- “Change can be difficult, but it's how we grow. It can be the hardest thing to realize that you can't hold onto something forever. Sometimes you have to let it go. But of the things you let go, you'd be surprised what makes its way back to you.”
- ―Anne's final words and the closing narration of the series
"The Hardest Thing" is the fifty-eighth, eighteenth, and final episode of the Disney Channel animated series Amphibia, serving as the series finale.
Synopsis
Anne's journey comes to an end.
Plot
Following their return to Amphibia, the Core, still trapped within the helmet, flies up into space and attaches itself to a pod located up on the moon. It then proceeds to activate it and turns on hidden thrusters; causing it to fly towards Amphibia. As everyone looks up, Andrias reveals that the Core made a base up on the moon as a final gambit to destroy all life as it is afraid of being irrelevant. Mother Olm arrives to inform everyone about the prophecy; revealing that it is not a prediction, but rather a request that the three girls, Anne, Sasha and Marcy, help save Amphibia from destruction. However, this would result in the total depletion of the gem energy and possibly trap them in Amphibia forever. The girls nevertheless agree for one final adventure.
Before leaving, Mother Olm tells Anne that there may still not be enough energy to defeat the Core and that she would need to use a "secret spell" in order to defeat it. This spell can only be wielded by one and could result in their death. She tells her that she "have only but to ask" when it comes time to use it. Anne runs into the castle and is surprised by the appearance of Valeriana who has all three gems in the music box. Using her abilities, the gem powers are charged into the girls who are now all empowered enough to fly and exert energy. They all fly into space where they proceed to destroy numerous robots and monsters sent out by the Core and try to push back the moon.
Andrias sends his drones up into space as a shocked Grime watches. However, to his surprise, Andrias orders the drones to help push the moon back. He takes his crown and tells the Core that he is finally doing the right thing by standing up to him and crushes his crown, taking his connection to the Core in the process. Despite this, the Core is still too powerful and Sasha and Marcy's powers begin to wane due to inexperience. Frustrated, Anne convinces them to let her absorb all their powers and she solemnly sends them back to Amphibia. After being informed about the situation from Sasha and Marcy upon their return, Sprig has Frobo take him to Anne, refusing to lose her. As the Core berates Anne's use of "its greatest treasures" against them, she states that the stones never were theirs. When she asked the stones if they would help her save the world, they shatter and transfer their power to her. Now all powerful, Anne sees Sprig beg her not to sacrifice herself as she changed his life, only to tell him that he changed hers as well. After bidding her friend farewell, she uses all her energy to blast at the moon before flying through it; destroying it and the Core. As the others celebrate, Sprig and Frobo return a pale singed Anne to the ground. As everyone cries over her, Anne assures her decision as she deteriorates into a pile of leaves that drift away.
Anne awakens in a limbo-like dimension resembling a tiny house and garden floating in space. As she enters the house, she speaks to the Guardian of the Stones via an old fashioned computer. When Anne mocks its dated appearance, it transforms into Domino and proceeds to converse mentally with her. The Guardian reveals that she is a "backup" and that she is not dead or alive. It goes on to reveal that it has watched over the universe for a "very long time" and wants Anne to be its replacement as she is the only person who has used the stones for selfless purposes. Anne immediately turns it down after admitting that she is not perfect and that she would need years to become wiser. Intrigued by this notion, the Guardian decides to return her to life and will wait "78 years" for her to accept, much to Anne's confusion.
After being revived, Anne awakens back in Amphibia and reunites with her friends who are overjoyed to see her alive. She also discovers that the Guardian left her with three tiny gem shards. The next day everyone says goodbye with Marcy stating that the gems are only enough for the trip back home. She apologizes to the newts for technically being the cause of all their troubles, but Olivia and Yunan thank her for changing their lives. A repentant Andrias, quietly tells her to take care. Sasha and Grime have a comically tearful goodbye with the former telling the latter to find Percy and Braddock and tell them that she will miss them too.
Anne finally says goodbye to the Plantars, especially Sprig whom she leaves her cellphone to help with future adventures. As Valeriana opens the portal back to Earth, Anne has one final hug with Sprig before all girls leave for good. The portal closes, followed by the gems getting drained and the music box finally crumbling to pieces. As the Amphibians all agree to rebuild their world for the better, Polly suddenly sprouts a strand of hair; exciting her.
