2x02 Fort in the Road

[7.7/10] “Fort in the Road” combines a number of things I like from Amphibia: a relatable family scenario, a loony adventure, and an expansion of the world-building.

On the relatable family scenario front, many kids have been on family road trips where one parent or another is doctrinaire about making good time, or being extra careful in unfamiliar places, when part of the thrill of traveling is experiencing new things and wanting to check out every shiny attraction at every wide place in the road. (Not that my younger self would know anything about that, of course.) Hop Pop’s rules of the road are amusing in their breadth, their strictness, and their funny specificity. Likewise, it’s easy to sympathize with Anne and Sprig, who see all these natural features and watering holes and ancient ruins that they might never see again, and want to take advantage of. The result is a nice blend of a relatable family road trip story with the expect goofiness and off kilter nature of Amphibia.

On the loony adventure front, the crew getting stuck in a strange factory and having to rescue Hop Pop leads to plenty of fun. Sprig being puzzled by fancy technology, Hop Pop finding the factory floor soothing rather than terrifying, and Anne going full ham to rescue him all leads to some enjoyable stakes and wild fun. (Plus hey, Sprig’s pulling a level again!) The animation on Anne’s conveyor belt run is particularly well done, and the crew having to beat the CPU by jamming Hop Pop’s rule book into it is some solid poetry. (Plus hey, I laughed like hell at Anne’s line about being from another world, not the nineties, when asked to insert a disk.)

Plus, holy worldbuilding, Batman! I am so intrigued at seeing advanced technology in Amphibia. As Anne notes, we’ve mostly seen the pastoral, or at most, a little steampunk, in the show so far. So seeing a fancy automated factory with a computer system that's supposedly been there since before recorded time opens up the door to all kinds of questions. Nobody seems too bothered by it, but this is a hell of a hook for later developments as to what’s going on with these old structures and why, dand that's before you get to the (presumably) killer robot this one closes things off with.

Of course, everything ends with the now-standard Amphibia compromise. Hop Pop admits he may have gone a little overboard in the name of keeping everyone safe in an unfamiliar environment, and the kids admit that after such a dangerous outcome, they understand the reason for the rules. It remains nice, if predictable.

Overall, this is a good bread-and-butter Amphibia episode that hits the right notes, while also planting some intriguing seeds for both the history of Amphibia and potential allies/antagonists who may show up later in the series.