The Runaway

The Runaway is the fifth episode of Angry Birds Stella Animated Series.

Toons.TV Description
Luca hates baths and those meanie-heads are trying to trick him into taking one. He'll show them...

Plot
The episode begins with Luca playing in a small puddle of mud, but this is short lived when he's approached by Stella and the rest of his friends, possessing a sponge, and two different cleaning brushes. Stella is the one who's most annoyed.

Luca becomes nervous, and his friends move aside to reveal a bath has been prepared for him, in response to this, Luca screams in fear and becomes angry, turning his back on his friends. Stella becomes angry with Luca, but Dahlia has a solution: she pulls out a tool that contains whisks. She uses these whisks to rapidly stir up the water, revealing that a bubble bath solution has been added.

Luca is unimpressed with this and Stella growls at the latter; however, Poppy steps in and takes one of Luca's toys and puts it in Luca's bath, much to Luca's chagrin. Luca gives Stella a scowl, in response, Stella growls and scares off Luca, and he jumps down from the tree onto a tree root, and that is when his friends get an idea.

Suddenly, a cherry is dropped from the tree and Luca spots it, eating it immediately. He then climbs back up the tree and follows the trail of cherries. His last cherry is beside Stella, and little does Luca know that the leaf he now stands on is reminiscent of that of a diving board; however, instead of the leaf becoming unstable, Stella gives Luca a hard push into the bath. Luca has lost this fight. Luca's friends dive into his bath to scrub him and clean him, whilst Luca is annoyed and surrounded by bubbles. The scene transitions to Luca in his bed while everyone else decides to hit the hay for the night.

Luca decides to sneak out of the tree home and replaces himself with a pineapple to fool his friends into thinking he's the one in bed, and he runs away. Luca then bounces on the side of a hanging toy to make the sound of snoring, to make the decoy fool-proof. For extra security on his plan, he also puts a toy at the pineapple's side before running away.

Luca runs through shrubbery and stops when he hears pigs, he then follows the sound to find that several pigs are playing in the mud (and passing gas in it.. gross). Luca becomes interested and jumps into the mud to join these pigs. For a moment, two pigs and Luca hang out and have a good time, and Luca beats the pigs at their game of flatulence, going as far as to temporarily imprison one of the pigs in a massive flatulent bubble. The pigs and Luca then hear a bell and the two pigs follow the rest of the pigs out of the mud puddle, and Luca decides to tag along. After a bit of discussion, the pigs decide that Luca can come with them.

Back at Luca's tree home, his friends have come to check on him. Luca's plan has been revealed to have worked when Willow cooed at the sleeping "Luca", but then Poppy quickly shushes her, then Stella shushes Poppy. Believing it is truly Luca, his friends walk away and head back to bed.

The scene transitions to Gale's castle, the pigs and Luca entering said architecture with Gale and Handsome Pig waiting for them. Luca looks at the inside of the castle with awe, and Gale becomes surprised to see her friend. Luca then notices Gale and quickly hugs her, in which Gale returns the hug. When Handsome Pig approaches, Gale commands that they build Luca a second throne, a token of acceptance and revealing that since Luca is a child and doesn't understand what's going on, Gale still loves him, beside, he hasn't done anything wrong to her so far.

Luca sits in his newly built throne and his stomach growls. Gale notices this and orders her minions to bring him an assortment of food. Whilst Luca eats his meal, Gale sits on a pillow in front of a mirror to admire herself. Seeing this, Luca takes a crown-like cupcake and puts it on his head and mocks her poses whilst she's still in the mirror, admiring herself.

The minion pigs take notice of Luca and laugh at his mimicking of the Bad Princess, and when Gale reprimands them, Luca continues to mimic her. The pigs eventually run away to find that Gale is furious, and then she notices that they were really laughing at Luca for mimicking her. Gale, surprised that Luca would do such thing, gets angry (in the process, completely forgets that he is just a child), and Luca drops his cupcake. Gale approaches him, but slips on said food and falls on her face. Luca then escapes her wrath and follows pigs down a narrow corridor, it reveals itself to be a bathhouse.

Luca becomes scared of this sight and runs into a dense forest, ending up lost. Luca swallows his fear and walks through the forest, with creatures in close pursuit. Luca feels watched and each time he turns around, the aforementioned creatures disappear, and when Luca encounters a strong, cold wind, he takes shelter between two large tree roots, and finds a fruit to use as a pillow. The camera pans up towards a tree branch, to see the same creatures pushing a leaf from a height and it lands on Luca, shielding him from the cold wind.

The next morning, a strong wind causes Luca's decoy to fail, since the swinging toy was pushing too hard and filled the balloon with too much air, and Stella is the first to wake up. Stella goes up to Luca's bed and they all find that it was a decoy. Luca's friends become worried and look all over the tree home for him, and find Luca sleeping on the floor, covered up with a huge leaf, the forest creatures look over him from overhead, apparently they've brought him back home.

Luca wakes up to find that he's back home, and when Stella finds that he's once again covered up in mud, she scolds him for it. Luca, giving up trying to be muddy, takes his toy back from Stella and dives into his bath. It is now nighttime once again, and his friends go to bed.

Luca wakes up from his "slumber" and giggles, revealing that he hasn't given up, and he plans on playing in more mud puddles to his heart's content.

Characters (in order of appearance)

 * Luca
 * Stella
 * Poppy
 * Willow
 * Dahlia
 * Minion Pigs
 * Gale
 * Handsome Pig
 * Critters

Trivia

 * This episode shows that Gale loves Luca more than Stella and the rest of her friends.
 * This episode solely focuses on a couple aspects of Luca's personality: Childishness and rebelliousness.
 * Stella is shown to be a motherly figure towards Luca, seeing the right to scold him when necessary and being the one mostly trying to force him to take a bath. She's also the first bird to wake up when she hears Luca's balloon pop, and gets angry when she found out the truth.
 * Up until the midpoint of this episode, Gale didn't think to hate Luca until he decided to mock her, then again, she should've remembered that Luca is just a child.
 * This is the first episode that Gale is not seen researching the Golden Egg nor planning her next scheme.
 * This is the first time we see Luca's tree house.
 * The creatures that followed Luca would be later added to Angry Birds Stella POP! This; however, is only half correct. The creature that was similar to that of a stegosaurus was added to Willow's levels; however, the other creature was never added to aforementioned game.
 * It is revealed that the minion pigs share one of Luca's favorite things, Mud.
 * This is the first time that one of Stella's friends and a few pigs do not have anything against each other.