[theme song plays]
♪ Demons come from every side ♪
♪ In the darkness is the light ♪
♪ Out of the shadows of my life ♪
♪ In the darkness is the light ♪
♪ Surrender will win the fight ♪
♪ This girl's walked on fire and ice ♪
♪ But I come out ♪
♪ On the other side of paradise ♪
♪ Paradise ♪
[Fi] Hey, remember Troll dolls?
Seems like everyone was collecting them a while ago.
I had a few, my friend Candy had some.
We'd brag about whose dolls had the prettiest eyes,
the best outfits,
but we ended up with so many it got creepy.
All those eyes watching you everywhere you turned.
It made me wonder if there really were such things as trolls,
what would they look like?
And what would they think about us playing with little Troll dolls?
Do you think trolls play with little human dolls?
And would we like the games they play?
Or would their games not be very much fun for us at all?
[Jack making airplane noises] Uh-oh. What's that floating in the air?
Is it an alien spacecraft? An ectoplasmic manifestation?
Ho, ho, ho.
It's an unidentified frying object.
You never know about these UFOs. They're sneaky.
Like that one you saw yesterday,
that cleverly changed into a blimp when we drove closer.
So I was wrong, OK?
Don't worry, Fi.
You have a rewarding career ahead of you writing for the tabloids.
What about the other thousand times I was right?
You mean the other thousand times you didn't notice it was a blimp?
Daddy would've believed me.
[bus braking]
We can't be at the hotel already.
[modem dialing]
[Ned] I'm sure they'll send somebody out to fix it.
Guys, this does not look like St. Paul.
Christopher Columbus here was sure he knew a shortcut.
[cellphone playing "Für Elise"]
How was I supposed to know the bridge was broken?
Hey, maybe it was sabotaged by gremlins!
OK, you know what? Let's make a deal.
For one week, no weird stuff from me,
and no annoying brother stuff from you, OK?
Well, I do have a duty to big brothers everywhere,
but... all right.
[both] Truce.
[woman] Yoo-hoo!
Well, oh, my goodness, is that nasty bridge stuck again?
-Do you know something about that? -Oh, happens all the time.
I'll phone Hans. He's the mechanic hereabouts.
I'm Astrid.
Why don't you come in and have some lunch while you're waiting?
-Sounds great. -Yeah, thanks.
[Ned] This is the real thing.
-Genuine Scandinavian cuisine. -In Scandinavian.
Ready to order?
Uh, yes, uh, we'll have the lutefisk,
the kokt lamm med dill sas, ragsiktbrod, and the, uh, gravad lax, please.
My! I don't meet many folk who can say two of those words in a row.
Viking ancestors.
-Ya. -Yeah.
Have you called about the bridge yet?
Oopsy! Oh, let me do that before I start your lunch.
Fi, guys, look at these.
Isn't this weird?
Don't these kind of look like faces?
No. They're vegetables.
So, you found my little collection.
Every once in a while, one of these little darlings turns up in my garden.
Now I've got so many I'm almost out of shelf space.
Well, what do you do when you run out of shelf space?
Soup.
Hans? Astrid here.
Wouldn't you know that bridge is acting up again.
Twenty minutes? All righty. See you soon.
OK, I'll get cooking.
See? I told you my shortcut was a good thing.
Yeah, well, I'm going to find out
if there are any other little obstacles we don't know about.
Astrid, I wanted to ask you... is that our food?
Oh, you did order lutefisk, didn't you?
-How did you cook it so fast? -How do you think? [laughs]
-Magic! -Oh, yeah. OK.
Well, look, once we get the bridge fixed, I just want to know,
are there any other local quirks that we need to know about
-on the way to St. Paul? -Oh, St. Paul, that's a lovely city.
It was called "Pig's Eye" until 1841,
but then they changed the name for some reason.
Perfectly good name, "Pig's Eye."
That's interesting. Now--
Oh, yeah, Minnesota has quite a colorful past.
Do you know what country first claimed this territory as its own?
-No. -You don't know?
-No, no, I don't. -Really?
Really, really.
Oh, my stars and garters.
Ya!
Dig in, boys and girls!
Oh, this looks great. Thank you.
-Uh, is Irene still back there? -Your friend?
Oh, I think she went back to the bus to get the phone number
-of the people you're going to see. -Oh.
If Irene ever retires,
you're going to have to have the phone surgically removed from her ear.
[all laughing]
[Carey] Ain't that nasty?
[Molly] Fi...
[Molly] Carey...
[laughing]
Astrid, this smells delicious.
