Kiff and Barry Kick a Rock All The Way Home Before Finding Out What Happens to Macaroni Art in Latest "Kiff" on Disney Channel

Kiff and Barry learn some hard lessons in today’s episode - how much is too much effort when doing what seems like a simple task, and later, what really happens to all that macaroni art from the youth’s even younger past.

Rock Kick

After a crazy day at the Table Town school, Kiff and Barry are particularly jazzed for what comes next. While we don’t get to see what happened at the school, we do get quite the recap - all while Kiff is kicking a rock across the street. After the recap is over, she realizes that she’s made it this far and she and Barry decide that they must kick the rock all the way home. It’s an interesting challenge to say the least, and we quickly learn that it will be much more difficult than it initially seems when Kiff accidentally kicks the rock down a hillside into some bushes.

Ever persistent, they will not be defeated so easily and Kiff heads down the hillside to retrieve it. This is only the first of a number of moments of difficulty that they have on their journey, which makes the audience (and eventually Kiff and Barry) question if this has all been worth it. That said, shortly after they are back on track, the rock is swiped by a bird who happens to be a rock artist, and this rock is perfect for his next project. The duo tracks the bird down and discovers this information, and they try to negotiate. They’ve dealt with artist-types before, after all, they’re great friends with Ghost Wolf! As soon as they mention that name, the bird gets excited. Ghost Wolf is his favorite artist… perhaps if they can introduce him, then they’ll get their rock back.

Kiff arranges the meeting, and the transaction is complete before they continue on their journey home, kicking the rock all the way. The next obstacle? The rock lands by a rare plant that only blooms once and lasts for only a few hours, behind the roped off flora that is being protected by a horde of tourists waiting to watch. Now, they have to wait until the event is over before they can continue their journey. Once they do, there is a sense of defeat amongst the pair, but they continue. This brings them down into the canyon that leads to the Forever Angees, where a nearby father and son are skipping rocks. Yes, their rock gets picked up and thrown into the water. In fairness, it did skip a few times. We see Kiff and Barry underwater, eventually getting to the sky tram station that will lead them home. They kick the rock just under the tram, and the doors open to reveal the Table Town Punters (who are also today’s sponsor) and the excitedly kick the rock across the city in one shot…punting is their whole thing after all. Perfectly, the rock lands in the Table Town Rock museum, amongst the other rocks.

As the kids go to retrieve it, they meet Granite Rockburg, the curator of the museum, who notes how perfect their rock is and that it should be deemed art. Another rock artist? They already met the other guy, whom Granite appears to be a big fan of. Perfect, so they arrange yet another introduction for their rock back. From there, we get our musical number, sung by the voice of Granite Rockburg, Orville Peck, about kicking rocks. However, with the help of visual aids of characters also going through struggles with little reward, we realize that this is about the rocks of life that we have to continue to kick without giving up. One of the more ridiculous yet somehow poignant songs of the series.

Once we get home, late into the evening, Kiff and Barry get the rock to her doorstep and just stare. Was it worth it? Maybe one day it will be, but right now it doesn’t feel like it. Suddenly, the rock comes to life and congratulates them with a puff of confetti, prompting a quick smile from the pair before this half of the episode closes out.

The Macaroni Affair

Kiff is waking up for another great day and going through her morning routine, which also includes a song about going to school that we don’t get to hear as it’s only playing through her earbuds. Shame.

When she finally gets to school though, the place is abandoned. No students, no faculty, the lights aren’t even on. As she investigates, she discovers that she has inadvertently come to school on a Saturday. She has free roam of the halls, the classrooms, and decides to have fun with it - even calling Barry to come join her. As the two continue their day of play with the school closed, they find themselves having a bit of a lie down in their classroom and reflecting on time, thinking back to Kindergarten to whatever grade it is they’re in now. Together, they reminisce about making Macaroni art and decide to head back to their old classroom to see if it’s still displayed on the art wall, since their teacher at the time said it was more than clutter.

Once in the old kindergarten classroom, they realize how small everything is, and the wall of macaroni art is simply just a simple board with some pieces displayed. Not on display: their art.

Outside in the halls, they hear a ruckus, soon realizing that Sweepy Steve is working on a Saturday. Today, his job function seems to be clearing out all the macaroni art in the school. Wondering why this could be, Barry concocts the theory that Sweepy must actually be a high-profile art dealer who sells the macaroni art at great profit on the black market. Yup. That’s exactly what’s going on.

After a brief fantasy where the town thanks the duo for revealing this huge secret, Kiff and Barry set out to prove their theory, heading to the AV room and getting a camera to follow him with. After surveilling Sweepy, they follow him to what appears to be his home above the school, where he takes stacks and stacks of macaroni art.

One quick note - Kiff is incredible when it comes to background details and jokes that aren’t called attention to and this episode is a standout in that already high regard. The amount of Pasta-related puns that are served up only for those who are paying attention are outstanding, and personally I’m a big fan of the art wall in the detention room that says “Penne-tention Art" *Chef’s Kiss*

Back to our story at hand, the kids get into Sweepy’s house (which is apparently quite spacious for its size) and spot him dumping all the art into a trash can. This breaks them, and they finally accuse Sweepy of trashing all the precious macaroni art. Well, not quite. Sweepy explains that the barrel is actually a recycle bin. After years of seeing all the macaroni art trashed, he thought that there must be a better way and developed a machine that could use the macaroni art to power Table Town’s sky tram. Yeah, it’s a bit outlandish and the art is still technically being destroyed, but Kiff and Barry’s art has been saved as Sweepy explains that he saves some of the good ones. So I guess everything is okay? Personally, I liked the black market art dealing fantasy idea better.

This episode of Kiff is now available on Disney Channel and the DisneyNOW website. You can catch up with earlier episodes now streaming on Disney+, where this and other season two episodes will arrive on July 23rd.