Trollhunters S1 E1

## Plot

In the quiet and seemingly ordinary town of Arcadia Oaks, which is located in southern California, the sun is rising at 4:30 in the morning. Unbeknownst to the residents of the town, two trolls are battling on/under a bridge beneath a canal. Trolls turn to stone if they're exposed to sunlight. The evil troll Bular, voiced by Ron Perlman, is fighting the good troll Kanjigar, voiced in this episode only by Tom Hiddleston, for the Amulet of Daylight, a magic artifact that gives him a magic suit of armor and a sword. It's what makes him something called a Trollhunter. He refuses to yield or let Bular get his hands on the amulet, so he willingly lets himself turn to stone and fall into the canal, where his stone body shatters into pieces. The amulet will find a new champion, who will stop Bular and his master. An hour and a half later, normal 15 year old high school sophomore James "Jim" Lake Jr. wakes up. He lives in Arcadia with his single mother, who is a doctor at a clinic. He's the one who does all of the housework because she's always working or sleeping. The most he wants in life appears to be a moped, as well as a little adventure and excitement. He's an excellent and self-taught chef. His whole attire and even his bike scream "blue", like the amulet, so you can probably tell how this is gonna go. He even has blue eyes, like his mom, who drives a blue car. In fact, now that I think about it, the main protagonists of the other shows also have a lot of blue in their appearances as well, and they're actually allowed to have more than one outfit! Jim's best and only friend is Tobias Domzalski, who lives with his grandmother. They're late for school because Jim spent so much time cooking lunches for himself, Toby, and his mom. It's already 8 AM. They decide to take the canal to save time, but then Jim finds Kanjigar's stony remains, and the amulet, which calls out his name. They wonder if they're being pranked, and run off when they hear the final bell. A troll with six eyes is watching from a grate and is surprised that the amulet chose a human. He's voiced by Kelsey Grammer! Mr. Strickler, the history teacher, is trying to teach his class about the Peloponnesian Wars, but Jim is staring at Claire Nuñez, his secret crush. Toby looked up "talking amulets", but all he found was toys. Mr. Strickler asks Jim to stay back so he can speak to him. He can tell that he's distracted. He also fell asleep in class. He didn't get a lot of sleep last night. He wants to help his mom, Dr. Barbara Lake, who's been working double shifts. Strickler gives Jim his phone number to give to her so she can call him. He also tells him to drop by his office if he ever wants to talk, and if he likes Claire, he should talk to her instead of stare at her. Jim tries to talk to her and her friends Shannon and Darci during gym class. He's terrible at Spanish. Before Claire leaves, she asks him if he likes Shakespeare. The school play is *Romeo and Juliet*, but they're having trouble getting boys to audition. In the locker room, Toby tells him to try out for the play. He's not an actor, but he's always talking about how he wants his life to be more exciting, but he doesn't think the school play is it. He doesn't mean exciting, he means more. He needs to know that there's something more to life than high school. College? Career? Family? Hobbies? Sometimes simple is better, or at least less hectic. F––k RotT. It's like the creative team didn't even pay attention to what the fans wanted or what they had liked and didn't like about the past three shows. While outside, Jim stands up to the resident jock and bully, Steve Palchuk, when he puts resident nerd Eli Pepperjack in a locker, because he said he saw monsters with stone skin fighting in the canal that morning. Jim tells him that this is the prime of his life, and it's all downhill for him from here, but Eli will become a billionaire software engineer. I hope not, although now I'm wondering if *3Below* was partially inspired by all those billionaires trying to go to space, or vice versa. Toby starts a chant among the crowd that gets Steve to back down and let Eli out (or it was the appearance of Coach Lawrence), but he tells Jim that on Friday at noon, he'll get what's coming to him. As he and Toby head home, they meet with Dr. Lake, who will be out all night again. One of the other doctors is out sick, and another has a wedding this weekend. She remembered the dinner that Jim made for her that morning. He made her breakfast too. He's basically taking care of his mom, but he enjoys it. He doesn't give her Strickler's number. The amulet hasn't done anything since that morning. Toby tells Jim to text him if it does anything cool. He hears noises in the basement, and thinks that it's raccoons. It's actually the troll we saw earlier, whose name is Blinky, along with a much larger troll named AAARRRGGHH!!! Jim freaks out as Blinky explains that the amulet has chosen him to be the next Trollhunter, the protector of a secret civilization of trolls lurking underneath their very feet. Jim passes out *for the entire night*, wakes up, and calls Toby, who is in the middle of a dentist and/or orthodontist appointment. Sometime later, he enters Strickler's office. He tries to tell him everything, but at the last second, claims that the trolls were actually trainers that wanted to train him in chess. Strickler thinks he has too much on his shoulders for someone his age, and this opportunity is causing him anxiety. Strickler knows he wants to be there for his mother, but like a great poet once wrote, "Do what's good for you, or you're not good for anybody." I'm not sure I'd call Billy Joel a poet, but okay. However, when Jim leaves, Strickler looks shocked when he sees the amulet in his bag. As he's making sandwiches that night, he sees the amulet glow again and takes it outside. The symbols on the outside glow and spin around, cycling through different languages, before settling on English. Jim reads the words out loud. "For the glory of Merlin, Daylight is mine to command." This makes him float in the air, and magic makes Kanjigar's armor appear on him. It's obviously too big for him at first, but it shrinks to fit him. The sword also appears in his hand, but he gets it stuck in a rock, and then he gets it stuck in another one. That night, Strickler drives to the canal, and picks up the rock that had the amulet in it. It's been taken. Bular is also there. Strickler tells him that his father won't be pleased with his failure. Bular vows to destroy whoever has the Amulet of Merlin. Strickler calls him a brute and says he knows where to find it. His eyes turn yellow. We see the title sequence at the end, like in the first episode of every volume of RWBY. The episode, as well as the next one, ends with a dedication to the original Trollhunter himself, Anton Yelchin.