Armed with an ancient troll-hunting tool, Jim and Toby set out to unmask the Changelings living among them. Claire makes Jim a tempting offer.
Tropes for this episode include:
- Bait-and-Switch: When Toby suggests that his dentist might be a Changeling, Blinky agrees that this is an especially likely possibility (though the "bait" is Played for Laughs at the time). When Toby tests out the gaggletack on said dentist, he's clean. His assistant, on the other hand, actually is a Changeling.
- Batter Up!: The episode opens with Jim and Toby cutting garbage in half (said halves then magically exploding into nothing) with the Sword of Daylight like it was a baseball bat in Jim's backyard.
- Chekhov's Skill: In a sparring match, Draal has Jim pinned and Draal encourages Jim to take better control of his armor to escape; which he does by despawning the sword of daylight and respawning it in his free hand. In battle with Gladys, this is how Jim is able to defeat her.
- Common Place Rare: Jim and the others need to a gaggletack, an exceptionally rare and powerful magical artifact capable of revealing a Changeling's true form through physical contact. It is revealed that the gaggletack IS... a common horseshoe. A pure iron horseshoe, sure, but iron isn't that hard to find either.
- Conspiracy Theorist: Vendel accuses Blinky of being this to Blinky's denial.Vendel: You've never met a conspiracy theory you didn't like.
Blinky: I hate conspiracies. That is why I am dedicates to rooting them out.
Vendel: Like you rooted out the plot to ride Trollmarket of all its cat meat?
Blinky: That was a misunderstanding.
Vendel: Or the time you were convinced we were infested with flea trolls?
Blinky: Precaution is the soul of virtue.
Vendel: Everyone in Troll Market thinks you'r paranoid.
Blinky: If it's everyone, it must be a conspiracy! - Cuteness Proximity: Jim reacts this way around Enrique, Claire's baby brother, and even shows him the amulet.
- Defeat Equals Explosion: Happens to Gladys after she ends up getting run through by the Sword of Daylight.
- Depraved Dentist: It is revealed that Toby's dentist's assistant Gladys was a changeling, who would have tortured Toby with a dental drill for information if Blinky and AAARRRGGHH!!! didn't follow him.
- Didn't Think This Through: To find a changeling, Jim and Toby tap as many people as they know with the horseshoe. this ends up making them both look like weirdos.
- Drama Queen: Miss Janeth practically goes on a tirade during her algebra lesson because Jim keeps missing play rehearsals.
- Failure Montage: Toby and Jim try to test who at school may be a changeling. They run into a lot of failures. Mr. Strickler directly avoids touching it, and Gladys uses a towel to take it away.
- Improvised Weapon: Draal uses a lamp in order to teach Jim sword-fighting.
- It Gets Easier: Jim a few episodes before was hesitant about killing any creature, troll or gnome, or finishing a fight. Here he manages to stab Gladys when she threatens his life, though he seems shaken up about it.
- It Was Here, I Swear!: Jim tries to show Vendel the Killahead Bridge, only to be revealed that the Gumm-Gumms switched it with a Viking ship exhibit to cover their tracks.
- Literal Metaphor: Claire reads the letter Jim leaves him when he thought he would die from his battle with Draal and thinks that the "monsters" and "world-ending" he mentions was all just elaborate metaphors. He goes along with it not to sound crazy.
- Mauve Shirt: Gladys dies onscreen, thanks to Jim stabbing her in self-defense.
- No Ontological Inertia: Subverted. Gladys's death leaves a giant mess in the dentist's office. Blinky assigns Toby to clean it up.
- Quickly-Demoted Leader: Because Jim keeps missing rehearsals, he was demoted to Steve's understudy in the play.
- So Proud of You: When Jim kills Gladys, he's upset that they lost proof of changelings. Blinky tells him that the important thing is they're all alive, and that's a fair trade for losing their proof.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Claire does mention that Jim could tell Miss Janeth about why he's missing rehearsal, what he told her. Jim doesn't think it's a good idea, and neither bring up that he could quit.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Jim finally makes it to a study session with Claire, though he has to leave abruptly when getting a distress call from Toby.
- Villain Ball: Gladys paralyzes Toby to interrogate him . . . and uses a dental tool that makes him The Unintelligible. This means he's unable to answer any of her questions.
- We Need to Get Proof: After Vendel rejects their claims, they decide that they would need to capture a changeling as proof.
