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Fixing Frobo
There are many heavy things to deal with after the end of the previous season, even if the tone of this current one isn’t as dramatic as one would expect. One of those heavy things is the destruction of an unusual ally, a frog robot called Frobo. In appearance, he appears to be another one of the standard piece of King Andrias’ robot army. However, Frobo was given a soul in a sense due to being powered by the Plantar family shenanigans, and developing a strong friendship with little Polly. In showing devotion to her though, Frobo would get destroyed and reduced to a head in the finale for Season 2. Restoring him was always bound to be a priority at some point, and that time has come with this cartoon.
Polly is revealed to have been tinkering a lot with random stuff around the Boonchuy home to bring Frobo back, but her efforts result in bigger messes. Everyone, including Anne and Sprig showing genuine maturity from their earlier days, strictly insists that Polly wait until they return to Amphibia to fix Frobo. It’s legitimately hard for Polly to do nothing since she’s nobly trying to bring a close friend back to life. She may be reckless, but this time there’s a genuine heart to what she’s doing, making her sympathetic and understandable.
Anyway, inspired by her family’s fascination with the internet, Polly decides to use it to look up robotics in the name of finding information to fix Frobo. Her search leads her to a YouTube-inspired video website where she finds a full-fledged series of videos all about robotics run by two girls known as the IT Gals, Ally and Jess. These characters are a very charming pair with great charisma when expressing their special interests. It stands out even more when they’re also implied to be girlfriends. What’s more, they’re about more than just expressing passion for what they enjoy as shown when Polly contacts them for further information. They prove to be very responsible with robotics when after they give Polly advice, they strictly tell her not to turn Frobo on in a mere garage.
Unsurprisingly, Polly’s impatience pushes her to do so anyway, as does a tense confrontation with her family who scold her for working on Frobo when they told her not to. It’s here where the understandable emotional weight of trying to bring her friend back is in full force with Polly stopping at nothing to make it happen. Still, impatience brings consequences as after Polly successfully turns Frobo on, something’s very wrong. He’s restored to his factory settings and only appears loyal to King Andrias.
This leads to him flying Polly up to high heights in a fruitless effort to contact his commander. During that time, Polly comes to the expected yet impactful realization that her brash efforts to restore her robot friend were wrong.
It is very convenient that her shedding a single tear restores Frobo’s memories, but maybe that can be seen as him regaining a part of her that reprogrammed him to begin with. He manages to save Polly from a nasty fall, but is destroyed again, though thankfully with his remaining head working again. Ultimately, Polly is not fully successful with what she tried to do, but still got some notable progress. To further the bright side of her attempts, the cartoon ends with her and the IT Gals observing her work in an endearing sharing of special interests in robotics.
In the end, this cartoon is one of this season’s better follow-ups to heavy drama through notable weight to characters’ actions, and endearing personalities witnessing everything.
A
Anne-sterminator
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When characters start out as brash, reckless, and noticeably flawed, it’s rewarding to see them mature past their faults in later seasons. Anne is no exception making several reckless and not very responsible choices at first. However, her experiences have humbled her into a wiser more caring individual, and it’s shown even more now that she’s returned home. Even with her growth, this cartoon highlights the setbacks from being the best she can be.
As Anne is praised by her parents for her newfound responsibility, she can’t help but feel guilty for the few, albeit big, things that she’s hiding from them. While said guilt is getting to her, Anne decides to confess, but as fate would have it, a lot of her secrets are about to become known to her parents on their own at that moment. The robot who’s been pursuing her gets a message from King Andrias to destroy her once and for all, or a bomb implanted in him will go off in an hour, taking its life. Such urgency and dire consequences pushes the robot to finish the job, thrusting the cartoon into a full-on action sequence, and a very exciting one at that.
As Anne’s parents are left shocked and confused over the sudden robot attack, there’s an immediate rush to get to safety. When the house is no good for a hiding place, they all take to the car and hit the streets of Las Angeles for even more intensity.
Everyone has to act fast to avoid traffic as well as the robot attacks, doing just about anything to keep safe, including working on tennis moves in Anne’s case. Adding to the intensity is the fact that citizens as average as Anne’s parents are roped into all this and have no idea how to deal with a robot attack, adding a degree of believability. The whole sequence is a real achievement of intensity through both action, and character perceptions.
