Recap / The Owl House S2E15 "Them's the Breaks, Kid"

"This is the story of how I met the coolest, baddest, kick-buttiest witch of all time: Raine Whispers."

— Eda

Original air date: 4/16/2022

Production code: 215

Eda tells Luz, King, and Hooty the story of how she and Raine met.

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Tropes:

• Abusive Parents: One of the students at the program states that his parents told him to come back with a blue ribbon, or not come back at all.
• The Ace: Raine Whispers is revealed to have been this as a teenager. Not only were they as brilliant as Eda, but they were athletic and academically motivated, too.
• Ambiguously Related: Two of Eda's fellow students are probably Boscha's parents. One of them even has three eyes.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: When they stand up to Terra, Eda calls her out for her crazy challenge, while Raine calls her out for her bad plant-based puns.
• Bad Boss: Principal Faust. After Vice-Principal Bump challenges his views on the students, Faust has him go with Eda to the IFWOT program, telling Bump he'll be fired if Eda doesn't get the school a blue ribbon. And by "firing", he probably means it literally.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Vice-Principal Bump tells Faust that he believes that all students are redeemable, and that he would stake his career on it. Faust, clearly not happy that Bump challenged his opinion, decides to put Bump's ideals to the test by putting him in charge of Hexside's most troublemaking student and telling him that if she doesn't win a ribbon at IFWOT, he'll be fired.
• Blasphemous Boast: When the young Clawthorne sisters are talking about everything they'll accomplish when they join the Emperor's Coven, Eda finishes it off by saying that "even the Titan will gasp in fear."
• Blow You Away: One of the new glyph combinations seen in this episode forms a miniature tornado.
• Breather Episode: Although things get back into the "Day of Unity" plotline at the end, this is mainly a flashback story to how Eda and Raine first met, with heaps of Foregone Conclusion material to nullify much of the drama, and in any case it's hard to come close to the emotional extremes of the previous episode, or the sheer horror of the following one.
• Brick Joke:
  • Early on, Bump gives Eda a stress toy to play with whenever she feels the urge to cause chaos (she pops it almost immediately). Later, during the showdown, Bump is seen squeezing multiple stress toys in an attempt to calm his nerves.
  • Eda and Raine draw two images that, when combined, pass a divination test, Eda's being a profile of someone's butt. Terra uses it as an example of why she won't pass any student unless they pass her last challenge.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: As shown when the Clawthorne sisters are quizzing each other on school subjects, Eda is highly knowledgeable, but prefers to goof off and have fun instead.
• Call-Forward:
  • Eda calls Bump "Vice Princey B", much like how Luz calls him "Princey B" when he first assigns her to the potions track.
  • Eda comments how she'd thought her permanent record would be bigger, just like she does when signing up Luz for Hexside.
  • Eda first meets Raine at the exact same spot in the Covention center where Luz would comfort Amity following their witch's duel. Both scenes also play out similarly, with the Hexside student sitting alone before the other comes along and shows them some impressive magic.
  • When Eda fails to get her ribbon, Bump remarks that she'll probably end up selling trash at the Night Market.
  • Raine gives Eda her first taste of apple blood at the end of the flashback.
• The Cameo: Multiple characters from other schools can be seen at the Covention center, including both of Willow's parents and the Eye-Eating Prisoner.
• Chekhov's Skill: Raine demonstrates the ability to alter the composition of liquid by whistling when they first meet Eda. In the present, Raine uses the same skill to neutralize Terra's mind-wiping tea.
• Child Hater: Principal Faust is convinced all children are "evil", and have depravity in their hearts.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Among the incomplete glyphs Luz tests out are one that turns things to stone and another that conjures monster arms, both things Belos was shown to be capable of in "Young Blood, Old Souls" (the former through a massive statue, evidently the perfected version). She found said incomplete glyphs in Philip Wittebane's diary, reinforcing the strong hints given in "Elsewhere and Elsewhen" that Philip is Belos.
  • Speaking of the petrification spell, Luz is testing it on the Beefy Bob action figure from "Hooty's Moving Hassle".
  • Luz mentions her trip to the past with Lilith in "Elsewhere and Elsewhen".
  • Eda is shown using the Portal Door system she built into Hexside, as revealed in "The First Day".
  • The episode is set seven months before the Emperor's Coven tryouts shown in "Young Blood, Old Souls".
  • Raine introduces Eda to apple blood (its non-alcoholic variant, one assumes, given the setting) at the end of the episode.
• Cool Teacher: Vice-Principal Bump firmly believes that there is no such thing as a lost cause and goes way out of his way to help Eda.