Roughly nine months later, Andrias now lives a peaceful life gardening with his robots. As One-Eyed Wally leaves Stumpy's he bumps into Polly, who has now become a teenaged frog. Polly runs into town passed Maddie who started her own pan and potions business with Mrs. Croaker as a customer and Loggle who has reverted to his smaller self after taking a "cheat day". Grime, Olivia, and Yunan arrive on Joe Sparrow where they are surprised to find that Toadie won the recent mayoral election with Toadstool having supposedly helped him out. Olivia expresses to Yunan that she wouldn't mind settling down in Wartwood someday, although Yunan seems eager to talk about her former life as a general. Joe Sparrow and Bessie somehow mated and had several hybrid offsprings.
Polly arrives home where Frobo continues to garden for Hop Pop's California Avocados. Hop Pop himself has settled with Sylvia Sundew who tells Polly that Sprig is inside the house. Sprig has started charting the things he has learned into a journal and is invited by Polly to the new town's unveiling of a statue of Anne Boonchuy. Sprig is suddenly tackled by Ivy who tells him that Grime has discovered a new continent that has not been set foot on by frogs, toads or newts and ask if he would like to come along. After having one emotional look at Anne's statue, Sprig agrees and heads off with Ivy for a new adventure.
Back on earth, ten years have passed since the publicly known "frog-vasion". Sasha picks a still clumsy Marcy up at the airport to visit Anne for her birthday. Marcy has become a webcomic author while Sasha has become a psychologist for children. She reveals that she and Anne stopped spending time together once they entered high school, though they still kept in touch. Anne is revealed to have become a herpetologist and now works at the Aquarium of the Pacific. She teaches a young class of children about the Pink South American Tree Frog (the species that Sprig is and whom she named it after) and is shown to be very happy with her life. After putting the frog back, Anne is greeted by Marcy and Sasha and the three friends leave to hang out as the climax words "The End" appears, thus ending the series.
Cast
- Brenda Song as Anne Boonchuy
- Justin Felbinger as Sprig Plantar
- Bill Farmer as Hop Pop Plantar
- Amanda Leighton as Polly Plantar
- Anna Akana as Sasha Waybright
- Troy Baker as Captain Grime
- Haley Tju as Marcy Wu
- Keith David as King Andrias
- Whoopi Goldberg as Mother Olm
- Brian Maillard as Leopold Loggle
- Zehra Fazal as General Yunan
- Michelle Dockery as Lady Olivia
- Charlyne Yi as Guardian/Domino
- Susanne Blakeslee as Valeriana
- James Patrick Stuart as One-Eyed Wally
- Sam Riegel as Leander
- Laila Berzins as Sadie Croaker
- Jill Bartlett as Maddie Flour
- Stephen Root as Mayor Toadstool
- Jack McBrayer as Toadie
- Katie Crown as Ivy Sundew
- William Houston as The Core & King Aldrich
- Matt Chapman as Tritonio Espada
- Troy Baker as News Anchor
- Sam Riegel as Dragonfly Frog, Worried Amphibians
- Laila Berzins as Worried Amphibians
- Jill Bartlett as Museum Kid, Teacher
Additional voices
- Clancy Brown
- Feodor Chin
- Mary Elizabeth McGlynn
- Kate Higgins
Trivia
- Moral: The world and the people in it are always changing, and you can't hold onto the past forever.
- SideMoral: What you do let go can make its way back to you.
- When the final episode titles were announced on Twitter, this, along with "The Beginning of the End" and "All In", noticeably remained hidden.[1]
- This episode is 29 minutes long.
- This episode, along with "All In", aired in the night instead of the morning.
- The episode's story is largely similar to that of the 2022 live-action film Moonfall, which literally involved the moon almost crashing down to Earth. The episode is also released the same year as the film.
- Amphibia's Moon is revealed to have been converted into a machine.
- In this episode, Marcy mentioned that she was inside the mindscape of the Core since the previous episode "All In". She knew everything, but she couldn't stop it until she was freed from the connection and then later regained possession of her mind and body. But she was able to reject the Core from within.
- This is a little similar to the Gargoyles episode "Possession" when Brooklyn knew everything Coldstone's evil brother "Iago" Coldsteel did while possessing and inhabiting his body.
