Tales from the Resistance: Back to the 2nd Dimension

Our dimension's changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I feel it in the little pieces of apple in my Waldorf salad. Much of what once was is lost. For some now live who remember it the way it really happened. Like all terrible things, it started with small-minded people who became great. Victory was near. But small things can also be good, and can work against evil, like how a tiny cat hair can ruin an evil sandwich. The great empire fell and fell some more. And what was once evil melted away and was replaced by the love of a choo-choo. Soon all discovered that there was more to life than vigilance. All but one.

After Doofenshmirtz is defeated, a new threat in the 2nd Dimension emerges, leaving it up to Phineas, Ferb, Candace and her resistance fighters to defeat this new foe.

Episode Summary
{{Spoiler|

Part One
The story begins explaining of a certain event where Heinz Doofenshmirtz of the 2nd Dimension initiated his attack on the 1st Dimension before he was convinced otherwise by his original counterpart, who gives him his toy train to make him change his mind. Ever since then, Doofenshmirtz abandoned his rampage, destroyed his Norm Bots, and was arrested, and the 2nd Dimension Tri-State Area is now free from his iron fist.

It's been two months ever since Doofenshmirtz has been brought to justice and sent to prison for life for his crimes. However, despite everything going back to the way they were, Resistance leader Candace still craves for new missions and adventures, as she fears that evil will be striking Danville again, even with Doofenshmirtz in prison.

In the meantime, back in the Flynn-Fletcher backyard, Phineas, Ferb, Dr. Baljeet, and Buford are going through a list of summer activities that they have planned to do. Phineas even compliments that they'll be having so much fun since they finally got Perry back in their family. In a similar game of catch, Phineas throws a stick, and Perry uses his cyborg navigation system to make a clear shot at the stick. Not so sooner, Perry and the boys then spot a hidden bunker below the grass and open it. An arriving Lawrence tells the boys that the bunker is filled with unused sports equipment, which he had stowed away ever since Doofenshmirtz had taken over the Tri-State Area. At that point, Phineas and Ferb decide to help themselves and the others reinvigorate their newfound interest in sports.

Back in Candace's room, she gets a call from Major Monogram, who informs her that most of the animal agents have disappeared and that they need to start reorganizing the system so that they can go back to their duties. Candace offers to help him and Carl in finding the agents, but Monogram insists that she just take a good quality time with the rest of the Resistance at a picnic in Danville Park.

Having no choice, Candace obliges and watches as her brothers and the other kids reinvigorate their new found interest in sports, using random equipment to play random games. Isabella then notices Candace watching the kids on a hill, asking if she's just having fun or just "standing sentry". She convinces Candace to lay off the spying and focus her attention towards Jeremy instead. While Isabella offers to show Candace an ice cream cone, Perry flies off to retrieve a soccer ball, only for it to be smashed by the arriving Chihuahuaborg. Without hesitation, the Chihuahuaborg launches an attack on Perry, who then fights back. Upon witnessing this, Phineas and Ferb opt to help Perry, but they get attacked by two giant ant-robots (one walking on ground and the other flying). Candace arrives to the rescue by firing a harpoon gun at the flying ant robot and having Isabella to tie up the rope onto one of the walking ant robot's legs, causing it to fall. Candace then launches herself up into the top of the flying ant robot and uses her bo staff to smash the controls before jumping off, causing it to crash into a tree. While the ant robots are being destroyed, Perry now has to deal with several more animal-cyborgs until he is tasered into unconsciousness by the arriving Pandaborg, allowing the latter and the other cyborgs to take him away.