• Crush Blush: Eda's cheeks briefly flush after Raine catches and returns one of her impromptu Grudgby fastballs.
• A Day in the Limelight: The episode is dedicated to Eda and Raine's first meeting.
• Deal with the Devil: Eda even lampshades it, and it was with her principal as a literal devil, no less. She has to return with a ribbon or she gets expelled.
• Dean Bitterman: Principal Faust is insanely quick at punishing and even expelling students for minor slights. For example, he gives detention to students who are not early enough.
• Didn't Think This Through: Principal Faust expelled Hexside's best student for an extremely minor offense, jeopardizing the school's chances of getting another blue ribbon at IFWOT.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Principal Faust dishes out detentions, suspensions and even expulsions for the tiniest of infractions or just petty annoyances.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Terra's final challenge involves labeling the students as "Coven witches" and "Wild witches" in order to pit them against each other. This is a parallel of how educators in the past would use racist or pro-nationalist propaganda to manipulate their students into embracing the "us vs them" mentality.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Eda and Lilith talk about passing Coven tryouts in seven months. The viewer knows this will go horribly wrong.
  • When Terra splits up the students between coven members and wild witches, Eda and Raine are on the opposite sides of the present day.
  • After Terra refuses to hand out any ribbons due to Raine and Eda's insubordination, Vice-Principal Bump says that Eda will end up getting expelled and "probably end up selling garbage at the night market". The irony is of course that while this did end up happening, it turned out to be for completely unrelated reasons.
• The Dreaded: Principal Faust, to the Hexside students.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Eda scares the "slime student" and the head of the Trust Coven by pretending to turn into a skeleton when she falls right through the former. They are not amused.
• Establishing Character Moment: Principal Faust threatening the students with either detention or suspension for "being late to being early" establishes how much of an Evil Principal he is.
• Everyone Went to School Together: Downplayed. While the Clawthorne sisters, Raine, Amity's parents, Darius, and what appears to be Boscha's parents all attended Hexside at the same time, multiple other characters are shown to have attended different schools (like Willow's parents). And even in Raine's case, they started out as a St. Epiderm student and only transferred to Hexside at the end of the flashback after meeting Eda.
• Evil Principal: Faust is obsessed with punishing his students over educating them, and takes credit for the accomplishments of the few who do manage to excel. The only reason why he didn't expel Eda ages ago is because he wanted to "know evil" by studying it up close, and has been using her and her mischief as a case study.
• Foregone Conclusion: Given this is a flashback set before Eda was cursed, we know that no matter what happens, she stays in Hexside and Bump keeps his job to eventually become Principal.
• Generation Xerox: Eda and Raine's love story plays out very similarly to Luz and Amity's, just with a better first impression. Amusingly, Eda and Luz are playing opposite roles in the story (the former as the isolated Hexside student and the latter as the outsider who befriends them).
• Hourglass Plot: Back when they were dating, Eda often shut Raine out when she actually needed them most in an effort to not hurt them. Now, Raine is the one shutting Eda out when they need her most in an effort to prevent hurting her.
• Hypocritical Humor: Principal Faust calls the class valedictorian a "disgusting monster" because they chewed too loudly in the cafeteria. And then immediately cracks his neck to the side and lets out a horrifying breath.
• Insistent Terminology: When Bump calls Terra "Miss Terra", she retorts that it's "Head Witch Snapdragon".
• It's All About Me: While showing off all the school's blue ribbons, Faust almost claims that they're a testament to his excellence, before amending it to saying they're a testament to the school's excellence.
• Lap Pillow: Luz is shown sleeping with her head on Eda's lap when the story ends.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Not only did Faust's attempt to get rid of Eda and Bump fail, because of Terra's influence he is stuck with both of them for good now. And Eda is thrilled about being able to get away with everything now...
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: When Eda offers to tell Luz a story, Luz asks if it's a "backstory kind of story". Sure enough, the quick title opening acts as the transition to the flashback.
• Lunacy: A discussion Eda and Lilith have at the beginning of the story shows that potion making can be impacted by lunar alignment. Eda answers a trick question that, depending on the phase of the moon, a certain ingredient will have less potency and need to have doubled-up proportions for any recipes that call for it.
