The Four is Lava

Why do I have to go to Four? How am I ever gonna manage?

"The Four is Lava" is the 15th episode of Battle for BFDI and the 46th episode of the overall series. It was released on December 14, 2019.

Before the intro
The episode starts with Gelatin and Flower on a small island that has Cloudy's collection, surrounded by lava. Gelatin tells Flower that there is not enough room on the island. Agreeing with his sentiment, Flower pushes him off instead. Having done so, Flower grabs sunglasses from the collection, puts them on, and crosses her arms.

Meanwhile, Leafy, Needle, Ice Cube, and Taco are sitting on the roof of the restrooms. Taco is still trying to get over the fact that Book saved her and Ice Cube from the lava and sacrificed herself in the previous episode. Ice Cube tries to say something, but Leafy interrupts, saying that Book and Taco should just be friends because she believes in the power of friendship, but Needle tells her to mind her own business and pushes Leafy, which makes her fall off and glide. However, she is saved by Firey, who does the Four pose. Leafy says that Firey "can't ignore her anymore". Firey is confused, but Leafy, now livid, tells him he knows he still knows her, otherwise he would have not recovered her long ago. Firey instead gets her to safety, dodging her question.

Firey and Leafy, once friends
Once they reach the restrooms, Firey tells Leafy to shut up about him knowing her, because everyone else hates her, and if they know Firey is Leafy's friend, they will hate him, too. Firey, realizing what he just said, shows a look of guilt. Firey dispels Leafy's fears of losing her friendship with Firey, but Leafy tells him the Firey she knew was not like this. A small argument erupts between the two, before Leafy walks away, never to talk to Firey ever again. The Cake at Stake intro plays.

Taking shelter from the lava
The rest of, Dora, Lollipop, Teardrop, Saw, and Gaty, thought dead in the previous episode, are revealed to be alive in an underground hole, thanks to Lollipop's vast amount of Fork Repellent. Every time Lollipop runs out of a can of repellent, the others scream; this begins to irritate her. Saw is fearful, but Gaty reassures her, saying that if they never get out of the hole, they would not be eliminated. Gaty tears up, saying that she doesn't want to get eliminated. One of her tears hits Teardrop, much to her liking.

As Saw's comforting Gaty, Lollipop points out that Dora is lava-proof, and having her talk to Four would get out of their situation. Saw doesn't know, stating that Dora "isn't a good communicator". Lollipop points out that Saw is made of metal, and therefore is lava-proof, too. Saw is afraid her new handle would burn up, but Dora covers Saw‘s top with her mouth. They both swim to the surface, the first set of recommended characters beside them.

Saw asks Four to get out of the lava, to no avail; Dora, though, successfully asks Four (initially a recommended character named the "Four Statue") to do so. Four uses a magma hand to pick up the ers stuck in the hole, and Taco and Ice Cube, and send them over the second set of recommended characters into Cake at Stake.

Cake at Stake
Saw and the other ers express surprise at Taco's survival, and apologize for how they treated her in the past few episodes. Taco smiles, albeit slightly. Gaty realizes that they are missing one, Book. Taco asks Four to recover Book, and the other ers express surprise at this, given her interactions with Book.

Five pairs of arms come out of Four's mouth, to the other ers' surprise, but Four immediately swallows and recovers Book, who lands next to Taco. Taco is about to say something until she is interrupted by Four, who starts Cake at Stake.

The cakes to be given out are happy thoughts:
 * Ice Cube's is Pencil, Match, Leafy and Book being set on fire; a giant Ice Cube says "Revenge!"
 * Teardrop's is shattering things, and Pillow, with a hammer. A recommended character, "shatter sound", can be heard.
 * Saw's is her skipping in a field, exhuming 8-Ball's Fumes and losing her tendency to say "eight".
 * Taco's is a flashback of the previous episode of Book saving her and Ice Cube from lava (Taco comments that it isn't "really happy" and confusing to her; Four tells her she should get over it)
 * Gaty's is Four telling her she is safe, over and over again (representing her fear of elimination being quelled)
 * Book's is a flashback to BFDI 18 when she searches her meaning in herself. And the announcer gives her Dream Island.
 * Lollipop's is a flashback to BFB 8 of Donut repeatedly saying "Bagel Brain".

It is down to Lollipop, Dora and Book; the latter is safe. Book's happy thought is the Cake at Stake in "Reveal Novum" with her definition and the Announcer "giving" her Dream Island, complete with the music that played when TV was "given" Dream Island. Book says she likes this show.