Following the aftermath of the attack, Phineas informs Candace that Perry has been kidnapped. She then contacts Monogram about the situation, believing that Doofenshmirtz is responsible, but Monogram doesn't accept this since Doofenshmirtz is already in his prison cell. After hearing of the animal cyborgs, Monogram then informs the kids that several of the animal agents (26 to be precise (including Perry), as stated by Carl) have went missing ever since Doofenshmirtz took over the Tri-State Area with his Norm-Bots five years ago. Phineas and Ferb then decide to rescue Perry, but Candace doesn't approve of this, as she believes it would be too risky for them to get the job done. However, she is convinced otherwise when Phineas reminds her that he and Ferb once rescued her from Doofenshmirtz's prison before his attack on the 1st Dimension.

While Phineas and Ferb head on to gather the Firestorm Girls to lay down a rescue mission for Perry, Candace heads over to the prison, where she finds Doofenshmirtz sitting in his cell playing with his toy-train. She demands to know why he sent those ant robots and animal cyborgs to attack in the park, but he retorted at this, saying that he was in in prison cell when it happened. However, despite denying that he had anything do with the attack, he mentioned that a certain family member of his had done the job. Upon learning of this, Candace wonders if Doofenshmirtz's daughter Vanessa is responsible for the attack, but Doofenshmirtz angrily states that Vanessa has nothing to do with it at all, saying that she has no interest in doing evil. Doofenshmirtz then confesses that it was his ex-wife Charlene who had initiated the attack, as he has a picture of her in his cell with him.

Part Two
In a city alley, a captured Perry is being transported on a floating platform by his fellow animal cyborgs. Suddenly, Phineas, Ferb, and the Resistance arrive to the scene, where Isabella recognizes Chihuahuaborg as her lost pet chihuahua Pinky, but is distraught to see that he doesn't remember her at all since he is now a ruthless cyborg. While Ferb, Buford, and the Firestorm Girls battle against the animal cyborgs, Phineas takes the opportunity to free Perry from his restraints. With the mission done, Perry and the Resistance escape, except for Ferb, who goes into the sewer, followed by a pursuing Peter the Pandaborg.

Back in the Agency, Doofenshmirtz in being placed inside an interrogation room for Candace to make him spill more about Charlene. Doofenshmirtz refuses to cooperate with Candace until she threatens to take away his toy train while he can still live the remainder of his life in prison. At that point, Doofenshmirtz mentions that Charlene has a large penthouse in Danville that isn't so difficult to see since there are big letters of her first name on top of it. He also mentions that the penthouse has an sensor system that will allow any of the Doofenshmirtz relatives to enter.

After the Resistance arrive back to their headquarters with Perry, Dr. Baljeet informs them that he has finally learned how to activate the remaining ant robot. At that moment, Candace arrives with a restrained Doofenshmirtz on a dolly, informing her team that she needs him to get through the sensors to get into Charlene's penthouse. Candace then wonders where Ferb is, but she hasn't got any time to discuss about it. She then heads over to Charlene's penthouse, taking Doofenshmirtz, Phineas, and Perry with her.

While Doofenshmirtz manages to pass the sensors to allow himself and the trio to get inside the building, Vanessa is at Charlene's office, asking her mother if she can go for a movie with her boyfriend Tony Marzulo. Charlene allows her to do so, though she reminded that Heinz once banished Tony because of his interest towards Vanessa, to which she actually concedes on, saying that Heinz has banished many boys who asked her out before he was arrested. As Vanessa leaves, Candace, Phineas, and Perry arrive to confront Charlene for her crimes. However, Charlene actually thanks the three for bringing her husband over to her. Candace is somewhat confused by this, stating that the two were divorced, but then Doofenshmirtz and Charlene stated that the whole 'divorce' was just a trick when they are still married, revealing the true reasons of why they pretended to be divorced during Doofenshmirtz's reign. So far, most of them included tax records, coupon mall, junk yard sales, and separate vacation trips.