I gotta go get Irene. She can take a break for this.
Whoopsy. Something's on the boil.
Honey?
Yoo-hoo!
I found Irene, the scamp!
The poor dear. She's in the little girls' room.
I think the drive gave her tummy trouble.
You know, maybe I shouldn't have taken the back roads.
I'm going to have to push to get to St. Paul before the show tonight.
Show? You're performers?
Molly Phillips, the singer.
Really? Oh, I love music.
Let me ask you a question.
Do you know any Scandinavian songs?
Abba does a song called "Chicatita."
Oh. That qualifies, I suppose.
I'm only kidding. I know quite a few Scandinavian songs.
Oh, ya, your Viking ancestors.
Oh, I can just see them now.
Large and meaty, and...
and so loud as they clomp their way across a bridge!
Well, let's see how much you know about them.
Who was the first Viking to find America?
Pfft, Leif Erikson.
And who was the head god in Norse mythology?
Odin.
I bet you don't know the names of Odin's pet ravens.
Huginn and Muninn.
Well, I suppose you've heard
of the Swedish diplomat, Dag Hammarskjöld.
-Oh, sure, I remember him. -Spell his name!
-D-a-g. -That's the easy part.
H-a-m... m-a-r...
s... k... j...
I don't remember what you call the little "o" with the two dots above it.
Oh, my stars and garters.
What do you think's taking your parents so long?
I don't know.
Hey, maybe they were abducted by aliens
who want to learn how to manage a rock band.
[Fi] Don't break the truce.
-Truce? -[Fi] Never mind.
-Fi... -[Fi] Yeah.
-Can you come here a second? -Sure.
Was that one here when we came in?
I don't know. Why?
Maybe it's just my imagination, but does that look like my mom?
-This is too freaky. -No, no, it isn't.
I mean, we just think it looks like your mom
because we're thinking about her.
Now, if anybody else looked at it,
they'd just think it looks like someone else.
-Right, yeah. -It's kind of like that Rorschach test.
-I'm going to check outside. -OK.
Hey, hey, Mom.
I'm... I'm going to go ask for seconds.
-See if you can get some more lamb. -Sure.
[Molly] Reminds me, your Dad and I were in this Russian restaurant,
and he was ordering and... and the waiter couldn't understand
a word he was saying 'cause, you know, the menu was completely in Russian...
Ned?
Mom? Dad?
[gasps] Oh, my...
Oh, my goodness me, I'm sorry.
-Have you found them yet? -No, I haven't.
I guess I could, uh, just call my mom's cellphone.
You don't have a quarter on you by chance, do you?
Well, I'll have a look.
Can you believe, I'm so new here,
I can't even remember which president's on the quarter.
Do you?
Yeah.
Yeah, of course. It's, um...
Oh, my gosh, what's his name?
Wait, I know this. It's, uh...
You know, the, uh, the guy that, uh... gosh.
[stutters[
He cut down the cherry tree.
F.D.R. F.D.R.!
Oh, my stars and garters...
Carey, Carey, take a look at... this!
Carey?
Carey.
Hey, this was off when I left.
Carey? Hey, Ned? Irene?
Maybe I am going off the deep end.
"Ymir... Norse mythology.
Ymir was the first troll,
killed by Odin and his two brothers, Villi and Vi.
Ymir's carcass was used to create the earth."
Troll?
As in Billy Goats Gruff, and live under...
A bridge?
-Fi. -Oh, Jack!
If you're done asking for seconds, Mom says come back inside.
I think I know why Ned and Irene and Carey are missing.
Yeah, Astrid just told us that.
-They went with, uh, Hans. -Hans?
Yeah, he got here about five minutes ago, but he was missing some spare part.
So, they went along with him to help him load it on the truck.
-They all went? -She said it was a very big spare part.
Jack... what would you say...
if I said this is what happened to Ned and Carey?
I would say our truce is probably out the window,
-and somewhere down the river. -Jack, this is much bigger than a truce.
Do you want to be floating in Astrid's soup?
-Excuse me? -Come here.
Trolls?
What, like those little plastic dolls with the fuzzy hair?
No.
You know, big, hairy, four fingers, noses long enough to stir soup?
So, you're saying that nice old lady in there
giving Mom her recipe for lutefisk is a troll?
Well, they can change their shape, but they can't hide their tail.
[snaps fingers] Right, which is why she wears the long skirt.
Exactly! And she lives next to a bridge,
and they say trolls ask you questions before they let you cross.
And if you answer seven questions right in a row,
you can have power over them, but nobody ever can.
