Best Fronds

"Best Fronds" is the second segment of the first episode of the first season of Amphibia, and the second episode overall.

It first premiered online on June 14, 2019 on DisneyNOW and YouTube and premiered on Disney Channel on June 17, 2019 alongside "Anne or Beast?".

Synopsis
Sprig takes Anne swimming in a nearby lake to help her feel less homesick.

Plot
The episode starts inside of a Thrift shop in the year 2019. Anne is seen looking at a particular box on top of a cabinet. While the cashier lady is sleeping, Anne steals the box by slipping it into her backpack, and walks out of the stop to regroup with her friends, Sasha and Marcy. Later that night, the three move to an empty park to investigate the box. Once Anne opens the box, a large flare of light can be seen coming out of it.

Anne then wakes up screaming, believing her time within Amphibia to have all been a dream. But she's proven wrong when she sees Sprig, Hop Pop and Polly standing right in front of her, as they still continue to have trust issues with Anne as being a beast. With Hop Pop and Polly having left the room, Sprig explains to Anne about how exciting it must be to enter a new world. However, Anne states that she misses her own home, belongings and friends in her world, and how lost she began to feel without them. This encourages Sprig to offer Anne to be his friend for the time being, as well as taking a trip to the nearby lake to make her feel less homesick, to which Anne happily agrees. Once dressed up for swimming, Anne and Sprig were about to leave the house, but Hop Pop halts them before they can get to the door. Hop Pop explains how the other frogs in the village are still not used to Anne's presence, so he orders them both to stay at the house until further notice due to everyone being paranoid about her.

To pass the time, Sprig suggests they try out some of Hop Pop's pain peppers, said to be so hot that you'd wish you were dead. Once Sprig finished cooling his mouth after having licked one of the peppers, Anne instead rejects trying one of the peppers and suggests they stick with the original plan and go to the lake by helping her steal the keys to the house from Hop Pop. Although Sprig was originally conflicted about disobeying Hop Pop's orders, Anne explains to him that a real friend will help you get the things you want, with Sprig then agreeing to go along with the plan.

Sprig and Anne then sneak into Hop Pop's Study room, only to realize he not only fell asleep, but was sleeping with his eyes open. Having taken the key from Hop Pop's coat pocket, Anne and Sprig proceed to the lake. Along the way, Anne takes a photo with Sprig using her phone for the first time, and also questions Sprig about whether or not he himself had any friends before he met her. The scene then cuts to a flashback of Sprig having played with a skeleton in front of the other kids horrifying them, with Sprig then replying to Anne that other kids in the village don't really get him. Once Anne and Sprig enter the lake area, they immediately notice a "don't swim" sign in front of the lake. Sprig claims it wasn't there on his most recent visit. Anne decides to ignore the warning, but Sprig attempts to stop her from going in, believing something wasn't right and they should instead return home. But Anne retaliates believing this wasn't what friends do, and explains to Sprig that no matter how much you don't want to do something your friends ask you to do, you do it anyway, otherwise they may not want you to stay as their friend.

This eventually leads to Sprig diving into the lake with Anne joining in, and the two enjoy themselves around the lake. But as Anne was taking a photo of Sprig flexing in the water, she notices a giant lake monster resembling a snake right behind him, and the two begin to swim away from the monster. Unfortunately for Anne, she can't outswim it and slows down. She is about to get eaten, but Sprig saves her from that attack. Having momentarily taken cover from the monster on a lily pad, Anne suggests to Sprig that he goes without her, believing him to not only be a better swimmer but that it was her fault in the first place for having put one another in danger of the lake monster. Even so, Sprig refuses to leave her side, believing the two of them were in the situation together. With the lake monster trapping them with its stretched body as it closes in on them, Sprig then hops on top of Anne's head and orders her to duck on the count of three. Once Sprig hops into the air, the lake monster ends up eating Sprig, angering Anne and proceeding to attack the lake monster. During her attack, the lake monster then spits Sprig out as it was then blowing flames out of its mouth because of the pain peppers Sprig placed in it while he was still inside the monster. With the lake monster eventually regaining consciousness, Anne and Sprig decide to flee from the lake and return home.

