"Hopscotch Extreme" is the first segment of the 3rd episode of the second season of Trolls: TrollsTopia, and the 30th overall episode in the series. It premiered on March 18, 2021.
Synopsis[]
Val is celebrated the greatest Troll ever at Hopscotch Extreme. But when she shares with Poppy that her record-breaking hopscotch run was a fluke, Holly and Poppy set out to train Val to be the greatest scotcher of all time!
Plot[]
At a Hopscotch game, Biggie completes the last round. He cuts the cheering to say something he had on his mind for a while now: hopscotch is overrated. Poppy is relieved along with everyone else. The Trolls celebrate their freedom from the "pointless charade".
Demo interrupts their celebration. He asks them not to judge the game and explains they have yet to experience Hopscotch Extreme, a Rock Troll tradition. Poppy wants to bring Hopscotch Extreme to TrollsTopia, and Demo says that they are lucky to have the world's greatest player to demonstrate: Val Thundershock. Demo sings of his time witnessing Val completing the course, and the Trolls celebrate the epic song. As Demo and Biggie go off to construct the course, Val pulls Poppy and Holly aside and tells them to stop this. Val explains the story was a lie; she only completed the course because she was being chased by hostile hornets after exploding a cupcake à la splode near their hives. She continues by saying that when they find out, it will go down in the all-time bummer hall of fame. As Poppy predicts, telling the truth to unite the Trolls under some sort of soul-cleansing moment is out of the question as Val gives her the "look".
Poppy and Holly begins training Val for Hopscotch. Poppy gives a "believe in yourself" prep talk and Val rushes the course, immediately failing. They take it back to the basics and explain what a "hop" is. They do a quick montage of her training and return to the original course. Val fails worse than before and gets an injury.
Dr. Moonbloom looks at Val and tells her she has the worst case of "scotcher's knee" she has ever seen. The result is that Val will never hop again. She can still walk, run, skip, swim, but cannot hop. When Holly asks if it is painful, Dr. Moonbloom confirms it is not even a little bit painful, which makes Holly struggle to feel bad. Val is relieved.
Val goes to tell the other Trolls about her condition. However, Demo points out that when she did her Hopscotch Extreme run she did it on the other leg; not her injured leg. This means Val still can do the run.
At the course, Demo is announcing and hyping up the game as the crowd cheers. Val can't do the course, and Holly says it might be time of one of Poppy's prep talks. The talk doesn't convince Val and she has Poppy shout it louder. Val goes to do the course and bumps on the first obstacle.
Everyone rushes to check on Val, who despite her fail is okay. The crowd cheers to encourage her to do it again, but Val realizes she can't do it. Val tells Poppy that she's wrong; believing in yourself with no actual skill isn't enough. After confessing to her fluke run, Demo tells that the drum solo he did the other day was a sneezing fit. As he continues, other Rock Trolls start to confess they have done things which are also epic-looking, but were flukes or misintreputations. The Trolls unite on a soul-cleansing moment. Demo thanks Val for honesty, and says "it united it us all in some sort of...". The girls finish the sentence, "Soul cleansing moment of healing" and they hug.
Cast[]
Songs[]
Trivia[]
- "Hopscotch" is a classic game played by one or more people involving a series of numbered squares arranged in line of 1 or 2 squares. It's played normally by young children, and is actually a test of motor skills as hopping requires skill, fitness and agility. If the player looses balance or steps on the edge of any square, they lose the game. The rules can vary per example. A common rule is an object like a stone or bag being thrown on each number each round; the square that's occupied cannot be hopped on, and contact with it is a game over. Each round the item moves to a different square. After the last square is done, a second item can come into play, and thus two squares are now unable to be occupied. The game continues, with the items ever-increasing occupying squares until there's only one remaining player; to win they just have to complete their final hop.
- "Hopscotch Extreme" is a variant of the hopscotch game, which is designed to be more daring than the original. The rules vary greatly, since there's no universal establishment, but it generally brings into attempts to make the game more thrilling for adults by often adding extras like stunts.
- Poppy previously said "hopscotch is overrated" in "Classical Rock". This is why she's the first to react to Biggie's announcement of that same phrase.
- Val also gives Poppy "the look" from the episode.
- Demo also brings out his Classical guitar to play was first seen in the aforementioned episode.
- Demo's song mimics the style of rock music of the comedic rock duo Tenacious D.
- "Scotcher's knee" is likely based on tennis elbow, a common condition seen originally among racket sports players due to their excess strain on the elbow.
- The episode's moral is actually a nod to the trope about "beliving in yourself", a common trope in TV which usually sees a person fail and the lesson being they could do it all along they just didn't have faith in themselves. Trolls has been playing with the "everyone has limits" note since Trolls: The Beat Goes On!, such as in "Tour Guide Of Duty".