The Playcare

The Poppy Games is the third episode of Poppy Playtime.
== Synopsis ==
Jake, Emily, and their friends end up in the playcare.
== Plot ==
After the events of the second episode, the episode starts with Emily having a childhood flashback about her waking in the middle of the night, in her bedroom, by the theme song of the Smiling Critters, her favorite cartoon show. Morbid curiosity got the better of her and she decided to watch the show.
However, when the episode showed, she realized that it was an episode she and Jake never saw before and never saw on the episode list. She assumes that it’s a lost episode accidentally aired and continues to watch as the cartoon starts, transitioning to the 'lost' episode's main setting: DogDay's shack.
The scene unfolds on a stormy and windy night, depicted by the dark and unsettled atmosphere. The time on the clock depicts 10:06 PM, and all the Smiling Critters, except CatNap, are huddled together in the cabin, wrapped in blankets and looking worried.
Bobby BearHug breaks the silence, expressing her fear of the howling wind. As if to emphasize the tension, a tree branch snaps off, causing CraftyCorn to cower in fear and seek refuge under her blanket.
DogDay tries to uplift the mood by assuring everyone that everything will be okay, stating that "all winds blow away... eventually."
Just then, a knock on the door interrupts their conversation, and CatNap opens it. The critters' faces light up with relief as they all simultaneously call out CatNap's name with glee. Bubba Bubbaphant, PickyPiggy, KickinChicken, and Hoppy Hopscotch desperately plead for CatNap to help them fall asleep.
In response, CatNap exhales red gas from his mouth. The critters start laughing hysterically, making them show signs of insanity, addiction and mania. The critters' laughter turns eerie and distorted as the gas fills the cabin as their laughter slowly turns into screaming.
Emily gets frightened and distressed by the sequence of the cartoon and hides underneath the covers. She then cries quietly, still under the covers, as she hears static. She lifts her head a little from the covers and sees the aftermath of the cartoon's sequence: the critters collapsed onto the floor, with the exception of DogDay sleeping on the couch.
Meanwhile, CatNap is left sitting besides DogDay on the couch, staring directly at the camera and surrounded by the sleeping Critters, all in abnormal positions. As this scene freezes, the credits roll, revealing the producers and the cast involved in the cartoon.
Emily, still traumatized from the sequence of the cartoon's 'lost' episode, asks herself why "Catnap's so scary". As she continues to quietly sob, she sees the cartoon cuts to a news broadcast from WLE-4 regarding reports of children in possession of CatNap toys suffering violent nightmares.
After playing the Smiling Critters episode, the screen cuts to the news anchor introducing the Smiling Critters toy line. A demonstration of how CatNap's scent is deployed plays, before the newscaster discusses the aforementioned controversy surrounding CatNap and subsequently, Playtime Co. itself.
He mentions that Playtime Co. issued a recall of all CatNap toys from the lineup, resulting in his presence removed from all promotional material featuring the Smiling Critters.
The anchor proposes that recalling the CatNap toy from the market may not help Playtime Co. as the damage was already done. As he concludes that CatNap isn't a safe toy for children, Emily looks at her Catnap toy, implying that she got the toy before the recall.
We then cut too the present where a concussioned Emily sees her unconscious brother being thrown own a chute by CatNap into a trash compactor. After helping him escaping, the twins and their friends make their way through a series of maintenance tunnels, hearing a phone ringing in the distance in the process of escaping.
Finding and answering the phone, Jake finds himself communicating with an unknown character who states his name to be Ollie. Through this newfound phone, still working despite being unused for 10 years, Ollie promises to guide Jake, his sister, and their friends while explaining the ongoing situation.
The team return to the Train and proceeds to enter Playcare through Elliot's Express, where they hear a speech by Elliot Ludwig that introduces his ideologies and thoughts during the creation of Playcare.
Upon arriving at Playcare, Ollie gives Jake a key to the Gas Production Zone which is used to power the building but also produces a gas called "The Red Smoke". After activating the console, the power goes out.
Ollie tasks the team with reactivating the power and using backup generators from several locations to power the Gas Production Zone to reach CatNap. Ollie then tells the team to enter Home Sweet Home first, the abandoned residence for all orphan children.
After entering Home Sweet Home, Claire inhales the red smoke, resulting in CatNap manipulating her into believing that she is still conscious while she can be seen unconscious in the real world. She makes their way through a maze of seemingly endless corridors. She eventuallt reaches the end of the corridors, where they watch a tape welcoming employees to the Playtime Co. factory.