• Making a Splash: A new glyph combination seen in this episode produces a minor spurt of water.
• The Mole: Raine is no longer brainwashed and works with a mysterious partner to stop the Day of Unity. It is likely that their co-conspirator is Darius, given the little abomination messenger's distinct hairstyle.
• "No. Just… No" Reaction: After conjuring the monster arm, Luz crosses out that glyph in her journal with a giant "NO".
• Noodle Incident: Shortly before they enter the covention center, Bump mentions a story about Eda turning the school inside out. No elaboration is given beyond Eda responding with "that was a fun day."
• Obfuscating Stupidity: This episode shows that Raine is, at least at this point, aware of what Terra is doing to them, and is altering the potion she's giving them using their whistling trick to keep it from working.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: The slime student cries out "Not again!" when it appears Eda has been reduced to a skeleton by falling into his body.
• Only Friend: Even before her curse, Eda didn't have many friends; she outright states to Raine that her sister Lilith is her only friend.
• Out of Focus: Luz, King and Hooty only have lines in the Cold Open and by the time Eda's story ends, they've all fallen asleep.
• Patchwork Kids: A backwards variant: we see two Recurring Extras who seem to be tied at the hip that look like Boscha split in half, one having her face and her three eyes but extremely pink hair and the other having her grey eye color and red hair but two eyes, thus implying they are her parents.
• The Perfectionist: Principal Faust has extremely high standards for Hexside students; he's introduced giving out detentions to any students still outside right after the bell rings, suspending a student for being a few seconds late, he expelled the school's Grudgby captain just because his shoes were too squeaky, and expelled the school's top student for chewing their food too loudly. Vice-Principal Bump worries they won't even have enough students for a graduating class at this rate.
• Pet the Dog:
  • When Terra stops Faust from expelling Eda, she also lets Bump keep his job.
  • Eda's permanent record in the present, as seen when signing Luz up for Hexside, is much smaller than it was when Faust showed it to her. This would suggest that after Bump took over, he sifted through and exempted any unreasonable infractions Faust recorded, leaving only the truly serious offenses.
• Pretend to Be Brainwashed: Raine obediently drinks all of Terra's potions that are supposed to keep them brainwashed. Terra has no idea that Raine can neutralize them and is only playing along while secretly working against Belos.
• Pyromaniac: Eda shows the signs of being one, given that she conjured up a fire spell and was staring into the flame when Principal Bump asked if she can go five minutes without setting something ablaze.
• Quirky Bard: In-universe, the Bard Coven was seen as this until Raine Whispers gave them a good name. When they first met Eda, Raine even groused that most people dismissed Bard Magic as silly and useless without giving it a chance.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Bump objects to Faust's draconian treatment of the students, and tells Eda he's So Proud of You when she refuses to play Terra's (very illegal and dangerous) game, even though her doing so would cost him his job.
  • The unnamed coven guard that shows up whenever Terra is about to do something terrible to the students to inform her that doing so is illegal.
• Retcon:
  • In "Eda's Requiem", Raine is introduced having terrible stage fright, flustering easily, and Eda remarks multiple times how they Took a Level in Badass. Raine not only shows none of these qualities as a teen in the flashback, but Eda now acts as though Raine was always The Ace. It's possible that they're only like that around Eda (which is given some support by how she's apparently the only one they've ever really talked to at the event), or that, since the whole thing is framed as a story Eda is telling Luz, King and Hooty, she's playing up their positive characteristics. Or both.
  • "Something Ventured, Someone Framed" showed a picture of Bump from Eda's schooldays, already wearing the principal's uniform and looking identical to how he does in the present day. This episode retcons that he was actually only vice principal, and looked significantly younger.
• The Reveal:
  • The Day of Unity involves a massive draining spell that will absorb magic through the nine covens. How the portal between worlds factors in isn't explained, only that it's been moved.
  • Raine was only pretending to be brainwashed to allow the rebellion to secretly continue and protect Eda from getting involved. They've also being given letters by a miniature abomination with a distinctive hairdo, implying that Darius may also be in league with them.
• Rewatch Bonus:
  • In light of Raine's Pretend to Be Brainwashed routine in this episode, the events of "Follies at the Coven Day Parade" take on a whole new meaning. Raine whistles just before drinking Terra's tea in that episode, it also explains their tears after Eda left them at the alley and how they immediately knew what the invisibility glyph did. And on a less spoilery note, a picture of the IFWOT ribbon was included in Eda's file on them.
