The door to the Darklands still won't open, even though the Killahead bridge is complete. When Claire becomes a target, Jim must tell her the truth.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Alone with the Psycho: Subverted. Nomura attacks Jim after he shouts at Claire to run, and she manages to detransform him and knock him out. Claire finds out a simpler solution, however; since the Changelings want to keep up the masquerade, Nomura has to run when Claire gets her parents.
- Batman Gambit: Not Enrique times his bad news so that Jim goes alone to warn Claire, Toby and Aargh leave afterward to find Jim, and Blinky demands to be taken to the bridge. The end result is that while Claire and Toby manage to save Jim, Blinky gets captured.
- Call-Back: Claire realizes how all the discrepancies in past episodes — the letter she received in her backpack, Jim trashing her house, his conversation with Strickler— make sense. He was literally fighting monsters, and is balancing it with his school life.
- Chekhov's Skill: Once more, Jim utilizes the rules regarding throwing away the amulet to make the real amulet come to him; despite the fact it was the fake amulet that he threw away, the rules still apply and the real amulet comes to his call.
- Continuity Nod: Jim doesn't remember how Claire punched him while he was under the Grit Shaka's influence because the amulet caused Laser-Guided Amnesia for him.
- Damsel in Distress: Due to a misunderstanding, a pack of savage goblins are after Claire. Because of this, Jim has to protect her from them. Good thing she knows how to punch.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- Bular and Strickler send Nomura to fetch Jim. Only problem? She is The Unfettered, and she makes the bright idea of ambushing Jim after he and Claire have fended off goblins. Thus she beats Jim to a pulp, meaning he'd be in no shape to open the bridge, and nearly gets caught because Claire thinks to get her parents.
- Blinky demands that Not Enrique tell him where the bridge is. Blinky finds out, but Bular catches him.
- Distressed Dude: Nomura manages to knock Jim out, and starts dragging him to the bridge.
- Epunymous Title:
- Even Evil Has Standards: Not Enrique doesn't want Claire to get hurt, so he warns Jim that thanks to him she's in trouble, and afterward warns Toby and Aargh that the Gumm Gumms need Jim alive to open the bridge. Zig-Zagged when he takes the opportunity to lure Blinky into a trap, and he only warned Toby and Aargh that Jim was in danger.
- Everyone Has Standards: Claire's parents hate Jim for trashing their house. They still come to help when Claire says Jim is in trouble in the woods, and call an ambulance.
- Exact Words: The amulet will return to the Trollhunter except when it's stolen. While Strickler stole the amulet and swapped it for a fake, Jim wasn't aware and thus was calling for the real one.
- Foreshadowing: The reason why Not Enrique killed the goblin by accident was because he refused to show up for the bridge opening. Yet when Not Enrique shows up to warn Jim, Toby, Blinky and Aargh that Claire is in danger, he also reveals that he knows that the Gumm Gumms need Jim alive, after Jim has left to protect Claire. The end of the episode reveals he colluded with Strickler and Bular to lead Blinky into a trap.
- Heroic BSoD: Claire has a minor freak out once everything starts sinking in.
- Improvised Weapon: When Jim realizes his amulet is a fake, he arms himself with a stick while Claire gets stones to toss at the goblins.
- Living MacGuffin: The Gumm Gumms need Jim alive to open the bridge. Nomura gladly volunteers to fetch him. When that fails, Strickler and Bular plan to use Blinky as a hostage to get Jim to open the bridge.
- Misery Poker: Subverted. Claire calls herself out for thinking that the play was more important than Jim fighting for his life against monsters. Jim tells her that the play, and normal life, is important because The Masquerade has to be kept secret.
- More Expendable Than You: Blinky refuses to let Jim travel to the Darklands to find the real Enrique, because the world needs a Trollhunter. Aargh also refuses to let Toby attempt to stick his head in again, remembering what happened. The gnome Chompsky volunteers for the task, though his safety line breaks.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Nomura versus Jim. Subverted, however, as Jim is at least able to put up more of a fight than their first encounter thanks to his training, and even Nomura is impressed by the fact (before using Jim to obliterate a nearby tree).
- No Mere Windmill: Claire initially thinks Jim is crazy...until the goblin horde shows up.
- Oh, Crap!: Twice; when Jim realizes that his amulet is a fake, and when Claire realizes that those sounds chasing them are most definitely not raccoons.
- Shout-Out:
- The title is a obvious play on the title of the Jack Ryan novel Clear and Present Danger.
- The scene when the Amulet of Daylight is flying through the sky to answer Jim's call is similar to a similar scene from the film version of Stardust, of an amulet flying through the skies; from the angle to the music.
- The scene in the forest where Jim and Claire fend off the goblins and are then ambushed by Nomura bear a few uncomfortable similarities to the climax of the Sailor Moon episode Naru's Tears: Nephrite Dies for Love.
- Self-Deprecation: Claire laments at how she thought the play was important, with what Jim was believing.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Claire is...less than receptive to Jim's explanation of why he was on her roof asking to be let in. The fake amulet doesn't help matters.