The tape becomes more and more disturbing, beginning to call out Jake and Emily's father specifically for his kids returning and telling him of the "incomprehensible horrors" that now inhabit the factory.
Claire is forced to look at the screen until a distorted, twisted version of Huggy Wuggy crawls out of the television. She tries to run away, but she is soon caught and eaten. She then wakes up in the real Home Sweet Home, screaming. After Emily comforts her, the team discovers some gas masks.
After activating Home Sweet Home's generator and leaving, Kissy Missy attempts to kill the team until she is stopped by Poppy. A remorseful Poppy explains that the team needs to get rid of the monsters. She explains that The Prototype will kill the team if they try to escape and that he needs to be killed.
Ollie tells the team to go to the School to restore power to it. While the teens of the team try to turn on the generator, Claire encounters Miss Delight, the only remaining teacher of the School, who was abandoned by her coworkers due to their constant need for flesh to feast upon.
Miss Delight continuously threatens the team through the School's PA system, and after they turn the power back on, she damages the generator before chasing the team through various corridors and classrooms, only moving when they look away (or when the lights turn off).
As the team nears the School's maintenance exit, Miss Delight abandons her movement rule and charges at Claire, who brings a gate down onto her, causing her to instantly die.
Claire obtains the Orange Hand and the team makes their way into the caverns of Playcare. There, after completing several puzzles, Emily sees CatNap worshipping a shrine of The Prototype. CatNap doesn't notice Emily, vanishing after she looks away.
The team then enters the Playhouse through the caves, where they fend off a horde of Ruined Critters via Claire using the Orange Hand. On their way out, they encounter a locked-up DogDay, who explains that the entirety of Playcare is CatNap's playground for destruction, murder, and general acts of violence.
DogDay also explains that CatNap takes orders from The Prototype, worshipping him and killing anyone who doesn’t listen to his god. Shortly before his monologue ends, the Mini Smiling Critters infest DogDay before hijacking his body and chasing the player through it.
The team escapes the possessed DogDay, last hearing his screams, before taking a slide out of Playhouse.
Ollie then sends the team to the Counselor's Office as their final objective, where they find and watch a tape of a warning issued to Playtime Co. employees on August 8, 1995, warning them of a hostile force and to evacuate.
The team briefly returns to the caverns as they make their way through the Counselor's Office. As they enter a Red Smoke-infested area while trying to power the building, Emily is attacked by CatNap, who knocks the Gas Mask off her face and sends her into a dream state where Poppy asks her rhetorical questions with various visions of shadow children in Playcare.
After rerouting the Counselor's Office backup power to the statue, Ollie gives the team the final battery required to power the Gas Production Zone. They return to the zone, but CatNap ambushes them by filling the room with Red Smoke, chasing the team into an elevator.
The team enters the Safe Room and is required to fend off CatNap for three minutes as he constantly toys with Emily via hallucinations. A Green GrabPack Hand receiver eventually overcharges and Claire utilizes this to eliminate CatNap at the hand's sacrifice. CatNap is electrocuted and inadvertently lights himself on fire exhaling the Red Smoke.
The Prototype's arm emerges from the ceiling, offering to assist CatNap before brutally taking his life. Returning to the Gas Production Zone, the team uses the battery to power the console, finally diverting the gas and powering the area. They then encounter Poppy, who shows them a tape containing CCTV footage of what happened to The Player's coworkers, an incident the toys call "The Hour of Joy."
The tape shows Huggy Wuggy, Mommy Long Legs, Boxy Boo, Miss Delight, CatNap, and other toys, under The Prototype's orders, indiscriminately killing everyone present in the factory at the time, while a younger Jake and Emily, younger versions of their friends, and an infant Claire, as well as other kids, watched their parents and the employees, including the twins's father, get killed.
Poppy then explains that she had been thrown into the case Claire opened in the first episode, but she heard everything that happened and has since been distraught by the needless slaughter of so many lives, including those who were innocent, on that day.
Therefore, she has vowed to put an end to The Prototype for what he has done. Poppy and the team take an elevator deeper into the factory, while Kissy Missy stays behind to activate it.
As the elevator lowers into the ground, Kissy is attacked by an unknown entity, and Poppy turns the elevator around to save her, but the door concealing the elevator closes, stranding the team and Poppy in the deeper levels of the factory and leaving Kissy's fate, and possible death, uncertain.