Chapter 13: The Black Hound

General
**Gallery**

This article is about one of the episodes from the Netflix-exclusive television series.
You may be looking for the graphic novel series of the same name.

## Credits

### Head Writer

Stephanie Simpson

***Chapter 13: The Black Hound*** is the thirteenth and final episode of the first season, and the thirteenth episode of the Hilda series, released on September 21st, 2018, on **Netflix**.

## Synopsis

As fear grips the city over the Black Hound, Hilda makes it her mission to help the Nisse Tontu, even if it means having less time to earn Sparrow Scout badges.

## Plot

 This section contains spoilers of an episode, movie, or book.

Picking up where the previous episode left off, the Black Hound closes in on the Marra and the kids. Kelly shows her true colors and pushes Frida towards the Hound as bait, while she and the other Marra flee. The Hound now turns its attention to Hilda, David, and Frida, who run for the Sparrow Scouts camp. Hilda distracts the Hound with a bag of chips, and the kids make it safely back to the camp, where they find Raven Leader waiting for them.

Raven Leader is shocked to learn the Black Hound was sighted in the woods and decides to end the camp early. That same night, the Scouts pack up and go back home. Frida apologizes to David for how she behaved. Hilda is still determined to find Tontu like she promised, but Raven Leader stops her. Since Frida’s parents don’t know she went to the Huldrawood, Johanna and Hilda give her a ride home. Hilda quickly makes a sketch of Tontu so Frida can help look for him. Since Johanna still thinks Hilda earned badges this year, and Hilda is still too nervous to admit she didn’t, Frida offers to help Hilda get at least one badge.

The following day, David and Frida come to pick up Hilda to go collecting for the Sparrow Scout’s jumble sale, which will earn them the fundraising badge. It takes some convincing to get Johanna to let Hilda go out in the streets. Members of the safety patrol are searching the streets for the Hound, so far without luck. The friends also visit Kelly’s house. Kelly’s mom almost gives away Kelly’s favorite stuffed toy Fluff-Bun, and Kelly is too embarrassed to take it back, but Frida returns it to her and warns Kelly to never throw away your real friends.

Hilda keeps looking for Tontu, and thinks she finally spots him walking down the street. However, it turns out to be a different Nisse (who, confusingly enough, is also named Tontu). Soon she meets more homeless Nisse, all of whom are named Tontu, and all claim they were wrongfully accused of trashing the houses they used to live in. They don’t trust each other however, which makes it harder for Hilda to determine how much is true of their stories. She also gets so caught up in questioning the Nisse, that she fails to make it back to the Sparrow Scouts Hall in time, and thus doesn’t get to share Frida and David’s credit for the stuff they collected.

That night the news reports the Black Hound ate three people. Alfur thinks the hound is a Barghest, but he doesn’t understand what it’s doing in Trolberg since they normally live deep in the mountains. Hilda thus concludes the Hound may not be evil but is just lost and scared. The following day Hilda tries to distract herself from the upcoming badge ceremony by once more looking for Tontu. She finally finds the house he used to live in, but the owner assures Hilda that Tontu deserved to get banished since he trashed her living room. Soon afterwards, she finally finds Tontu, but he keeps insisting he’s innocent. Hilda isn’t sure who to believe.

Tontu goes with Hilda to the Scout Hall, and at her request checks out the Nowhere Space there. While the badge ceremony is in progress, Tontu discovers the Black Hound is sleeping in the Scout Hall’s nowhere space. The creature wakes up and chases Tontu out of the Nowhere Space into the Scout Hall, causing panic among the audience. Tontu quickly drags Hilda back into Nowhere Space to save her, but the Hound follows.

Chased by the Hound, Hilda and Tontu leap through Nowhere Space from building to building. They also pass through the Nowhere Space of Frida’s House. Here, Hilda finally finds Frida’s missing book “The Legend of Great King Condon” and returns it to her room. Finally, they all end up in Hilda’s own house. The Nisse living there comes to their aid since it’s her house too, but as she confronts the Hound, she suddenly recognizes the beast as her old pet, Jellybean. She tells Hilda and Tontu how she found the hound as a puppy and raised him for a while, but her parents discovered the animal and got rid of it.