- At the end, when Polly goes to get Sprig, his dart board is covered with drawings and notes. Among them are a card that reads, "Gotta ribbit, ribbit jump on in it," a reference to the lyrics to the theme song "Welcome to Amphibia".
- The episode is vaguely foreshadowed in the Season 3 outro, where one of the scenes features Anne cradling the moon (possibly the real one) in her hands.
- When the episode initially aired, it did not feature a typical credits sequence and instead played the credits over the final scene. On digital and streaming, it plays an extended version of the credits with a sweeping orchestra over Anne's statue in Wartwood, the hill overlooking Newtopia (where Anne, Sasha, and Marcy left behind a tennis racket, sword and crossbow, respectively), the remains of Toad Tower, the Plantars' home and a photo of the adult Anne, Sasha and Marcy on a table with drinks.
- This is the fifth and final episode of Amphibia after "Olivia & Yunan", "The Core & The King", "The Beginning of the End" and "All In" and the seventh Disney Television Animated series overall to do this:
- Gravity Falls: "Dreamscaperers/Gideon Rises", "Not What He Seems", "Dipper and Mabel vs. the Future", and "Weirdmageddon"
- Star vs. the Forces of Evil: "Starcrushed", "Cleaved"
- Tangled: The Series: "Queen for a Day", "The Secret of the Sundrop", "Destinies Collide", "Rapunzel's Return", "Cassandra's Revenge", "Once a Handmaiden...", and "Plus Est En Vous"
- DuckTales (2017): "Last Christmas!", "The Last Adventure!"
- Big City Greens: "Chipwrecked"
- The Owl House: "Agony of a Witch", "Clouds on the Horizon", "King's Tide"
- This is the fifth and final episode of Amphibia after "Olivia & Yunan", "The Core & The King", "The Beginning of the End" and "All In" and the seventh Disney Television Animated series overall to do this:
- Sylvia Sundew appears, but she has no dialogue.
- Throughout the third season, Marcy was in the flying palace, held captive, and as a host for The Core. But for the first time since "True Colors, she is on solid ground and herself again.
- This episode reveals that Anne will most likely die at the age of 91 (the Guardian says they can wait "78 years") and will take the position of the Guardian as she passes on.
- Despite not appearing, Percy and Braddock are among the people that Anne met and befriended while in Amphibia and on Earth and are mentioned when Sasha asks Grime to find them and let them know that she is sorry.
- If you look closely at the heals of 23-year-old Marcy, she wasn't wearing socks on her feet. She might be barefooted in her sneakers.
- The final message that appears next to the photo of Anne, Sasha and Marcy at the end credits reads สมบูรณ์ (S̄mbūrṇ̒), which translated means "completed", or "the end".
- The premise of the episode involves a red moon. By coincidence, the episode aired a day before the 2022 lunar eclipse, which gave the impression of a giant red moon.
- After Anne has been resurrected, her single shoe is on her right foot instead of her left, giving the hint that she's in a new body copied by the Guardian.
- Joe Johnston pitched a gag ending where Anne finally passes away after 78 years, but she is too old and senile to remember her deal with the Guardian who frustratingly laments that she has to start all over again with searching for a replacement.
- The episode was uploaded on Disney Channel's Youtube channel on June 13, 2022.
- According to Matt Braly, during a live autograph signing, Yunan and Olivia are married by the end of this episode.[2]
- After nine months had passed in Amphibia, being the finale, one scene was quite similar to "Anne or Beast?"
- Bratley, Branson, and Blair return in this episode and are shown helping Andrias to restore Amphibia.
- Marcy's Journal: A Guide to Amphibia explore Anne, Sasha, and Marcy's return to Earth:
Gallery
Promotional
Screenshots
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Animatic
International premieres
- May 15, 2022 (Canada)
- June 22, 2022 (Australia, New Zealand, Singapore; Disney+)
- July 6, 2022 (Poland)
- November 22, 2022 (Portugal, Spain)
- March 1, 2023 (Italy; Disney+)
References
- ↑ "@DisneyChannel". Twitter. Retrieved on March 31, 2022.
- ↑ Fury, Rob (May 27, 2022). "Live Autograph Signing with Matt Braly, Creator of Amphibia (33:53)" (Video) (English). YouTube. Streamily YouTube channel.
External links
- The Hardest Thing at the Amphibia Wiki