Then, bad things happen to you.
Yeah, like you have to eat delicious Scandinavian cuisine.
-Until you get turned into a vegetable. -Fiona, come with me.
We're going to settle this right now.
This is Irene's cellphone.
She'll tell you where she is, and we'll go have dessert.
-OK? -OK.
[whirring]
Do you like soup, dear?
[cellphone playing "Für Elise"]
Oh, that's weird.
That sounds like Irene's cellphone.
-Hello? -Mom? It's me.
-I was calling Irene. -[gasps]
Now, what was that doing in there?
No, mom! Don't answer!
I don't know.
Oh, my stars and garters.
Oh, there you are! Your mother just went out looking for you.
-Jack. Where's my mom? -You didn't see her?
Oh, no.
Mom! Mom, where are you?
-Fiona, get a grip. -Don't be upset, sweetie.
I'm sure your mother will be back in two shakes.
So, you like to ask questions, right?
Well, ask me some. I answer seven questions right in a row,
-and you turn everybody back into people. -What did you say?
Oh, is that your first question?
Fi, there's an explanation for this.
You're right, Jack. She's a troll, and if you can hold off on the teasing
for more than two minutes, maybe I can save our lives.
-A troll? [laughs] -Fiona, what...
I'm really sorry, ma'am. This happens a lot.
Oh, dearie me. No wonder she's upset.
When I was a child,
I heard the most terrifying stories about trolls.
Did you know troll is a Swedish word?
Yes, I knew that. That's question number one.
Well, I don't suppose it'll do any harm to play a little game
while we're waiting for everybody to come back.
No, you don't have to. We can just...
Oh, no. It'll be fun.
Well, seeing you're so imaginative, who wrote The Hobbit?
Easy. J.R.R. Tolkien. That's two.
What are the elves called who show themselves to fishermen as seals?
Selkies.
You're not going to stump her in this subject.
Jack.
Well, let's talk about sports, then.
What was the first team Willie Mays played for?
Oh, come on, Fi. The Birmingham Black Barons.
-OK. That's four. -Now, now. That doesn't count.
In this game, you have to answer your own questions.
Who defended John Thomas Scopes?
OK, I know this one. Clarence Darrow.
That's four.
Great. That was a fun game.
Can we eat our lunch now?
Question five.
Who lost the 1952 Republican nomination to Dwight Eisenhower?
Well?
Maybe we should just get our check.
Oh, no. You can't stop this game in the middle.
Well, then, OK, you won,
'cause I just studied the '50s in American history,
and I don't even know that one.
Jack!
Jack, can you hear me?
Jack, you weren't supposed to answer.
This isn't fair.
You said he couldn't answer my questions for me.
Fair? Fair?
Do you think what happened to Ymir was fair?
-Ymir? The first troll? -Yeah, you smarty-pants.
Ymir, the first troll, my uncle!
Then, yes. Yes, I think it was fair.
That's five.
[growls]
How dare you make a joke out of what happened to Ymir!
He was a good troll. Now...
answer the question your brother didn't know,
or I'll have eggplant for my afternoon snack.
Which question was that again?
Who lost the Republican nomination to Dwight Eisenhower?
Another Republican?
Well...
-Technically, that's true. -Oh, thank goodness.
Goodness has nothing to do with it!
Question seven: geography.
Name the closest city to Thunder Butte, South Dakota!
How am I supposed to know that?
No answering questions with questions!
I... I, um...
Say it. Say you don't know.
-I just... I... -[modem dialing]
Hey, you never said I couldn't go online.
What a nice succulent cucumber you'll make.
Your answer, please.
I...
[cellphones ringing]
[grunts]
Don't think you can get away from me.
-Faith? -[grunting]
Faith, South Dakota.
The seventh answer.
So, you're in my power now?
Yes.
I want you to change everybody back into people,
and you will generously help every traveler who comes here,
and ask no more questions.
No more questions?
But what if I...
Fiona?
Mom.
-What's happening? -It's time to go, Mom.
The bridge is open.
It is?
-It is. -It is.
But what about our lunch? I'm starved.
Oh, could you pack it up for us? We're kind of in a hurry here.
[sighs]
Oh, um, could you hold the vegetables on mine?
I'm just somehow not in the mood.
[bell ringing]
I don't know. I was in the kitchen...
So was I.
But I was on the bus looking for you.
Irene, I guess you forgot this.
Ah, don't sweat it, bro.
It's probably just a little too much gravad lax.
[computer voice] Mail is waiting.
Daddy?