Get to the Top in 500 Steps

Get to the Top in 500 Steps is the 11th episode of Battle for BFDI, and the 42nd episode overall of the Battle for Dream Island series. It was released on May 27, 2018.

Cold open
The first scene shows Liy talking to Pencil about the contestants in EXIT never opening the door behind Pencil's seat that had been in the EXIT for months. Stapy starts to tease Liy for being "too scared" to see what's beyond. Liy hits Stapy and tells him it's locked, and Pencil says she's never seen Four with a key for the door, to which Liy agrees. Stapy continues to tease Liy, but she hits him, causing a staple to come out, and then turns it into a lock pick. Just when Liy is about to unlock the door, Four comes in, yelling for the contestants in EXIT to get back to their seats for Cake at Stake.

Cake at Stake
The intro plays on the class' screen. Four announces that 32,543 votes were cast, and recaps that the eliminated contestant with the most votes will compete in BFB again, as well as getting the entire cake. Roboty, 8-Ball, David, Stapy, and Liy are consecutively declared not rejoining. Bracelety also loses the voting and asks Four to give Ice Cube her drawing of the letter, which he refuses to do. Four then calls out Pencil, who is happy at first but is told that she does not rejoin, and she needs to stop drawing on her desk. Leafy tells Loser that she'll be happy if either of them joins, which Loser, obviously, does not hear. Four says that Leafy rejoins, and Leafy starts crying tears of joy. Bracelety tries to get Leafy to pass the drawing to Ice Cube, but Leafy uses it as a tissue.

Post-Cake-at-Stake
8-Ball asks Liy whether she is sad she didn't rejoin, but she denies it and claims that she found her "next adventure" in what lies beyond the unlocked backdoor out of EXIT. Meanwhile, in the outer world, Balloony is listening to the sounds inside Four. X appears, claiming what Balloony does is unsafe, and dragging him out. Four announces to everyone that an eliminated contestant is about to rejoin, and after some speculating from the contestants (Match and Foldy hoped for Pencil and Stapy, respectively) he emits Leafy.

BEEP slowly backs away, not wanting her back. Leafy is saddened by this, but she is instead placed on The Losers! in exchange for Pin's Gratitude Token. Leafy socializes with her new teammates and gives Needle her cake, which she eats, horrifying Cake. Meanwhile, Firey still doesn't remember Leafy.

Challenge
Eraser asks what the contest is. X floats up in the sky like he did in "Getting Teardrop to Talk". Golf Ball tells Four to hurry up. Four begins to says what the sixth contest is, but X corrects him, saying that it is the 11th contest and that he missed a lot. The eleventh contest is to pick one of your teammates to climb up the 500-step platform and press a button located on the top. The last team to do so loses. Four also remarks that flying isn't allowed in this challenge.

Flower volunteers for iance, and Snowball is upset that he wasn't picked. Fanny tries to reassure him, but gets decapitated. Coiny picks Needle to be The Losers representative, being the fastest runner, with Firey being upset over not being chosen.

Book tells Lollipop that Taco will surely not be chosen, but the way she says it causes confusion. Gaty then intervenes and chooses Dora, since Book wants to learn more about her from the first episode. When all the contestants start, Flower is pushed down by accident by Tennis Ball. Needle is the fastest and completes the challenge in around 5 seconds. Dora, however, stays still. Gaty and Book realize that it might have been a bad idea to choose Dora, but Dora enters into a stance shortly after. Flower meanwhile tries to get past Tennis Ball, but he refuses to let her.

Match and Bubble
Bubble finally confronts Match about her being a hypocrite for not knowing the question answers and her general harsh treatment. Match reveals she was trying to act like Pencil for the sake of leadership, but Bubble argues that doing so only hurts everybody. Ultimately, Match apologizes, but Bubble says she will need time to forgive her, to which Match reluctantly accepts.

Challenge (continued)
To solve her problem, Flower unleashes her Non-Slip Shoes So Ha and runs close to the top while pushing out Tennis Ball and Bomby, killing Pie and launching her above Balloony, but is stopped by Foldy, who wants to avenge Stapy by making sure that iance loses, she then tries to push Flower off.

While Tennis Ball and Bomby falls due to being pushed off earlier, Tennis Ball bounces off the ground and Bomby is flung back up by Black Hole to prevent death. Tree tells Bottle to take him to Four to ask him to recover Pie.
 * While Flower and Foldy try to push against each other, Foldy momentarily gets the chance to push Flower off. Flower nearly falls, but her shoes keep her on. (Lollipop and Yellow Face have a short interrupting commentary over this.) Flower pushes off Foldy, but before she presses the button, Dora blasts from the bottom of the stairs to press the button so fast that not even Flower's. Non-Slip Shoes So Ha were strong enough to to stick to the stairs.