Lollipop and Dora are left. Book wishes for Lollipop to be safe, but the latter only mutters. Lollipop is safe, and her happy thought is Donut on TV repeatedly saying "bagel brain". Lollipop laughs at this, while Dora gives a speech:

Of course. It's as I feared. An island eater such as myself has always been fated to go hungry. As I starve, trapped in the depths of this number's wretched, squishy body, my final thought will be that of the time I've spent with you all. If only I could stay for just one moment longer, perhaps I would reveal-

...until Four interrupts her, telling her to stop being "dramatic". Dora is sucked into Four, and lands inside the vast space between her and the door to Eternal Algebra Class Withfour. She enters EXIT.

Death P.A.C.T.: Four's inside story
Bottle, Pen and Remote play around with Four's mouth in The Fourest - the cause of the arms sticking out of Four's mouth. As Pillow walks off, Tree tells Black Hole that this is a waste of time, and that they should really be looking for a way out. Pillow is fascinated by Bracelety's signs, which trail all the way into the entrance to EXIT.

Meanwhile, Book is sad about Dora's elimination, but Gaty does not want to talk to Book. Four attempts to announce the next contest, but is interrupted by the arms, and Gaty telling him that everyone alive is scattered, and that he should speak louder to make his voice heard by everyone. His voice is indeed heard by everyone, to the point it can be heard from space, inhabited by a ring of recommended characters, Spongy (in his private jet) and Puffball.

The Challenge
X jumps out of the lava into the air and points down at Four, serving as a pinpoint for the challenge. Four commences the challenge, stating the last team to arrive where he is will be up for elimination. Much to Four's surprise, finishes first as they are already at the Cake at Stake place.

Meanwhile, Firey attempts to convince Leafy to get down from the bathroom roof and do the contest, but Leafy refuses, arguing that if their team loses, Firey will get voted off. The two argue for a bit before Needle loudly interrupts them before pushing Leafy off in order to get her to do the challenge. Firey manages to catch her, and the three begin making their way through the lava towards Four.

Spongy fires a cannonball at Puffball, almost knocking her over. She angrily tells him to stop shooting at her, but Spongy refuses before shooting many cannonballs at her, and Puffball dodging them in a pattern similar to the one used in in "Lofty", "Gardening Hero", and "Get Digging". She then notices Foldy and Bell, the two other alive members of Free Food. She uses Bell in order to deflect one of Spongy's cannonballs back into his own ship, and the two, along with Foldy, who had landed back on Puffball's head, begin to make their way to Four.

Meanwhile, Taco attempts to reason with Book. However, they are interrupted by Four, who has had enough of Death P.A.C.T. So he pushes Pen, Bottle, and Remote off of the tree they were using. Pen notices that Pillow is attempting to enter the EXIT. Four then grabs all of Death P.A.C.T., including Pillow, and pulls them out of his mouth onto a nearby cliff. He then gives them a menacing look and states that they are safe.

Meanwhile, Blocky, Robot Flower, Tennis Ball, and Flower are still stuck on the island and a tree. Blocky has an idea and pulls the tree back, but Tennis Ball is upset that all he did was get them somewhere else as he and Robot Flower leave the tree. However, Blocky then launches himself, hitting Puffball and fighting to stay on, eventually landing on a table of land near Four. Robot Flower tries to call Blocky back, but the lava starts to fry her, and she runs up the tree to prevent any more damage, still short circuiting from previous damage. Bell, Puffball, and Foldy get to Four, declaring Free Food safe. Bell also gets Four to recover the rest of Free Food.

Flower then says if she going to spend the rest of her days on the island, she might as well get comfortable, and pulls out a remote, asking if there was a TV they could use. Tennis Ball, now excited, says there is a button on the remote they can push to fix the problem, which Flower does press. All the lava drains into a more underground part of Golf Ball's underground factory, with Coiny and Naily surprised they survived. The lava goes through Roboty's paradise and into Four's eye, which he squirts out along with a much smaller Woody. Noticing Woody, Four declares BEEP safe.

The remaining contestants quickly run to Four, with Spongy ejecting from his private jet and parachuting to the ground, with most of The Losers! arriving as well. Robot Flower And Tennis Ball reach Four, declaring A Better Name Than That safe. Now Flower, who is on iance, Naily, who is on Team Ice Cube, and Coiny, who is on the losers, are left to determine who is up for elimination. Needle grabs Coiny and brings him to Four, making the Losers safe. Flower stabs Naily into the ground and gets back to Four, having iance be declared safe and leaving Team Ice Cube up for elimination. Naily feels sorry that she screwed up, even though she isn't even a screw.

