"Butterfly Trap" is the twenty-ninth episode of the third season of Star vs. the Forces of Evil.
It premiered on March 10, 2018 alongside "Ludo, Where Art Thou?"[1]
Synopsis[]
Moon and the Magical High Commission put Eclipsa on trial for her evil past with Star as a key witness.[2]
Plot[]
At the Bureaucracy of Magic, Eclipsa's trial finally begins, with Queen Butterfly and the Magic High Commission serving as trial judges, Sean the security guard as court stenographer, and Star as a witness to the proceedings. The High Commission expects a quick guilty verdict, but Star is hopeful that Eclipsa will be found innocent.
Queen Moon produces a mountain of evidence against Eclipsa, but most of it is secondhand accounts, folk stories, and other unverified information. When she realizes how long it would take to go through all of that, Eclipsa requests a "trial by box" instead. Sean brings in the Box of Truth, and Star recognizes it as the Truth or Punishments game that she and her friends played in "Sleepover". Queen Moon changes the box's settings from "party" to "trial" and explains that each member of the High Commission will ask one question that the accused must truthfully answer. Everyone in the room pledges an oath of truth to the Box, and the trial begins.
Omnitraxus Prime starts by asking Eclipsa if she wrote the evil chapter in the Book of Spells. Eclipsa answers yes, but adds she never called it the "evil chapter" herself. Hekapoo asks if Eclipsa abandoned her husband King Shastacan and her kingdom to run off with a monster. Again, Eclipsa answers yes. Rhombulus then asks a random question if Eclipsa used to eat babies, once again mistaking her for Bobipsa the baby-eater. Eclipsa nevertheless answers no, but admits that she did psychologically hurt people who deserved it. Finally, Moon asks Eclipsa if she's sorry for what she's done. Eclipsa answers no, and the High Commission is certain of her guilt.
Before Rhombulus can re-crystallize Eclipsa, Star reminds everyone that in accordance with the Box's rules, Eclipsa can now ask her own question. She asks the High Commission what they did with her daughter Meteora. When the High Commission denies any knowledge of what happened, the Box detects they are lying and imprisons everyone in the courtroom in a giant metal box that shrinks in response to the Commission's lies. As the box threatens to crush them, the High Commission still deny that they did anything. When Star accuses them of hypocritically enforcing rules on everyone else while maintain their own lies, Rhombulus cracks under the pressure and confesses that they got rid of Eclipsa's daughter.
The giant box disappears, and the High Commission admits that King Shastacan wanted nothing to do with Eclipsa's half-monster daughter, so they replaced her with the peasant girl Festivia, who inherited the royal magic wand and became the next queen of Mewni. The Box finds Eclipsa guilty of crimes against the kingdom, but it also finds the High Commission guilty of tampering with Mewni history.
With this truth finally revealed, Queen Moon reveals that she conspired with Star and Eclipsa against the High Commission to bring this truth to light after what they discovered in "Total Eclipsa the Moon". Star rebukes the High Commission for lying to the Butterfly family for generations and, realizing she and her mother aren't true royals, starts to question if their family should even have the throne. Upset by this realization, she uses her wand to unlock Eclipsa's handcuffs and runs out of the courtroom.
Characters[]
Major characters[]
Minor characters[]
- Sean
- Box of Truth
- Lekmet (pictured)
- King Shastacan (pictured)
- Globgor (pictured)
- Meteora Butterfly (pictured)
- Festivia Butterfly (pictured)
Title in other languages[]
| Language | Title | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| Danish | Sommerfuglefælde | Butterfly Trap |
| Dutch | Vlinderval | Butterfly Trap |
| French | Le procès par boîte | The Trial by Box |
| Italian | Il processo trappola di Star | Star's Trap Trial |
| Japanese | バタフライ家の罠 | Butterfly Family Trap |
| Korean | 진실의 상자 재판 | Box of Truth Trial |
| Portuguese (Portugal) | Armadilha Para Borboletas | Butterfly Trap |
Transcript
View the episode transcript here.
Gallery
Click here to view the gallery.
Production notes[]
Songs[]
Trivia[]
- WatchMojo.com named this episode #9 in their "Top 10 Cartoon TV Plot Twists You Didn’t See Coming" list.[3]
Revelations and continuity[]
- Star mentions the events of the episode "Sleepover".
- Rhombulus is revealed to have a crush on Queen Butterfly.
- It is revealed that Queen Festivia was originally a peasant girl before being transplanted onto the Mewni throne by the Magic High Commission. This means all of Festivia's descendants, including Moon and Star, are not true-blooded members of the Butterfly family.
Errors[]
- When Eclipsa lifts her hand while saying "Oh, hello, sweetie", it is her normal skin tone instead of being stained dark purple.
- When Star says "We're no more royal than anybody else", the pale blue fabric on the front of Queen Moon's dress is missing.
- In the flashback, Meteora's tail has a pointed tip rather than the fuzzy tip it bears in "Skooled!"
References[]
- ↑ Disney XD (2018-02-08). You asked nicely, then demanded, and then finally yelled at us... and it worked!. Twitter. Retrieved on 2018 February 8.
- ↑ Star vs. the Forces of Evil. TV Passport. Retrieved on 2018 March 2.
- ↑ WatchMojo.com (2018-09-20). Top 10 Cartoon TV Plot Twists You Didn’t See Coming. YouTube. Retrieved on 2018 September 21.