The chase eventually leads everyone to a junk yard where there’s a break in the action, but not the tension. Mrs. Boonchuy confronts Anne with aggressive disappointment about how her daughter is not as responsible as she seemed, and it really gets to Anne. Even in her mom’s rage though, Anne is quick to explain that while she kept things about her involvement with the robot and its creator secret, it was to protect her loved ones. She also shows regret over not being as improved as her parents want her to be and not knowing when she will. However, she’s humble enough to admit that she needs their help. While there is some reluctance, especially on Mrs. Boonchuy’s part, both parents show great heart by hearing Anne out and agreeing to help her however they can.
So, when the robot finds them again, everyone plays a role in taking it down from distracting it with Anne dummies foreshadowed in an earlier scene to hitting it with random objects.
Anne finishes it off with the final blow though with a grand display of her glowing blue powers. Grand as it is, they expectedly wipe her out again, but her parents are appropriately sympathetic to what she’s gone through, even more so when the Plantars further vouch for her. In the end, there’s a heartfelt agreement for everyone to work together to protect each other from any coming threat. Further proving the validity of this decision is one last scene of trouble brewing for Anne and her allies on Earth. Sightings of the Plantars get the FBI involved as they call on a man named Mr. X, building up the events of the very next cartoon.
For this cartoon though, it’s one of the series best for an effective blend of action, heart, and character development, exactly what’s needed for audience satisfaction.
A+
Fan Art
Series Ranking
1.
True
Colors
2.
Hopping
Mall
3.
Reunion
4.
Marcy at the Gates
5.
Anne-sterminator
6.
Toad Tax
7.
The First Temple
8.
Turning Point
9.
Battle of the Bands
10.
Barrel’s
Warhammer
11.
Anne vs Wild
12.
The Domino Effect
13.
The Third Temple
14.
Toadcatcher
15.
Prison Break
16.
The Second Temple
17.
Temple Frogs
18.
A Day at the Aquarium
19.
Anne of the Year
20.
Contagi-Anne
21.
The
Shut-In
22.
Best Fronds
23.
After
the Rain
24.
Family Shrub
25. Fixing
Frobo
26.
The New Normal
27.
The Dinner
28.
Hop-Popular
29.
Anne Hunter
30.
Wally and Anne
31.
Children of the Spore
32.
Fight at the Museum
33.
Friend
or Frobo
34.
A Night at the Inn
35.
Bessie
and MicroAngelo
36.
Handy Anne
37.
Scavenger Hunt
38.
Lily Pad Thai
39.
Dating Season
40.
Anne or Beast?
41.
Combat Camp
42.
Little Frogtown
43.
Cursed!
44.
Thai
Feud
45.
Snow Day
46.
Civil Wart
47.
Maddie and Marcy
48.
Stakeout
49.
Croak and Punishment
50.
Taking Charge
51.
Flood, Sweat, and Tears
52.
Bizarre Bazaar
53.
The Plantars Check In
54.
The Sleepover to End All Sleepovers
55.
Wax Museum
56.
Return
to Wartwood
57.
Sprig Gets Schooled
58.
Swamp and Sensibility
59.
Trip to the Archives
60.
Toad
to Redemption
61.
Anne Theft Auto
62.
Adventures in Catsitting
63.
Hop Luck
64.
New
Wartwood
65.
Ivy on the Run
66.
Night
Drivers
67.
Quarreler’s
Pass
68.
Hop Pop and Lock
69.
Plantar’s Last Stand
70.
Fort in the Road
71.
A Caravan Named Desire
72.
The Big Bugball Game
73.
Fiddle Me This
74.
Truck Stop Polly
75.
Family Fishing Trip
76.
Hop ‘Til You Drop
77.
The Ballad of Hoppediah Plantar
78.
Girl Time
79.
Breakout Star
80.
Grubhog Day
81.
Cane Crazy
82.
Lost in Newtopia
83.
Sprig vs Hop Pop
84.
Cracking Mrs. Croaker
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Anne's parents get another chance to help out in battle when that FBI agent strikes, and Anne learns that it's Sprig's birthday.
If you would like to check out other Amphibia reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.
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