Foldy flies back up, then she, along with Balloony, Bomby, and Tennis Ball press the button. At the bottom, by Death P.A.C.T.'s request, Four recovers Pie, who takes an unexpected strategy as she starts to walk very slowly, while Flower frantically runs back up. Remote and Black Hole have an argument over this, with the latter saying Pie is not trying, but the former saying that it is a way of preventing death. Flower looks back at Pie and sighs in relief, but then Pie intentionally falls over, only for her to be flung back up by Black Hole and reach the top before Flower. This leaves Flower in shock and makes iance up for their second elimination.

Stinger
Teardrop, Needle, and Pin are sitting on some grass at night when Needle suddenly becomes CGI. This could be due to her eating the CGI cake that Leafy gave to her. The others look at her concerned.

Votes (to rejoin)
32,543 votes were cast.

Credits

 * Written by:
 * Satomi Hinatsu
 * Kenzie Bryant
 * Animation:
 * Satomi Hinatsu
 * Kenzie Bryant
 * Caedmon Johnson
 * CG: Maroue Reus
 * Video Editing: Satomi Hinatsu
 * Sound Design and Editing:
 * Amor Boretto
 * Maroue Reus
 * Music: Michael Huang

Cast

 * Cary Huang as X, Spongy, Tennis Ball, 8-Ball, Grassy, Bracelety, Ruby, Pin, Match, and Marker
 * Michael Huang as Four, Robot Flower, Woody, Snowball, Donut, Eraser, Firey, Yellow Face, Coiny, Cloudy, Blocky, Book, Flower, Pencil, Pen, Bubble, Fries, Golf Ball, Loser, Puffball, and Leafy
 * Satomi Hinatsu as Black Hole, Basketball, Fanny, Saw, Bottle, Bomby, Balloony, Firey Jr., Gaty, and Clock
 * Kenzie Bryant as Taco, Barf Bag, Bell, Ice Cube, Cake, and Needle
 * Sam Lee as Pie, Lollipop, and Stapy
 * Cindy Jiang as Foldy and Pillow
 * Sabrina Barba as Lightning and Liy
 * Katherine Sun as Eggy and Naily (no lines)
 * Thomas Chick as Tree
 * Graham Taylor as Gelatin (no lines)
 * Adam Katz as Nickel (no lines)

Goofs

 * When Leafy goes to give Needle the cake, Leafy’s leg disconnects from her body.
 * When Cake sees Needle eat the cake, his leg disconnects from his body too.
 * During the credits, it is written that voting ends May 30th, 2018 (Which is more than 48 hours).
 * However, this date is fixed in the description of the episode.

Trivia

 * This is the second episode not written by Cary nor Michael Huang, the first one being This Episode Is About Basketball.
 * This is the first episode to have numerals in the title that is not considered a continuation.
 * Leafy is the third contestant to receive over 10,000 votes.
 * In addition, she is the first contestant to rejoin with over 10,000 votes.
 * Leafy is also the first female contestant to receive over 10,000 votes.
 * Leafy has gotten the most votes ever, at 13,835, surpassing Loser's elimination with 12,062 votes in BFB 7.
 * Coincidentally, Loser was the runner-up in the rejoin.
 * This is the first rejoin in BFB.
 * It is also the first rejoin since "The Glistening" (and technically IDFB 2).
 * The characters not present are Clock, Pen, Pillow, Bell, Marker, Fries, Grassy, Robot Flower, TV, Saw, Taco, Naily, Donut, Spongy and Barf Bag.
 * The two people with the least rejoin votes are also one of 3 people eliminated with the lowest percentage before the rejoin
 * Liy triggers the intro in this episode, making her the second eliminated contestant to do so after Stapy.
 * Liy is also the second female to trigger the intro, with the first one being Barf Bag.
 * This is the third time Four mistakes A Better Name Than That’s name with “Another Name Than That,” the other two being BFB 2 and BFB 4.
 * Due to Leafy joining The Losers!, they are back to 8 members again.
 * Technically, The Losers! now has more members than any team, at 9.
 * This is the first BFB episode where Donut has no lines; thus no contestant has had a line in every episode.
 * This is the second episode where Taco has no lines while alive, the first being Fortunate Ben.
 * Balloony's body was a straight line for 2 scenes, presumably as a stylistic reference to his BFDI 18 design.
 * This is the first time Dora is seen in any pose apart from the default (other than the BFB intro, where she is briefly seen in the default pose but from below).
 * Despite all of The Losers! being important in the plot to welcome Leafy, Clock is absent throughout the entire episode.
 * This could be a result of what happened in Enter the Exit, where Four wrote down a reminder to kill Clock on his checklist.
 * If this is true, then Clock is most likely dead.
 * This is the first episode to use the new voting screen.
 * Although it's a minor issue, the boxes don't fill the entire screen, leaving a little bit of space at the bottom.
 * It is also the fourth time they changed the voting screen. (As Getting Teardrop to Talk, Lick Your Way to Freedom, and Enter the Exit had different voting screens).
 * iance is the only team that has gotten a different voting screen every time they have been up for elimination.
 * This episode marks the third time Cloudy's Collection appears, along with Flower's Non-Slip Shoes So Ha (at least this season).
 * This is the third time Flower appeared on an episode thumbnail in BFB.
 * The gender balance of The Losers! became equal after Leafy joined.
 * This is the second episode in Battle for BFDI to be under 10 minutes in length, with the first being This Episode Is About Basketball.
 * This is the second time iance lost a challenge, the first being in Getting Teardrop to Talk.
 * Coincidentally, both episode titles start with “get.”
 * Coincidentally, the challenges for both episodes involved stairs.
 * In the ending credits screen, the 'I' in "video", the 'S' in "is", and the 'O' and 'S' in "hours" are uppercase, instead of lowercase.
 * When Flower takes out her shoes, the mystery box sound effect from the Mario Kart games is used
 * This is the second time this sound has been used, the first being when Blocky picks up Saw in BFB 1
 * Also when Flower jumped on Pie, the Mario jumping sound is heard.
 * According to Satomi Hinatsu, this was not on purpose, it was coincidental.
 * This is the fourth episode that starts with "get", the first three being Get Digging, Get in the Van, and Getting Teardrop to Talk.
 * This is the first episode in which both Michael and Cary Huang react to.
 * This is also the only episode of BFB to be released in May 2018.
 * The episode title may be a reference to the htwins game:  Get To The Top Although There Is No Top. 
 * Roboty, 8-Ball and David were the 3 least voted to rejoin. Coincidentally, the 3 of them were the only recommended characters from BFDI 18 who were eliminated.
 * This episode marks the first time Needle's name is mentioned in BFB.
 * Four's deep voice at 3:33 might be reference to The FitnessGram Pacer Test.

