For the Future

"For the Future" is the second episode of the third season of The Owl House, and the forty-second overall. It premiered on June 21, 2023. In this episode, Luz and her friends race against Belos to confront the Collector and save the Boiling Isles.

Plot
Shortly after forcing Luz, Amity, Gus, Willow, and Hunter into the Portal, King is brought before The Collector to explain the rules to Owl House. As King explains it is a game of pretend, Lilith and Hooty try to save him, but the Collector turns them into puppets and sends them to The Archive House, a floating house above the Titan's head. Eda and Raine watch as Eda turns into her harpy form and tries to save King. Unfortunately, the curse starts to take effect and she is out of elixir. Soon The Collector comes by and asks to play as the curse takes hold, the Owl Beast fully taking over and lunging at them.

Months later, Luz wakes up in between the realms. She sees someone who is trying to wave and saying something to her, but Luz gets dragged out to the Demon Realm by Amity. Luz, her mom and friends, have returned to the Boiling Isles, and discover a lot has changed in their absence. The Isles has become all childishly cute and colorful by The Collector's influence. There now even stands a magical floating castle hovering over the skull: The Collector's castle. They also discover half the denizens have been turned into puppets and have become The Collector's playmates.

The kids have a lot on their minds. Hunter is still hurt by the loss of Flapjack and has been trying to take his mind off it by focusing on finding Belos. Amity and Gus are worried about their families, and so is Willow, though she is trying hard to put on a brave face and be strong for everyone else. Luz especially has a lot on her mind. She remains ashamed of all that has happened and is determined to keep her promise to leave the Isles with her mother as soon as everyone is saved, much to her mother's concern. Furthermore, she has still been unable to get her Palisman to hatch. While hiding out in the Owl House, Amity tells Luz about how she got Ghost. She would not move no matter what she thought of until she admitted not knowing what she wanted to be when she grew up. But she wanted to choose the path for herself, and that was enough for Ghost to come to her. Luz wants to be a witch and help her friends, but doing one always seems to mess up the other for her. All Amity can say is, she must be patient.

Later, they witness The Collector and King "playing" in the deserted streets of Bonesborough with most of the denizens as puppets. Amongst them is one of Willow's dads. Also playing along is Terra Snapdragon, who is being forced to dress up as Eda. And when she refuses to play along with the Collector's games, they turn her into a puppet, despite King's objections. Then they fly off back to the floating castle above the skull.

Shortly after, Luz and friends bump into Mattholomule, Skara, and Barcus, who take them to Hexside, which is now a hideaway from The Collector's spies. After the Day of Unity, The Collector sent spies to capture everyone. Everyone fought them off as best they could, but all the teachers were turned into puppets, along with a few students. The kids at Hexside are all that remained. Among the refugees are Emira and Edric, who managed to escape from the abomination factory. However, Edric ended up falling down a well while trying to escape from The Collector's spies and broke every bone in his body. The students of Hexside have also developed their own community over the last few months, and Luz and her friends learn that Boscha has made herself president of the school council, which nobody is happy about. Every time someone comes forward with a proposal to make things better for everyone, Boscha turns them down without giving it any thought, especially under the influence of her mysterious assistant, Miki. She even turns down Luz's request to help defeat The Collector and save everyone.

Meanwhile, Belos is limping through the woods to his old hideout. By now, his body is breaking down and is no longer able to hold together. He even finds himself haunted by visions of his brother and previous grimwalkers looking at him disapprovingly. He makes it to his old hideout and finds one unfinished grimwalker. He absorbs the body and lays there to heal.

The Collector and King, meanwhile, return to their castle, and are greeted by Odalia, who has become The Collector's "Mamadalia". After ordering her to take The Collector's puppets back to the archive, the two head to bed where King tries to reason with The Collector about not endangering people's lives with dangerous games. However, The Collector has no sympathy for how fragile a mortal's life is. They only care about what they want, and people are nothing more than something to own. After reading a bedtime story to The Collector, King heads to where they are keeping Eda. She is being held in a cage under guard by the Coven Heads, who, including Raine, have been turned into puppets. Lilith is also with her, and she is no longer a puppet. King has also found Hooty, who is still a puppet, and brings him to Eda and Lilith.