  • In the previous episode, Wrath mentions that there are some who have their doubts about Belos' intentions about the Day of Unity. This was likely setup for the reveal of Darius' working with Raine to stop him.
  • Speaking of Darius, in "Any Sport in a Storm" he declined to bring in Hunter's (unwilling) recruits on the grounds that they already had plenty, approved when Hunter Grew a Spine, and promised to keep his Palisman a secret. The Reveal puts these scenes in a new light.
• Sadist:
  • Faust clearly enjoys the thought of not only getting rid of Bump but also separating Eda from Lilith. He even tells her that he will savor her expulsion.
  • Terra not only pits all the students against each other in a game of "Covens vs. Wilds" (threatening to turn the losers into mulch), she also attempts to poison everyone after Eda and Raine stand up to her.
• Scholarship Student: Raine mentions that St. Epiderm is an expensive school, and that they're attending IFWOT every year in exchange for a continued scholarship.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: While Eda never cared much for rules, Terra's influence on Principal Faust makes sure that she can get away with pretty much anything. She is thrilled about this.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Terra arbitrarily decides to pit the students against each other because she's in charge and is bored, even though she's breaking laws to do so.
• Shoehorned Acronym: The "Instructing Future Witches Of Tomorrow" program, or "IFWOT". Terra takes one look at it, and is so disappointed she replaces it with her own name: "Helping Enhance Coven Know-how" or "HECK".
• Shout-Out: Eda's demonic principal is appropriately named after the Germanic legend himself.
• Sleep Cute: Luz, King, Hooty, even the echo mouse are all sleeping while surrounding Eda near the end.
• So Proud of You: Bump says this word-for-word when Eda throws the competition.
• Stealth Pun: Eda agrees to a wager with Principal Faust to avoid being expelled. In other words, a Faustian Bargain.
• Taken for Granite: One of the glyph combinations Luz discovers is a petrifying one, which also causes the object to crumble if handled.
• Tall Poppy Syndrome: In the flashback, Raine's classmates are extra eager to take them out because they resent how accomplished they are.
• Tempting Fate: Bump hands Eda a stress toy and tells her to squeeze it whenever she feels like causing chaos. She pops it immediately.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Bump goes through things worse than Eda in this episode, to the point that Eda muses that she thinks that Faust set up the whole thing just to give him an excuse to fire Bump. In the end, when Terra intervenes to stop Eda from getting expelled, she also gets him to let Bump keep his job, causing him to faint in relief.
• Trust-Building Blunder: Eda has to participate in a trust fall with a student made of slime. She messes with everyone by casting an illusion that makes it seem as if she fell right through him and the flesh dissolved from her bones instantly. The slime student's reaction implies that this has actually happened before.
• Unequal Rites: In the flashback, some of the other students show disdain towards Bard magic, and express surprise that Raine is so competent despite being a Bard track student.
• Uriah Gambit: A non-lethal version, but Faust is setting Bump up to fail with Eda so that he has an excuse to fire him.
• Welcome to Hell: A PG-rated version. After renaming the IFWOT program to "HECK", Terra tells the students, "Welcome to HECK!".
• We Used to Be Friends: Unlike every other interaction shown between the two so far, a young Darius and Alador are shown being amiable, hinting that something happened between the two that has since turned their relationship into a bitter rivalry.
• Wham Episode: Raine is, at least as of this episode, aware of what Terra is doing with her teas and is using their trick of altering drinks to secretly neutralize its mind-wiping power before drinking them so as to trick her into thinking that they're still brainwashed. An abomination user, who is implied to be Darius, is now working with them to oppose the Day of Unity, and we see a document of what Belos is planning with a "Draining Spell", channeling the magic towards the eclipse for an unknown purpose. And Raine doesn't want to involve Eda so she won't get hurt.
• Wham Shot:
  • Raine whistling on Terra's tea to neutralize it, showing that they're faking their brainwashing.
  • The little abomination that brings Raine a message has Darius's signature hairstyle, suggesting he's also in on the plan to stop Belos.
• Whole Episode Flashback: Most of the episode is a flashback to how Eda met Raine.
• Would Hurt a Child: Terra tries multiple times to gleefully kill or maim her students for arbitrary reasons, and has to be told several times (to her disappointment) that she's not allowed to do that.

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"I'll keep you safe, Eda. I promise."

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