"Ludo in the Wild" is the second episode of the second season of Star vs. the Forces of Evil.
It premiered on July 11, 2016 alongside "My New Wand!".[1]
Synopsis
When Ludo is thrown into nature, he must overcome the elements and creatures of the wilderness to survive.[2]
Plot
The episode begins with a brief flashback to "Storm the Castle", with Ludo seeing his castle destroyed and Star Butterfly hurling him through a dimensional portal. The remainder of the episode chronicles Ludo's adventure alone in the wild.
On day 1, Ludo drifts aimlessly through interdimensional space, monologuing internally and craving food. He floats past a bag of Gold'n Crispz potato chips, but is unable to reach it. Suddenly, a shooting star hurtles into Ludo and sends him through another dimensional portal, and he ends up in a forest. After enduring some rain and a fall into the mud, he sees a giant bald eagle feeding her baby chicks. Ludo pretends to be one of the bald eagle's chicks in order to get some food, but the bald eagle catches on quickly and snatches Ludo up before dropping him out of the sky.
After being dropped out of the sky a second time by the same bald eagle, Ludo lands on the web of a giant spider. Following a short snowfall, the giant spider returns to its web to devour Ludo, but it doesn't like how he tastes and cuts him free from the web. As the giant spider devours another of its webbed victims, Ludo feeds on the giant spider's leftover scraps.
By day 37, Ludo has grown out a large beard, and he starts following the giant spider around as it forages for food. By following the giant spider around, Ludo picks up some techniques for surviving in the wilderness, but the giant spider immediately seizes any food he finds and only leaves him scraps. That night, when the giant spider returns to its cave, it hoards all of its food away from Ludo. Ludo discovers the bag of potato chips he coveted one month earlier, but the giant spider seizes that from him as well, pushing Ludo over the edge.
Ludo invades the giant spider's home and battles it for dominance. Though the giant spider outclasses him in strength, he manages to outsmart and defeat it. Ludo seizes the potato chips as his prize, and now the giant spider is feeding on his scraps. Using the potato chips, Ludo tames the spider to be his mounted steed.
On day 65, Ludo and the giant spider continue to forage for food. Ludo also captures and tames the giant bald eagle from two months earlier. By day 90, Ludo has mastered living in the wild. All of a sudden, Star Butterfly appears before him. As Ludo stares in disbelief, Star runs off. Ludo and his tamed animals give chase to steal Star's magic wand. However, just before Ludo catches Star, she vanishes into thin air, having apparently been a hallucination.
As Ludo laments about failing yet again to get the wand, he notices something glowing underneath the snow. He digs through the snow and discovers the other half of the faceplate from Star's wand, which was cleaved off in "Storm the Castle" and has now formed a second magic wand with a flat rock and a skeleton's hand. As Ludo picks up the new wand, he sees Butterfly Castle in the distance and realizes he has been on Mewni the entire time.
Characters
Major characters
Minor characters
- Star Butterfly (flashback/hallucination)
- Marco Diaz (flashback)
Production notes
Songs
Transcript
View the episode transcript here.
Gallery
Click here to view the gallery.
Trivia
- With the recycled footage from "Storm the Castle", this episode has the longest runtime of any individual episode in Star vs. the Forces of Evil thus far, exceeding the average runtime of 11 minutes.
- This is the first episode where Star and Marco have a minor role. Outside of recycled footage, Marco doesn't actually appear at all.
- The episode was originally written completely silent with no dialogue, but it was altered when Alan Tudyk ad-libbed the dialogue for Ludo.[3]
Revelations and continuity
- In this episode, Ludo finds the other half of the faceplate of Star's magic wand, which has been made into a second wand.
Allusions
- The episode features Frédéric Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9, No. 2.
- Ludo chasing the bag of potato chips is similar to Scrat trying to get his acorn in the Ice Age film franchise.
- This may also be a reference to the Nacho Bear short produced by Cartoon Network.
References
- ↑ Star vs. the Forces of Evil : My New Wand!; Ludo in the Wild. Screener. Retrieved on 2017 March 5.
- ↑ My New Wand! / Ludo in the Wild. Disney XD Press. Retrieved on 2017 March 5.
- ↑ Confessions of a “Star vs the Forces of Evil” fan, attending the 2017 D23 Expo. The Entertainment Nut (2017-07-17). Retrieved on 2017 July 25.