Stinger
The Losers ask for Four to revive the rest of their teammates. They suddenly remember that they forgot about Clock, who Four revived and said they would be surprised. Clock feels upset they forgot about him, but they lied that they didn't, with Clock saying when they last saw him, with Leafy saying it was on BFB 15, breaking the Fourth Wall. Clock then angrily walks away, going past the last set of recommended characters in the episode, complaining about his team before saying they don't hear him since he's been walking for a while now, then looks at the screen saying he's just talking to himself, ending the episode.

Votes
29,988 votes have been cast. (+5,801) (+0.12%)

Continuity references

 * Clips of old BFDI episodes are shown.
 * When Ice Cube has her happy thought, Match, Pencil, Leafy and Book are in the old BFDI style, with old limbs.
 * Despite what Ice Cube's thought portrays, Book has never been seen with the old limbs.
 * Throughout the episode, prior to his team being marked safe, Woody, with his emerald, is seen in Four's pupil, from last episode.
 * Book's happy thought is a flashback to "Reveal Novum", with Book's happy thought also referencing TV's happy thought from that episode. Book also says Flower's response from that same episode in response to the happy thought.
 * Book mentions it's a shame that "we can't study Dora anymore" after she gets eliminated, in reference to Book wanting to do the same thing in "Getting Teardrop to Talk".
 * Blocky is doing his "sleeping" pose while trying to grab Puffball.
 * He also swings around on Puffball, referencing "Take the Plunge: Part 1".
 * Lollipop's happy feeling is a nod to "Questions Answered", when Donut calls himself Bagel Brain.
 * When Spongy shoots cannonballs at Puffball, she acts similarly to Leafy when she dodges the nails and acid spitballs in "Lofty", and "Get Digging" respectively, and Spongy when he dodges the lasers in "Gardening Hero".
 * Gelatin once again says that there is not enough room. However this time, he gets pushed off instead of pushing someone else off.
 * A flashback Robot Flower has takes place between the events of "Four Goes Too Far" and "The Liar Ball You Don't Want", the latter of was where Basketball stated that she'd been inspecting Robot Flower.
 * Firey saving Leafy from the Lava plays a "Snatch" sound effect, used in "Take the Plunge: Part 1".
 * When Spongy's plane is hit by a cannonball, he says "Uh-oh!", the same line from "Take the Plunge: Part 1" when he fell off the bar.
 * Leafy says to Firey "Get your hands off of me you jerk!" the same line in the episode, "Return of the Hang Glider".
 * When Firey says "This is why no one likes you." Leafy makes the same face from BFDI 23 and BFDIA 5a.
 * Book and Lollipop's speech bubbles return from "Today's Very Special Episode".
 * Firey explaining to leafy why nobody can know that they are friends explains BFDIA 5a, when Firey says he doesn’t know Leafy.
 * Near the end, Pin is sweating ooze, which is a reference to "Get Digging".

Cultural references

 * The title of the episode is a play on "The Floor is Lava".
 * One of the recommended characters (Marshmallow) resembles Marshmello, a popular DJ.
 * One of the recommended characters (Red Cream Soda) is a contestant from TROC, a Deviantart camp by Niall Burns. However, at the end of the episode, Red Cream Soda is seen covered in brown stuff. This resembles Red Cream Soda's elimination in TROC 5.
 * Specimum Sandwich (a TROC 4 contestant) also appears as a recommended character, appearing in the spinning cosmos scene after Four announces the challenge.

