Over the Garden Wall is a... strange cartoon. And I love it. So I want to talk about it!

In the ten episode series, episode nine, Into the Unknown, is what I like to call a flashback episode. You know, plot dump episodes that provide background information on the story. They're not a bad thing at all though, especially when they're done as well as this one was. Which is what I wanted to talk about. I think it was placed exactly where it needed to be for both plot and like consistency reasons? Let me try to explain.

In episode eight, Babes in the Wood, we spend a lot of time in Greg's dream before getting back to the action. They both wake up after wishing star shenanigans and Wirt chases after Greg to no avail. Remember that for later.

Anyway, the episode directly after all that is Into the Unknown. Which like I said, is a flashback. Or... is it? Okay, yes, but hear me out.

Babes in the wood let us spend time in Greg's dream. It was basically the main plotline of that episode. So... what if that's also what Into the Unknown is supposed to be? If we can spend time in Greg's subconscious, there's no reason to assume Wirt can't receive the same treatment. This not only makes the flashback episode fit in lore-wise, it also explains why Into the Unknown was placed specifically between Babes in the Wood and The Unknown.

Sure, you could argue that they had to do it to explain the plot, but if that was the case they could've put the episode anywhere. But they chose to place it where it fit in perfectly, in my opinion. Especially for what it seems to represent.

Think about how Babes in the Wood ends. Wirt chases after Greg and falls into a frozen river. What did both he and Greg do at the end of Into the Unknown to end up there to begin with?

They fell into a probably cold river after jumping out of the way of the oncoming train.

And think about how The Unknown starts. Wirt wakes up. He was asleep, or I guess more accurately unconscious. Point is, he was as far off into dreamland as Greg had been.

So, in all likelihood, Into the Unknown could simply be a flashback episode to explain the plot, but I think it's a little more. I think it's Wirt dreaming. Or I guess it's a weird hodgepodge of flashback, dream, and straight-up memory. Because I think that's what happened: falling into the river is what triggered the memory of how they got there to begin with. Did you know you recall things better when you're in the same circumstances as when the memory was first encoded? I thought that was interesting.

And I mean, it works for how the series ends too. The Beast takes lost souls. Wirt could not remember how they got there, and that seemed to be part of what made the Beast target him over Greg initially. After this flashback episode, after Wirt remembers what happened, he just leaves with Greg. The Beast doesn't really have any power over him anymore. Because at that point neither of them are lost souls.

Isn't it weird that they both nearly got hit by a train and literally never mentioned it once before or after the reveal? But if you consider all of this and the way they return home in the end, I think it makes more sense. The Unknown seems to make you forget things. When we see Greg and Wirt for the first time, neither of them stop to question how they went from falling into a river to walking through a forest with zero transition. Wirt admits that they're lost, implying there is a forest in the real world near them, but not that they should be wet or bruised from a fall. Which I know it's a cartoon but you can't tell me that fall didn't bang them both up a little.

So I think the Unknown messes with your memory. We see it mess with the perception of time, as although it starts off in the same season as when they arrived it quickly becomes a snowy winter. And why not? The scene where Wirt drags Greg out of the river starts with him opening his eyes, seemingly implying that on some level it operates like the dreamscape or something similar. It's a real place technically but on a conscious level, you can't really interact with it. And as we see from the edelwood trees, not everyone manages to wake up again. That actually explains a lot about how they died, getting killed in the Unknown likely won't be what finishes you, but simply the fact that, especially if you ended up in a similar situation to Wirt, there's a very limited amount of time for your body to keep itself alive unconsciously. You'd drown if you didn't just freeze to death first.

Which I think is what happens to people who become edelwood trees, we saw with Greg that the Beast does not usually physically attack people. He left the cold to do its work, and keep in mind, it was a cold enough fall day for Sara to need a jacket. It's not as intense as the frozen river we see later but that would definitely be cold enough to make you sick from prolonged exposure, and Greg is quite small with minimal warm clothing to his costume. It honestly makes perfect sense that he'd be quicker to freeze. This doesn't explain how the woodsman or anyone in the Unknown is living there but eh, dreamscape's weird, if Bill can make someone become a dreamscape ghost something similar can probably happen or they just already live there. I do think that it sort of explains the Beast's offer to take up the lantern in the long run though, because eventually, Wirt would also just succumb to exposure and bam you get a free edelwood tree without trying very hard. ...That sounds horrible now that I read it back I'm sorry.

So uh, yeah, that's what I was thinking about this evening, let me know what you think? I dunno I just started writing and I didn't stop. It was fun, I hope you enjoyed.