Back at Hexside, Mattholomule helps sneak Luz and her friends into the magic photo classroom. They hope to extract a memory photo from Luz, when she witnessed Belos using the teleportation spell. They intend to cast the same spell to reach the Collector's castle. After some digging, they find what they are looking for. Knowing that Hunter is a grimwalker and still upset about what happened to Flapjack, Willow gives him a picture of them together. She tells him that nobody cares what he is, and he is part of Luz's group now. However, instead of being happy, Hunter shows sadness over this. This makes Willow distraught, and she leaves to be alone. Gus reveals he also knew Hunter was a grimwalker ever since the Day of Unity and was waiting for him to bring it up himself. Suddenly, they are ambushed and knocked out by Boscha and her assistants, who turn out to be Kikimora and her Abomatron.

Meanwhile, Belos is barely healed, but has enough strength to reach The Collector's castle and possess the Raine puppet. He sneaks into The Collector's room, but he is quickly restrained when The Collector wakes up by his presence. Belos convinces The Collector he was magically brought to life and has come to warn them that King is plotting against them. The Collector doesn't believe him at first, until they eavesdrop on King's conversation with Eda and Lilith, coming up with a plan to stop The Collector once and for all but failing to see that King wants to try talking them down instead of sealing them away again. Belos even tells The Collector that Luz has returned and is also plotting to destroy them.

Luz, Amity, Camila, and Mattholomule end up in the detention pit, and separated from Willow, Gus, and Hunter. Kikimora plans to start her own empire with the students of Hexside, and most of all get revenge on Luz. She jumps into the pit riding her Abomitron, and attacks. The four of them battle against Kikimora with whatever spells they have, but Kikimora proves to be much stronger. Luz and Camila get separated from Amity and Mattholomule and flee as Kikimora pursues them.

Amity and Mattholomule are ambushed by Boscha. She walks up to Amity, and surprisingly, gets down on her knees, asking her to come back to her. With her friends/teammates gone, she wants them to be a team again, and rule Hexside together like they used to. Amity turns her down and the two try to walk away. However, Boscha refuses to let her go, and soon a fight breaks out. Boscha is quickly beaten thanks to Mattholomule's illusions, and Amity tells her she cannot be the person she wants her to be. At the very least, they can save her teammates if she lets them try.

Luz and Camila escape the detention pit and retreat into the woods. Kikimora is still on their tail. At this point, Luz believes she has messed up again and Camila confronts her daughter over not wanting to leave the Demon Realm because she believes she keeps messing up. Camila tells Luz that messing up is a part of living and admits to having her own fair share of mistakes in the past. Camila apologizes for being protective by trying to change Luz into something she was not. It is at this point; Luz realizes the only thing she ever really wanted: to be understood. In that moment, her palisman egg hatches, and forms into a staff.

Meanwhile, Willow, Gus, and Hunter find themselves in another part of the detention pit. Willow has begun to lose control of her magic and ends up trapping the two in vines. She tries to assure herself she is in control, but she is not. Eventually, she breaks down into tears believing she's nothing more than a "half-a-witch". This causes Hunter to teleport forward and talk her down, letting out all the things he's been holding in ever since they came back. He and Gus then encourage Willow to open up about her problems, and she tearfully confesses to missing her fathers. The place begins to cave in, and Hunter uses his magic to save all three of them and escape the pit. They soon realize that Hunter has Flapjack's magic.

Willow, Gus, and Hunter soon find Luz and Camila, who are still being attacked by Kikimora. Luz also now has a staff but is finding it hard to control. The kids put up a fight against Kikimora, and soon Amity shows up with Boscha, Mattholomule, and the rest of Hexside. The students hold off Kikimora while Luz, her mother and friends cast the teleportation spell that transports them to the skull. Upon arrival, Luz's palisman fully forms into a "snake shifter" she names Stringbean. The group happily rejoices for the newly born palisman. Shortly after, Willow expresses gratitude towards Hunter for what he said back in the detention pit. She intertwines her pinky with his as they both blush. Willow says that Hunter means a lot to her too, and with that, Hunter is pleased to help her feel better. Luz expresses to Amity that she looks forward to showing her palisman to Eda and King. However, The Collector is observing them from above with Belos by their side. Convinced and manipulated by his words that Luz has come to defeat them, The Collector has decided it is time to play a new game.