Later that night, Hop Pop eventually wakes up from his nap and immediately notices the key from his coat pocket has gone missing and panics about Anne and Sprig. After noticing that the front door is still locked, he goes to check the basement and notices Anne and Sprig playing a board game together, with Anne giving Hop Pop the key back and claiming he must have dropped it on the floor earlier when he wasn't looking. After one more brief confrontation with Polly, she and Hop Pop leave the basement as Anne then closes the door for her and Sprig to breathe a sigh of relief.

Anne then apologizes to Sprig for having almost gotten one another killed, but Sprig instead reveals it was the most exciting event that's ever happened to him, to which he then falls asleep from exhilaration. Anne then places Sprig on her bed to let him sleep, while also staring at the group photo of her with her friends Marcy and Sasha. She hoped the two of them were doing okay, as she claimed that she was after having found both a home and a new friend.

Meanwhile, during a stormy night at Toad Tower, a toad is seen in front of a cell room and shows Sasha, currently in a battered cell, a lost shoe belonging to Anne that was found far from the castle in the south forest. This leads him to believe that not only was she lying to him, but that there is more of her kind still out there somewhere in Amphibia.

Cast

 * Brenda Song as Anne Boonchuy
 * Justin Felbinger as Sprig Plantar
 * Bill Farmer as Hop Pop Plantar
 * Amanda Leighton as Polly Plantar
 * Troy Baker as Captain Grime

Additional voices

 * Dee Bradley Baker as Water Snake
 * Liam O'Brien as Old Man
 * Amir Talai as Brown Overalls Frog

Non-speaking cameo

 * Sasha
 * Marcy

Songs

 * "Muddy Wadders"

Trivia

 * This episode is an adjusted version of Amphibia's original pilot.
 * This episode is the first episode for Anne to appear as wearing a swimming suit. Anne's swimsuit was specifically designed to feel athletic and cool.
 * Matt Braly said about this episode: After establishing that Anne was stuck in this crazy new world with "Anne or Beast?", it was up to "Best Fronds" to establish the core relationship between Anne and Sprig.  Not only that, but it teases some pretty cool things to come at the end. I especially like how naturally Sprig and Anne grow closer in this episode, culminating in a pretty big disagreement.
 * Also according to Braly: Director Derek Kirk Kim has always been passionate about this story and added some real magic at the end with Sprig falling into Anne's arms as he nods off.
 * Sprig says "Are you kidding?". The audio of him saying his line will later be heard in "Disney Channel Phone Call".
 * Anne lost her phone in the lake, but surprisingly in the next episode, she has it again.

Revelations and significant events

 * Sprig still trusts Anne after they met in the previous episode.
 * Hop Pop is seemingly a failed actor.
 * Hop-Pop makes peppers who are so hot that anyone eating it wants to die.
 * Sprig didn't have any friends before Anne and is considered a weird kid among the other Wartwood kids.
 * Hop-Pop falls asleep with his eyes wide open all the time.
 * This trait makes him useful as a scarecrow.
 * Hop-Pop and Polly don't trust Anne yet as being friendly and don't think that it's safe to keep her around in the house.
 * Anne did everything to keep her friends happy, even if it didn't make her happy or it made her do things she didn't want to do.
 * Anne has a problem understanding what real friends are and what it means to be a friend.
 * Sasha is revealed to also be in Amphibia along with Anne and is imprisoned in the Toad Tower.

Continuity

 * This episode takes place one day after the events of "Anne or Beast?".
 * The scene in the flashback where Anne, Marcy, and Sasha get teleported to Amphibia was featured in the intro.
 * Grime has Anne's other shoe with him.
 * The picture of Anne, Sasha, and Marcy is seen behind Anne in the basement.

Production notes

 * This alongside "Anne or Beast?" are not the first episodes produced in production order.
 * Despite this, this was the first episode written, as it was originally the pilot episode.
 * This episode was boarded by Hannah Ayoubi and Aaron Austin. Revisions were done by Janine Chang.
 * The water snake was designed by Brandon Wu.