Charlene then reveals that she actually planned to trick the Resistance into freeing Doofenshmirtz because she knew that they would need him to get to her penthouse, and that the attack on the park was nothing but a diversion. With that in mind, Charlene sets her animal cyborgs to surround Candace, Phineas, and Perry, forcing the former to relinquish the toy train back to Doofenshmirtz. Also, in a darker note, Ferb arrives, revealing to be having been captured by Peter the Pandaborg and turned into a cyborg by Charlene (who plans to do the same thing to Candace and Phineas), much to the trio's horror. As Ferb and the animal cyborgs escort the trio to a prison cell, Charlene is very annoyed of Heinz focusing his attention on his silly toy train, so she just throws it away off the building. At first, Heinz is upset about this, but later on, he proceeds to go back to his evil ways.

In their prison cell, Candace fumes about whatever loss of freedom and innocence that she, Phineas, and Perry are about to experience. Just before she could continue, Ferb subsequently releases the three from their cell, revealing that he actually pretended to be turned into a cyborg as part of the Resistance's true plan to lay down a frontal attack on Charlene's penthouse to save the agents and take the evil Doofenshmirtz couple into custody (even Phineas played along with it). As such, the Resistance is using the walking ant robot to climb themselves up to Charlene's penthouse, and Charlene uses a new a weapon of hers to fire a grenade at the robot. Fortunately the kids all evade from the shot, and Dr, Baljeet informs that he has stowed in fedora hats equipped with magnetizing deprogramming chips to help free the animal cyborgs of their evil programming.

While the kids are busy putting the hats onto the animals cyborgs, Candace engages into a bo staff fight with Charlene while Heinz hides behind her chair. In the meantime, Isabella manages to free Pinky from his evil programming (with the help from Phineas) while Peter the Pandaborg is knocked down into a large pillar by Perry. Eventually, Candace manages to have one of the freed agents to distract Charlene by cutting off her manicure, allowing Candace to defeat her and having the freed animal agents to hold both Heinz and Charlene at gunpoint. However, before the situation could get any crazier, they are all interrupted by an arriving Vanessa, who demands everyone to stop fighting. After going pass through the animal agents, Vanessa convinces Candace to let her have a moment with her evil parents, but then after a heart-touching moment, Vanessa (proving to be somewhat evil and intelligent like her parents) aids both her family and Peter the Pandaborg to escape in a hover car driven by Tony, much to Candace's anger. As the Doofenshmirtz family escape, Vanessa introduces Tony to Heinz and Charlene, and Heinz recognizes him as the boy he once banished earlier.

Later on, the Agency is now hosting a reunion celebration for all returned agents. Addressing to the fellow agents, Candace notes that the notorious Doofenshmirtz family will return back in power, and that she has faith in the agents if they are to stop them in their tracks, as she announces her intention to resign from the Resistance. She then assures an objecting Monogram that she'll be watching around them and help them out if they need her the most. Acting on Isabella's advice, Candace then leaves to see Jeremy, joining him as they work out their arms on a gym bar.}}

Songs

 * "Sports"
 * "A-B-C"
 * "All the Convoluted Reasons We Pretend to be Divorced"

End credits
Second verse and bridge of "All the Convoluted Reasons We Pretend to be Divorced".

What'cha doin'?
None.

Perry-2's entrance to his lair
None.

Evil Jingle
Charlene's No Longer Married to Doofenshmirtz Penthouse!

Background Information

 * Garage sales are mentioned again ("Finding Mary McGuffin")
 * Ferb disguises himself as a boy-borg, just like Doof-2 said he would do to the first dimension's Phineas.
 * Despite being in the second dimension, Monogram, Carl, Charlene, and Linda do not wear different clothes.
 * Carl-2 mentions that they lost 26 agents, which, of course, is the same number of letters in the alphabet since they have Agents A through Z.
 * The episode aired 2 years (minus 2 days) after Robert F. Hughes confirmates it.

Production Information

 * On November 27, 2012, Robert F. Hughes confirmed on his Twitter account about an episode of returning to the 2nd Dimension.
 * Dan Povenmire stated at San Diego Comic-Con 2013 that this will be a half hour (22 minutes excluding commercials) episode.
 * This episode made its American debut on the Phineas and Ferb: Star Wars (DVD). It will air on Disney XD on November 25th, 2014.