Continuity references

 * When Pencil moved closer to her desk, it was the same scene used in Enter the Exit.
 * When she drew on her desk, it referenced how she doodled previously in BFDI.
 * The VHS player in EXIT having no volume down button is a reference to Yellow Face's Revolutionary Headphones.
 * The back of Loser's seat has "Grupheetie" drawn on it, similar to other structures.
 * Liy says "I found my next adventure!" just like in BFB 4.
 * Flower says "Out of my way, I need my space!" just like in BFDI 1a and BFDI 23.
 * X floats up before Four announces the contest just like he did in BFB 1.
 * Yellow Face saying "You don't know anything" is a reference to what he said to Purple Face when he called Non-Slip Shoes So Ha! out of fashion in Insectophobe's Nightmare 2.
 * Lollipop saying that the shoes are so 8 years ago, is a reference to Purple Face saying that was 2 years ago. Coincidentally, they are both the color purple, which is why Yellow Face says they both don't know anything.
 * It also refers to how BFDI 1a was made 8 years ago.
 * When Eraser and Golf Ball asked what the next challenge is, it could be a reference to Getting Teardrop to Talk, when Eraser and Golf Ball ask what the first challenge is.
 * Leafy saying "Pin. Alliance, remember?" is a reference to BFDI 1a, which means she still remembers their alliance.
 * Tennis Ball falling off the stairs is a reference to BFDI 11 when he failed to climb the stairs.
 * Needle's CGI effect after eating the Photo Cake is a possible reference to the Yoyle Metal effect after eating Yoyleberries.
 * Firey mentions how Coiny said he was slow, which was said in Cycle of Life.
 * Snowball saying "why her, why not me" is a reference to Insectophobe's Nightmare
 * When Coiny states that Needle is a fast runner, it is a reference to Barriers and Pitfalls, where Ice Cube says "Needle is such a fast runner."
 * Tree is now halfway out of Bottle.
 * When Dora hits the button, she used a pose similar to hers in the intro sequence.
 * The iance's voting screen used the same order (from [A] to [G]) from BFB 8, where lance were up for elimination first, but later safe after Match shows the evidence.
 * Some characters still retain their changes:
 * Bomby is still half-exploded from BFB 3.
 * The Fortune Cookie and Tree are still stuck in Bottle from BFB 5 and BFB 7, respectively.
 * All BEEP members besides Balloony are still orange from BFB 6.
 * Woody's still dented from BFB 7.
 * Four saying “It’s Leafy” could be a reference to Hurtful! when Announcer gets interrupted by Triangle Speaker Box saying “It’s Leafy.”
 * Leafy saying to Loser "I'd be happy if either one of us joins" could be a reference to Leafy saying to Firey "I'll be happy if either one of us wins" in Return of the Hang Glider.
 * Flower and Tennis Ball saying "last, [dismissively] except Dora" could be a reference to Lick Your Way to Freedom, where Saw said that in the same tone when telling for all of her teammates except Dora were dead.