes up a lie about the booth requiring them to "do something it wants them to do" or else they'd get stuck there forever, effectively manipulating them into indeed doing something that they shouldn't, leading to instant guilt and regret. His motives for this are solely based on a vague assumption that the two wanted to do that something in the first place, despite one of the teens being currently in a relationship with someone else (although he most likely didn't know that). The plan actually works, both Star and Marco become visibly shaken by the experience and Ben faces no consequences whatsoever for it.
- Locked in a Room: A variant. Star and Marco aren't exactly in conflict, but things have gotten weird between them over the season, only to lead up to this very moment where they get trapped in the photobooth.
- Magical Camera: The photo booth turns out to have one, but it's subverted because it's really Ben watching them with the camera.
- Mood Whiplash: Star and Marco's awkward kiss and subsequent speechlessness are immediately followed by Ben Fotino barging into the booth and congratulating them while silly, celebratory music plays.
- Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Near the end of the episode, Tom comes up to Star (who is rattled from kissing Marco) and apologizes to her for "being off falling in love… with [his] pie!"
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Ben was technically right when he sensed some romantic tension between Star and Marco, however, he was wrong when he said they needed to kiss. Marco did develop feelings for Star but wanted to respect her relationship with Tom and find someone else. Star had feelings for Marco but it was in the past now as she moved on to Tom.
- Sadistic Choice: Either do the most shameful thing that would ruin their lives forever, or get trapped in the photobooth forever. Star realized the shameful implications of the former choice a little too late.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Tom quickly makes himself scarce when Star spots the photo booth. He returns at the end of the episode, having been eating pie the whole time (and was unaware Star had even gone anywhere).
- Ship Tease: Marco and Kelly arrive to and leave the wedding together, implying she's there as his date, although they could be just going as friends.
- Shipper on Deck: Ben Fotino's whole goal with the photo booth shenanigans was just to make Star and Marco fess up and kiss. He's seen enough of their photos to believe this.
- Shout-Out: One of the many photos taken of Star and Marco show them doing the fusion pose from Dragon Ball Z.
- Simultaneous Arcs: The episode is implied to take place at the same day as "Skooled". It starts with Star asking where Pony Head is, and ends with her getting a call from Pony Head and realizing she's in trouble, which serves as a lead-in to the next episode.
- Squee: Star's reaction to finding out that the photo booth is magical. Marco, meanwhile, does a Facepalm.
- Take That, Audience!: The antagonist of the episode is a Shipper on Deck who coerces Star and Marco into kissing each other just because he thinks he's entitled to see them kiss, uncaring of the havoc this could wreak on their personal lives and relationship with one another. Almost sounds like the writers are trying to tell us something...
- Tempting Fate: After Star and Marco's mutual freak-out over their kiss, Star says that at least things can't get any more awkward. Then the booth shakes and causes Star to fall into Marco's arms.
- Ten Minutes in the Closet: Ben locks them in the photo booth because from what he's seen of Star and Marco, they've got a lot of issues and wounds to work on. But, he only reveals this in the end.
- Thousand-Yard Stare: Star's eyes just widen and stare straight into blank space after the whole experience, not once flinching. It only took a friend in trouble to at least rouse her.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: The reason why Ben locked them in the booth, he believed Star and Marco had a mutual crush on each other and needed to kiss. Clearly, it remained far from resolved after this.
- Wedding Episode: Downplayed. This episode takes place during Ruberiot and Foolduke's wedding, but the plot focuses more on Star and Marco getting trapped.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Ben meant well since both Star and Marco had to address her confession in "Starcrushed" and his feelings for her. However locking them in the booth until he saw them kiss is both extreme and inconsiderate. His only evidence of believing in their romantic tension was a mountain load of disregarded photos.
- Wham Episode: After 3 whole seasons of evergrowing Ship Tease, Star and Marco finally share a kiss.
- Wham Shot: The Blood Moon making an appearance at the end of the episode.
- Wingding Pupils: When Marco gives Kelly the keys to Nachos and warns her not to go joyriding, Kelly's eyes have starbursts on them.