International Premieres

 * May 16, 2014 (PlusPlus, Ukraine)
 * October 3, 2014 (Disney XD Germany)
 * November 23, 2014(Disney XD the Netherlands)

Errors

 * When Candace enters the cell block, she takes off her glasses. But when she is shown from the back, you can see the arm of the glasses.
 * Aaron and Danny Jacob sing about "A pair of figure skates", but two boys are actually wearing rollerblades.
 * When Chihuahuaborg's metal falls from his body, the metal covering his ears falls too, despite the fact that he used them as a spinning blade earlier and thus should have been entirely mechanic.
 * And also even though his metal parts fell off, later he's seen with them on again.
 * In AT2D, Phineas-2 and Ferb-2's skin were grey, but here their skin is normal apricot, like their 1st Dimension counterparts. However, this might be because they now go outside due to their freedom, instead of their indoors life in the movie.

Continuity

 * The episode involves the 2nd Dimension. It takes place two months after the events of the TV film, including 2nd Doofenshmirtz's arrest.

Allusions

 * Tales from Longpuddle - The episode title is from a novel written by Thomas Hardy.
 * Lord of the Rings - Some random voices in the beginning are heard whispering Elvish, a language created for this novel series by J.R.R. Tolkein.
 * Sepulveda Boulevard - When the male voice attempts to "speak" Elvish, he simply says "Sepulveda", which is the name of a boulevard in Los Angeles, California.
 * Return of the Jedi - Doof-2's line, "There is another Doofenshmirtz", parodies Yoda's line, "There is another Skywalker".
 * Take Me Along - The song "All the Convoluted Reasons We Pretend to be Divorced" is a parody of Volunteer Firemen's Picnic.
 * The Silence of the Lambs  -  When Candace visits Doofenshmirtz in prison, the scene is similar to when Clarice visits Hannibal Lecter for the first time. Also, when Candace brings Doofenshmirtz to her base, he is restrained on a moving dolly and wearing the bite guard.

Trivia

 * This marks the first speaking role for Ferb-2, who only sang one line in the movie.
 * This is the first time Charlene is referred to by name in the Evil Jingle, having previously only been referred to as either "Doofenshmirtz Ex-Wife" or "Doofenshmirtz's Ex-Wife".
 * Charlene and Tony Marzulo were only mentioned in the TV film during the deleted scene "Vanessa meets Doof", when Vanessa confronts Heinz for banishing Tony.

Cast

 * Vincent Martella as Phineas (2nd Dimension)
 * Ashley Tisdale as Candace (2nd Dimension)
 * Thomas Sangster as Ferb (2nd Dimension)
 * Caroline Rhea as Mom (2nd Dimension)
 * Richard O'Brien as Dad (2nd Dimension)
 * Mitchel Musso as Jeremy (2nd Dimension)
 * Alyson Stoner as Isabella (2nd Dimension)
 * Bobby Gaylor as Buford (2nd Dimension)
 * Maulik Pancholy as Baljeet (2nd Dimension)
 * Dan Povenmire as Dr. Doofenshmirtz (2nd Dimension)
 * Jeff "Swampy" Marsh as Major Monogram (2nd Dimension)
 * Tyler Mann as Carl (2nd Dimension), Tony Marzulo, additional voices
 * Dee Bradley Baker as Perry the Platyborg, Pinky the Chihuahuaborg, Charlene's Giant Robots, additional voices
 * Allison Janney as Charlene (2nd Dimension)
 * Olivia Olson as Vanessa (2nd Dimension)
 * Jack McBrayer as Irving (2nd Dimension)
 * Isabella Acres as Katie (2nd Dimension)
 * Michaela Zee as Ginger (2nd Dimension)
 * Additional voices: Django Marsh, Lauren Crist