Now that he’s reunited with his owner, Jellybean calms down. His eyes even stop glowing, and when Tontu informs the other Nisse about the people Jellybean ate, the Nisse makes Jellybean spit them out again. Johanna also gets home. Hilda finally understands what happened; it was Jellybean who (unintentionally) trashed all those other houses while searching for his owner in Nowhere Space, and thus got all those Nisse wrongfully accused of vandalism.

Word that the Hound is at Hilda’s House reaches the safety patrol, and they arrive to capture it. They try to capture it with nets, but they’re too small. Jellybean’s owner suggests trying to lure the dog out of the city so he won’t pose a threat to anyone anymore, and convinced by Hilda, Johanna agrees to the plan. What follows is a wild chase where Johanna drives her car (with Hilda and the two Nisse in it) towards the town gate, chased by Jellybean, who in turn is chased by the safety patrol.

Jellybean catches up with the car however before they reach the gate, and jumps on the roof. He blocks the front window, causing Johanna to accidentally steer the car off the road. Out of control, the car threatens to crash into the city wall. Out of other options, the two Nisse join forces to send the car into the Nowhere Space of the outside world; something no Nisse would normally dare to do. In this immense Nowhere Space, Jellybean and his owner are separated from the others. And while Tontu is able to make the car with Johanna and Hilda emerge from Nowhere Space on the other side of the wall, Jellybean and his owner vanish.

Sometime later, Johanna presents Hilda with a homemade badge to make up for her lack of any proper ones. She proclaims she is still proud of Hilda. Tontu is now also living with them in the Nowhere Space previously inhabited by Jellybean’s owner. Alfur is excited to have learned about Nowhere Space, claiming it will set off a golden age of Elf exploration. Frida and David also drop by, and they begin to scheme how to remove the unofficial badge from Hilda’s uniform before the next Sparrow Scouts meeting.

Meanwhile, Jellybean and his owner also escaped the outside’s world Nowhere Space, and are now in the wilderness near the remains of Hilda’s old house. They run into some Elves and the Wood Man, who tells them how the house was destroyed because Hilda befriended a Giant.

## Featured Characters

### Humans

* Hilda
* Johanna
* David
* Frida
* Raven Leader
* Trolberg Safety Patrol
* Frida's mom
* Frida's dad
* David's mom
* David's dad
* Trevor (cameo)
* Trevor’s friends (cameo)
* The Librarian (cameo)
* News Anchor
* Tontu's old house's owner
* Matilda Pilqvist (cameo)

### Creatures

* The Black Hound
* Wood Man
* Woff
* Trolls (petrified, cameo)
* The Great Raven (cameo)
* Cornelius (cameo)
* Tide mice (cameo)

#### Nisse

* Tontu (alpha)
* Tontu (Beta)
* Tontu's dad
* Tontu's mom

#### Marra

* Kelly
* David's Marra

## Goofs & errors

* Continuity error: In "Chapter 7: The Lost Clan", Hilda, Frida, and David successfully managed to get their hands on a Blue Nettle, and thus earn the Botany Badge. Yet, during the badge ceremony, somehow none of them actually get this badge. This error likely resulted from the fact that the subplot of Hilda failing to get any badges was adapted directly from the graphic novel, while the events from "Chapter 7: The Lost Clan" are a new story created specifically for the animated series.

## Trivia

* Johanna's "HILDA!" soundbite is reused from "Chapter 3: The Bird Parade".
* In "Chapter 9: The Ghost", David revealed his dad bought a video camera to record all of David's accomplishments. But for some reason, neither of his parents are seen filming him getting his badges.
* The Lindworm and Jorgen are mentioned, but don’t appear.
* This episode was adapted into "Hilda and the Nowhere Space".
* Instead of Hilda's theme, the song played during the end credits is Tjörn by Swedish musician Björn Olsson, making this the second episode in Season 1 to use a different song for the end credits.