Trivia

 * This episode marks Teardrop’s first time surviving an elimination since "Barriers and Pitfalls".
 * The only characters who don't speak, that aren't Exitors or dead, are Pie, Pin, Cake, Grassy, TV, Golf Ball, Marker, Fries, and Yellow Face.
 * This episode marks the first time in the season where is no longer the largest team.
 * If one looks closely, Cloudy's blueberry bush (now a tree) has the banner "600,000"; a reference to jacknjellify hitting 600,000 subscribers on YouTube.
 * This was the last episode to be released in 2019.
 * This episode has the longest stinger of any BFB episode.
 * This is also the first stinger to include recommended characters in BFB.
 * The song where the Recommended Characters scene appears, is a reference to the Outro Song of Abacaba, one of Cary Huang's YouTube channels.
 * This is the 2nd episode to have Four's name in it, the first being "Four Goes Too Far".
 * It's also the 6th episode to have someone's name in it, following "Are You Smarter Than a Snowball?", "Getting Teardrop to Talk", "Fortunate Ben", "Four Goes Too Far", and "This Episode is About Basketball"
 * This was the second episode that showed a new part of Four, known as The Fourest, the first being the EXIT in "Enter the Exit".
 * This is the first episode to have a mathematical symbol (asterisk, not including Four) in the thumbnail, although in this case it's used for action punctuation.
 * This shows that after the first season of BFDI Firey had been pretending to have forgotten Leafy so he wouldn't be hated by the other contestants.
 * This also confirms that Clock HAD been killed, sometime after "Enter the Exit", but none of his teammates had noticed his absence or remembered him.
 * Since Woody got pushed out of Four's eye, he is smaller, and he could stay that size either permanently or until he gets killed.
 * This has shown that both Coiny and Naily could survive lava, but only if the lava isn't hot enough to melt them yet since Naily says it might have not been hot enough to kill metal characters. This meant that the lava had been around the lower point of average, since lava is usually 1,292°F (700°C) to 2,192°F (1200°C). If Naily is iron, she would easily survive as iron melts at 2,800°F (~1538°C). If Coiny is copper, he would have a slightly less chance of surviving, as copper melts at 1,984°F (~1084°C). Since both survived, the lava had to be cooler than 1,984°F (~1084°C). If Coiny is a penny, he wouldn't survive because modern pennies are made of 95% zinc and that melts at 788°F (~420°C). The average lava temperature is from 1,292 to 2,192 °F (~700 to 1,200°C).
 * X has only one line ("Oh yeah!") for the second episode in a row.
 * This is the 2nd episode that iance, Team Ice Cube!, and The Losers! were the last 3 teams in the challenge. Coincidentally in the same order.
 * Flower is responsible for both of the deaths in the episode.
 * Both were contestants whose names start with the letter "G".
 * Chords of Puffball's voice when she gets shot with the cannonballs go as follows (no inversions): B major (B-D# D#-F#), A# diminished to B major (A# C# E D# B), E major to F diminished, D diminished, C# major, C# major, C# major, C# major, C# major.

Credits

 * Created by:
 * Michael Huang
 * Cary Huang
 * Satomi Hinatsu
 * Written by:
 * Satomi Hinatsu
 * Kenzie Bryant
 * Directed and Produced by:
 * Michael Huang
 * Cary Huang
 * Storyboard, Character Design, Visual Development, and Layout:
 * Michael Huang
 * Cary Huang
 * Satomi Hinatsu
 * Kenzie Bryant
 * Background Artist: TopHatTheHat
 * Animators:
 * Satomi Hinatsu
 * Dunkel Blau
 * TopHatTheHat
 * Niall Burns
 * Joseph Pak
 * Allen Lee
 * Visual Effects and Compositing:
 * Maroue Reus
 * Michael Huang
 * Cary Huang
 * CGI Animator: Dunkel Blau
 * Video Editing: Satomi Hinatsu
 * Sound Design and Editing:
 * Amor Boretto
 * Michael Huang
 * Satomi Hinatsu
 * Music by: Michael Huang
 * Additional Character Artwork: TheEpicJames
 * Thumbnail Artwork: Joseph Pak

Cast
''Characters who did not have any lines were not included. For a full list of voices, see Credits.''
 * Cary Huang as X, Tennis Ball and Spongy
 * Michael Huang as Four, Robot Flower, Woody, Eraser, Firey, Coiny, Blocky, Book, Flower, Pen, Puffball and Leafy
 * Satomi Hinatsu as Black Hole, Basketball, Saw, Bottle, Gaty, Clock and Ice Cube
 * Kenzie Bryant as Taco, Bell and Needle
 * Sam Lee as Lollipop
 * Cindy Jiang as Foldy and Pillow
 * Katherine Sun as Eggy and Naily
 * Thomas Chick as Tree
 * Graham Taylor as Gelatin

Goofs

 * At 3:28, when Four was grabbing out of the lava, the rest of Four's arm is missing from the surface.
 * At 3:36, when Four grabs Taco and Ice Cube, Needle loses her reddish color from the heat and is very dark.
 * When Dora is making her speech after Lollipop is safe, Taco can be seen without any changes on her (heated and a burn mark).
 * At 6:47, when Four is shown getting frustrated with Death P.A.C.T.'s arms sticking out of his mouth, Woody is missing from his eye.
 * The trail of signs with Ice Cube's name on them aren't present until Pillow notices them. They also disappear as she approaches the EXIT's door.
 * At 7:58, Woody is in two separate poses at once.
 * At 11:43, the lava stops entering Golf Ball's Underground Factory, but a few moments later, there is still lava flowing into the factory from the entrance.
 * Coiny and Naily are also seen surviving the lava nearby the entrance, even though they both previously drowned inside the factory.