Don't Dig Straight Down

"Don't Dig Straight Down" is the 14th episode of Battle for BFDI, and the 45th episode of the overall series. It was released on August 24-25, 2019,

The episode is a continuation of the original 13th episode of Battle for BFDI, "Return of the Rocket Ship".

Plot
This episode continues off after the events of "Return of the Rocket Ship", when members of Team Ice Cube! discover an unknown location underground. After a bright flash of light, it is revealed that they stumbled upon an Inverted Planet. Donut tells the team that he's heard stories about them, but never knew they lived so close to one. Gelatin and Naily immediately start running around, chasing each other. They jump off of a tree, and Naily impales Barf Bag as she lands, spilling her barf everywhere. Donut begins to worry and tries to patch her up when she starts to feel sick, and tells the two of them to stop running around, which Gelatin and Naily ignore.

Iance is then seen walking through the tunnel they're digging, and Ruby tells Flower she's mad that she killed Bubble. The two squabble before Lightning questions the direction that they're digging in. Ruby agrees and starts to dig at Grassy's co-ordinates with Flower's help.

Meanwhile, Beep is shown still falling in the pit Rocky created, only for Cloudy to notice that if they hit the acid, they'll disintegrate. Nickel reminds Cloudy the fact that he can fly and uses this idea to prevent his team from falling any longer.

Foldy asks Yellow Face if he's the advertiser of a massive department store to ask if they sell emeralds. Yellow Face says otherwise, for they have "cheap plastic green toys" in place of the emeralds. Fries is against the idea of turning them in, as he doesn't want Four to be cheated. Marker reminds him of Four 's response of Teardrop's drawing over a year ago: "you don't need frills to make a feast for the eyes." Fries is convinced and tuns the toys in; and as a result, Free Food wins 1st.

As iance keeps digging, Ruby stops in her tracks and receives a strange feeling, identifying that the presence of Golf Ball is nearby. The team digs in a different direction in turn.

As this happens, A Better Name Than That successfully finds an emerald underground. The team wall-jumps up the hole and turns in the emerald to Four, receiving 2nd for this episode. Tennis Ball is satisfied of the task "running smoothly", only to be disturbed by 5 pairs of arms coming out of Four's mouth. The arms then grabs ABNTT's emerald, much to Basketball's dismay; and Pen thanks the team for "giving" them an emerald. Inside, Four declares Death P.A.C.T. safe, earning them 3rd.

At the end of the episode it shows Bleh's actual voting boxes.

Votes
The previous episode was a non-elimination episode, so the viewers voted for their favorite characters. The results have yet to come out.

Continuity references

 * Golf Ball's Underground Factory, which first appeared in "Zeeky Boogy Doog", reappears.
 * Gelatin after sitting on top of Bomby with Barf Bag and Naily, he said "there isn't enough room up here" and pushing Naily after exploding, which is a reference to BFDIA. Gelatin would say this catchphrase on top of Puffball before he pushed his teammates.
 * Naily saying she's sorry for stabbing Woody 7 years ago is a reference to The Reveal.
 * Woody falling from the garbage chute and into Four’s eye has a reference to BFDI APPISIOTE 225555555!!!!!.
 * Nickel gets eaten, just like in Zeeky Boogy Doog.
 * Buried Forest, Deciduously Insulated has an acronym, which is BFDI.
 * Spongy flew away in one of the Spaceships from Gardening Hero
 * When Bleh’s voting screen is shown, it starts with the design used from Get to the Top in 500 Steps onward, but becomes static and reverts back to the original design, presumably to show Bleh’s voting icons.
 * Golf Ball's Underground Factory has the BFDIA grass around its entrance, it mostly likely got moved between the events of Zeeky Boogy Doog and this episode.
 * Book realising that she is not giving her team freedom may be a reference to when Pencil's Alliance split off from Team No-Name because they wanted freedom.
 * Pin saying that Book should let other people do what they want instead of what Book wants is a reference to Get In the Van.
 * Flower saying "Four deserves this treasure." is a reference to BFB 1.
 * Eraser smiling with three sets of teeth after Free Food wins may be a reference to Paper Towel.

Cultural references

 * The title of the episode is a reference to Minecraft, where many Minecraft players warn everyone to not dig straight down due to lava being underground.

