Review: Amphibia “The Ballad of Hopediah Plantar; Anne Hunter”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

In “The Ballad of Hopediah Plantar”, the Plantars visit Bittyburg, home of tiny frogs under siege by the Hasselback Gang, who are regular sized. Eager to live up to his revolutionary rumors, Hop Pop stands up to the one of their members, which only brings back the rest of the gang who easily overpower him and destroy his newly found confidence. Anne, Sprig, and Polly try to help while also keeping Hop Pop the hero, but their ruse is discovered. The Bittyburgians realize that he can’t protect them…and become inspired to protect HIM, going berserk and completely overtaking the Hasselbacks and taking back their town. Hop Pop is proud, if a bit frightened.

Later, in “Anne Hunter”, the Plantars have already run out of food for the trip, forcing Sprig and Anne to go hunting for more rations. Anne is skeptical of Sprig’s methods, but must learn from them when the frogs are all captured by a dangerous beast. She then fully incorporates Sprig’s lessons, helped by a stress induced hallucination of him, and saves them, though possibly with some screws loose.

Meanwhile, the robot from the ruins continues to follow them, having taken on a frog like appearance.

OUR TAKE

This episode returns the show to a more episodic format, with these two segments clearly not being super plot relevant like last episode’s were. We’ve left behind most of the supporting cast but we’ve entered into a more dynamic status quo. Though I’d hardly say they were exactly filler either, since both seem to be about adding some character development, specifically to Hop Pop and Anne. With Hop Pop, this could be the first step on his arc for this season where he truly starts to live up to the rumors spread about him being a revolutionary. Going through the first season, it seems like needing to be in a position of authority is important to Hop Pop. He’s already a caretaker and a (more or less) respected member of his community. And while he wasn’t exactly the firebrand worth assassinating that the Toads assumed he was, it’s possible that this season could be about him learning to become that, starting with him choosing to stand up for small communities like Bittyburg. Then again, he wasn’t exactly successful at that either, so this could go in a totally different direction for all we know.

Then there’s “Anne Hunter”, which doesn’t do a WHOLE lot for Anne’s character, but does show how much she is continuing to immerse herself in the frogs’ way of life and philosophies. As we’ve learned more about the other species out there like the Toads and Newts, we’ve also come to understand just how the Frogs contrast them in their own specific ways. Heck, if you’re a Tolkien fan by any chance, you might say that with the Toads being the Dwarves and Newts possibly being the Elves, the Frogs could be the Hobbit equivalent of Amphiba. They’re not especially violent, at least compared to the Toads who are a lot more abrasive and combative, and rely more on misdirection and knowing the lay of the land. Being the human that’s living with them, Anne is learning a lot of that, which this episode seems to be about displaying and will hopefully help her in her travels to Newtopia.

As much as I would have liked more plot adding episodes, having these little character based ones helps to make those feel more special, as well as add the aforementioned character development in little chunks over time. Plus, we do have a bit of a plot based thing happening with the frog bot following them, which I imagine will be a recurring thing at the end of each episode for most of this season. Even just having a check in with it for a couple episodes at the end does give it a bit of a sense of foreboding, even if it’s not exactly threatening. Guess we’ll see where that lands us as we hop along this season.