Life of Pie

"Life of Pie" is the second segment of the 1st episode of the fifth season of Trolls: TrollsTopia, and the 65th overall episode in the series. It premiered in December 9, 2021.
== ==
When Holly Darlin' learns that Branch is a baking savant, she trains him up to become TrollsTopia's greatest pie-maker.
== ==
Holly is teaching a class of Trolls how to make pies the Country Western way. The pies are complex and some Trolls struggle. Poppy manages to complete the first recipe and wonders if she should start the next; however, it turns out to be a long-term project of Holly's, and she herself hasn't figured it out. As she speaks, Branch comes along on his way to fishing and completes the formula by adding the missing ingredient: 3 teaspoons of mince flavor berries. Holly is impressed that Branch, a completely unknown newbie, managed to complete the formula without any lessons, but Branch is more interested in fishing. Not wanting to miss the chance to capture raw talent like Branch's, she offers to train him to make pies, but Branch sees baking as a hobby from his Bunker days. Branch is taken back when Holly believes that he could be a master baker.
Branch asks Holly to not start too early on Saturdays, where he likes to sleep in, but Holly wakes him up anyway. She takes him to the flavor berry patch to pick fresh berries, which leads to them being so fresh the bushes attack him. She also tries to teach him to identify ingredients by smell alone, including type of apple, the smell of the soil they grew in, etc. A training montage begins with her training Branch as he slowly picks up the pie-baking skills.
The end result of the training is that Branch baked the perfect pie, which Holly proclaims tastes of joy. She goes to get her class and proclaims that Branch's life is about to change. When word gets around, Trolls will travel for miles to see Branch bake. As she talks, Branch shows increasing worry.
After getting the class, Holly returns and ventures into the bunker to retrieve the pie, only to find it missing. Branch claims he threw it away, but Holly sees through the lie. She smells out pie, but Branch throws flour onto the ground, creating a flour-cloud that allows him to escape with the pie. Holly chases Branch and at one stage manages to grab the pie. He desperately tries to grab it back from her. Eventually, he gets out the issue: if Holly presents the class with his pie, Trolls will come to see him from miles, sure, but Branch has only just started to be a Troll again. He is not ready for that kind of attention, and Holly's dream of him being a master baker is simply not his.
As the class approaches, Holly eats the pie in one go, then lies to the class to explain that she accidentally ate the pie in one gulp. The class buys this and walks away. Branch and Holly make amends and realize there is some of the pie left in the dish; they share the final fragments of the pie together in joy.
== ==
;Pop Trolls
*Skylar Astin as Branch
*Amanda Leighton as Queen Poppy
*Smidge (non-speaking)
;Country Trolls
*Megan Hilty as Holly Darlin'
;Rock Trolls
*Charles DeWayne as Demo
;Classical Trolls
*Jeanine Mason as Minuet Sonata
== ==
*"Sweet Success"
== ==
*The title is a play on the novel and film Life of Pi. The story is about a boy trapped on a boat at sea with a Tiger; the link is between Pi's and Branch's respective isolations.
*"Savant" refers to "Savant Syndrome", something that a person does exceptionally well despite having a extreme mental disability on the autistic spectrum.
**In Branch's case, the note is towards Branch's social and mental development, which was hindered by his severe post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) that plagued him for 20 years. This prevented him from leading a normal Troll life and thus handicapped him for life.
*The joke with Branch initially solving the recipe is a reference to the depiction of complex math in popular culture. The "joke" goes, the teacher cannot resolve their own math or work on formulas for years, then out of the blue, a young student comes along, who simply walks up to the board and fills in the answer or corrects it to the shock of the teacher. This has little to do with intelligence at times, but rather the student just happening to be able to look at it with fresh eyes or new knowledge, as the teacher often becomes so focused on the fact they can't do it, that alone becoming the reason they cannot resolve it.
*"4 and 20 black birds" is a reference to Sing a Song of Sixpence.
*The ending image of Holly and Branch after eating the pie and touching their finger tips with a pie is a reference to The Creation of Adam.
*Smidge appears later on with Holly's group of students; she's not in the class at the beginning of the episode.
*This is likely a nod back to the Trolls: The Beat Goes On! episode "The Giver", wherein Poppy had the chance to reveal Branch by telling everyone he was The Giver. In doing so, Branch would have lost the image of his cold exterior and been revealed to have actually been really sweet all along and still cares about the other Trolls. This was something Branch at the time didn't want.
Category:Episodes
Category:Trolls: TrollsTopia episodes
Category:Country Trolls Story Arc Episodes
Category:TT Season 5 episodes
Category:2D animation