Trivia

 * The episode continues from where the previous episode, "Return of the Rocket Ship", left off.
 * This is the reason why this episode did not have a Cake at Stake.
 * Two new animators join the show: Joseph Pak and Allen Lee.
 * According to Cary's and Michael's reaction to BFB 13, Michael will be animating this episode, and Cary will be doing more than writing.
 * This proved to be true, as Cary animated part of the scene with Free Food.
 * A short preview was shown during the 2019 Crossover Meetup. It was a scene of Golf Ball and Tennis Ball talking about how warm it is, and was a 10-second loop.
 * The episode was initially set to release on August 7th, 2019, but was pushed back a week due to Satomi flying to New York and some paperwork issues.
 * The episode was moved to release on August 14th, 2019, but has been pushed to August 24th, 2019 due to Michael's apartment being fumigated for a cockroach infestation.
 * Barf Bag starts the intro this episode.
 * As of this episode, she is the first BFB contestant to start the intro more than once.
 * Characters that have no speaking cues are Gaty, Teardrop, Saw, Dora, Ice Cube, Leafy, Eggy, Bell, Eraser and Rocky.
 * In addition to that, Firey, Clock, Bubble, Pillow, Pie, Bottle, Black Hole, Remote and Tree didn't appear. However, the contestants on Death P.A.C.T., except Black Hole, were shown to grab the emerald.
 * Pen was the only Death P.A.C.T. member to appear physically, as the other had their arms shown.
 * Even though he didn't appear, it's possible that Firey survived the lava, since he's immune to any heat source.
 * This episode marks the first time that is up for elimination.
 * This is the first BFB episode in which X does not make an appearance in the main plot, although he did appear in the stinger of the episode.
 * Out of all the Battle for BFDI episodes, this episode has the most deaths, with 120 (including the recommended characters and if Saw and Dora didn't die; they were both shown to survive lava in "Getting Teardrop to Talk").
 * Spongy is responsible for a majority of the deaths in the episode due to his weight releasing the lava from the Inverted Planet's lake.
 * The majority of the objects that didn't take shelter, such as Barf Bag, all of iance and the recommended characters, or sacrificed themselves, such as Bomby, Book, Cake, Donut and Naily, died in the first lava geyser or eventually died later due to exposure to lava.
 * The number of contestants that died in this episode total 36 - a rate of 1.5 contestant deaths per minute.
 * Spongy, Puffball, Woody, Taco, every member of Death P.A.C.T., and presumably Firey and Ice Cube, were the only contestants to survive the events of this episode.
 * Bell's status is debatable, as she is attached to a string from above. Dora and Saw may have also survived the lava, as Saw's melting point is higher than lava (proven by surviving the oven in BFB 1) and Dora seemed completely unaffected by the lava.
 * Bomby and Nickel are the only characters whose deaths weren’t caused by exposure to lava.

Credits

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

Voice acting
''Characters who did not have any lines were not included. For a full list of voices, see Credits.''
 * Cary Huang as X, Tennis Ball, Grassy, Ruby, Pin, Marker and Spongy
 * Michael Huang as Four, Robot Flower, Woody, Snowball, Donut, Yellow Face, Coiny, Cloudy, Blocky, Book, Flower, Pen, Fries, Golf Ball and Puffball
 * Satomi Hinatsu as Basketball, Fanny, Bomby and Balloony
 * Kenzie Bryant as Taco, Barf Bag, Cake, Needle and TV
 * Sam Lee as Lollipop
 * Cindy Jiang as Foldy
 * Sabrina Barba as Lightning
 * Katherine Sun as Naily
 * Graham Taylor as Gelatin
 * Adam Katz as Nickel

Goofs

 * Throughout the episode, the magma is consistently called lava despite still being under the earth's surface. Even Golf Ball, who should know this fact, disregards it.
 * Barf Bag’s patch disappears after Bomby fills her up.
 * When Barf Bag says "The lava just went through this tunnel", she and Bomby look towards the right even though the lava is on the left.
 * This might be just a camera mispositioning.
 * When Bomby goes to ignite his fuse, his fuse isn't touching the lava.
 * In one scene, Four is seen without a leg.