Allusions

 * "Best Friends" - The title is a play on the aforementioned phrase.
 *  - The famous quote "There's No Place Like Home" appears engraved on a decoration next to the cash register.
 * "" - The console appears, alongside its controller, the VMU, and the games, Sonic Adventure and Crazy Taxi in a glass container in the cash register's desk.
 * "Maneki-neko" - The chinese cat Maneki-neko, is on the shelf above the cash register's desk.

Errors

 * Anne's backpack is nowhere to be seen, even though she had it on her in the thrift store, and later has it on her during her stay in Amphibia.
 * When Anne opens the music box, the black stripes on her skirt are missing, just like in the theme song, since this scene is a part of it.
 * When Anne, Sasha and Marcy are at the playground, Sasha appears with her jacket on, but it did not appear in any previous shots.BestFronds-2019-10-31-10h26m02s655.png Sprig and Anne are walking to the door to go to the lake, the ligher skin part of Sprig's face is the same color as the rest of his body.
 * When Hop Pop won't let Anne and Sprig exit the house, a small part of the outline between Sprig's face and his goggles is missing.
 * When Hop Pop says the townsfolk need time to get used to Anne, some sort of small bucket appears next to the door, which was not there in previous shots. It is also missing the Plantar cane, which can be seen in the bucket in "Cane Crazy".
 * When Sprig jumps to the ground after trying a pain pepper, the ligher skin part of Sprig's face is the same color as the rest of his body.
 * When Anne and Sprig peek into Hop Pop's room, a vase is on the table next to Anne and Sprig. However, it was not there in the previous shot. It was actually seen earlier in the living room, when Sprig used it to hit his tongue.
 * When Sprig is about to a handful of pain peppers, his right arm is much longer than his left one.
 * After Anne catches the vase that almost fell on the ground, Sprig is in a different position than in the previous shot.
 * When Anne is about to grab the key out of Hop Pop's pocket, the back of Sprig's head is the same color as the lighter skin part on his face.
 * When Anne asks Sprig what the key smells like, Some of the stripes on Anne's swim shorts move to the wrong way when she is rotating.
 * When Anne and Sprig are walking in the forest, the shading on Anne's hair is missing
 * When Sprig and Anne look the selfie they just made, the photo does not match Anne and Sprig's faces and positions from when they took the photo.
 * When Anne slows down when encountering the don't swim sign, two stripes on the left of Anne's swim shorts move the wrong way. One of them is not fully drawn when Anne stands still.
 * When Anne looks at the lake and thinks, the shape of Anne's eyes and the twig in her hair don't match with the previous scene.
 * When Anne puts her toe into the water, her flip flops disappear, although she was still wearing them in the previous scene.
 * When Anne and Sprig jump on top of the bug in the water, the ligher skin part of Sprig's face is the same color as the rest of his body for a single frame.
 * For two frames, when Sprig is holding Anne underwater, his arm's lines are missing, as well as the lighter skin color on his chest.
 * When Sprig says he and Anne are in the situation together, the shading on Anne's hair is missing. It appears when Anne starts moving in the scene.BestFronds-2019-10-31-10h35m48s116.png
 * When Anne stands up after Sprig told her to do so, the twig in her hair disappears and a part of her hair is glitching for a few frames.
 * When Anne aks Sprig if he is crazy, the leafs in Anne's hair are missing.
 * When Sprig is counting down for Anne to duck, he is sitting on Anne's head, even though he was standing on her head in the previous scenes.
 * When Sprig is about to jump up, a black line of Anne's swimsuit is missing.
 * When Anne attacks the water snake, she is sitting on it. But in the next scene, she is holding on to it with her hands.
 * When Hop Pop freaks out over where Anne is, he is suddenly wearing his waistcoat, although he was not wearing it in the previous scene.
 * Polly's tail disappears when she hopping away from the basement shutter.
 * At the end of the episode, Sasha is missing her jacket, as well as the Saint James Middle School logo on her shirt.

Edits

 * In the Southeast Asia broadcast, the words "jerk" and "dang" were cut out.