"These are the utmost grand of days! This is going to be so, so- awful!"
This article contains spoilers for Power of Potluck. Please read at your own risk.
"What conspiracies are we cooking on the menu today?"
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Power of Potluck is the fourth episode of the ENA animated series.
Ena rings a colorful doorbell. Though, while she is talking and contemplating the feelings associated with what she is doing, a sudden cut is made to a peephole view of her with a blanked-out blue side, holding a Mask that resembles her sad side, with them excitedly asking if they could see the fun inside of the house closer. The door opens, and Ena is let inside the building. The episode switches to an isometric view as Ena and Mask start making their way through a long hallway with red carpets, stone walls, and eight elevators. At the end of the hallway, they meet Ivy, and Ena asks them if they know where they could find some Fun. Ivy sees the two protagonists completely starved of fun, and despite Mask's convincing, they hand them a Theatre program, giving them one final call that the First Act has already begun. Ena and Mask enter one of the elevators and arrive at a floor completely made out of metal pipes.
Ena and Mask arrive at ACT I: DISPLAY, falling through the void of pipes. Mask talks about how this place is a beautiful world of endless bonds and connections, but even so, Ena does not recognize the happiness in it, and she starts crawling over the tubes. They wind up in a room with yellow walls, curtains almost completely covering one of the walls, and cyan statues crying flowing water. Ena approaches one of the weeping statues and asks about their long face. The statue replies that their tears are joyous ones and that the Second Act granted them their happiness. Ena wanders off to search for this joy and steps into the magenta curtains.
Upon stepping back into the curtains, Ena and Mask have found ACT II: THE RISING. The Act has a brick platform with a small table, a red umbrella, and a relax chair. There is a big garage lock on a nearby gray wall, and there are white crossing lines going off the brick platform. In the air, there are columns of bricks flowing in different directions, articulating themselves around the room. Almost everything in here is covered in white masks with heavy shadows. Mask flows with the bricks, excited for an adventure into the unknown, though Ena laments about the twists and turns of the bricks, realizing that maybe she is the one who cannot catch up with the others. The garage lock lifts up, revealing another elevator ride. The elevator leads Ena and Mask into the void, where they start floating as various creatures appear before them. They swim back to safe land once more, continuing on.
This land is a vertical room with uneven stone walls with two skeletons stuck in them, big windows with iron bars, and a purple gooey substance covering the floor. There is a pair of shadowy figures where the skeletons stand; one resembles a boy, the other a witch. Ena greets the figures and asks them directions on how to reach the Third Act before it ends, though the two black and white figures surprise her by telling her that she is already part of both ACT III & IV: CRESCENDO OF A DESCENT, and they invite her to jump on the stage and play her role for the audience. The two figures jump and dance around, and Mask does not mind joining them at all. Ena intervenes and agrees with Mask about feeling gratification from the audience, but she still does not sense any change in her. Ena wonders how something like this could bring joy anyway, and Mask detaches from Ena's face, staring at her in shock. A sudden cut to a skull on a black background appears, answering Ena's question: she cannot feel happiness from this task because she does not understand this kind of joy. Other skulls join the first one, forming a face to reveal The Therapist.
ACT V: THERAPY has begun, where The Therapist talks directly to Ena. They ask her what the flavor of her trip into the house is, and a now more cracked Mask answers them by stating that the flavor is abysmal, like a cosmic stew, with Ena behind Mask struggling and looking down. Ena recognizes her ability to acknowledge the joy that she keeps experiencing on these voyages, but all the same, she ended up with only incomprehensible feelings and a lousy mask, raising her head up and showing her blue side now with facial features. Upon hearing Ena's remark about them being lousy, Mask turns gray and withers away. The Therapist reveals the truth of the circumstances to Ena, which is that she will never find fun in this place. She asks for suggestions on how to actually find joy, and they reply that happiness is found in the little moments. They conclude by saying that she will not need to come back anymore as the environment brightens and the skulls making up The Therapist begin to pulse rapidly.
Ena is snapped back to the outside of the house, still standing in front of the door. Moony suddenly calls for Ena in the distance, approaching her alongside Nacho, and lectures her about not running after ringing the bell. They were playing Ring-Rong-Run, after all, and Ena completely forgot about the run part. But before Moony can lash out at Ena, she gets over it and instead asks how fun the place was inside, to which Ena says that it was somewhat stuffy. Ena, though, looks puzzled as Nacho moves something through their body, opening their zipper mouth to reveal a humanoid character with an uneasy expression. Ena still looks confused at Nacho while Moony asks her what is wrong, proceeding to drag the humanoid figure inside her hole, snapping a part of them inside.
According to the Power of Potluck YouTube video's pinned comment, the episode was originally intended to only be 40 seconds long.
This episode is the first in the entire series to feature characters speaking in noises rather than being voiced.
It is also the first episode in which none of Ena's "second phase" emotions appear.
It can be inferred that the in-universe events of this episode take place before all other Season 1 episodes, considering Mask's absence, Ena's blue side gaining facial features during the episode, and Ena also lacking her full-yellow appearance from the end of Temptation Stairway.
In this episode, Ena's outfit lacks a horizontal strap across her chest that is present in Extinction Party and Temptation Stairway, but not in Auction Day. This may be interpreted to imply that the strap was added sometime before Extinction Party, thus eliminating the possibility of Power of Potluck taking place at any time after this change.
Cultural references and inspirations
The overall visual aesthetic of the episode appears to take after '90s point-and-click adventure PC games, utilizing pixelated 3D environments similar in appearance to games such as Myst or Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong Nou.
Some of Ena's movements within the episode are based on various scenes from the 1927 science-fiction film Metropolis.[1]
The game that Ena and Moony were playing, Ring-Rong-Run, is similar to ding-dong ditch (also called ring and run), a children's prank involving ringing the doorbell of a home and running away before the door is opened.
