Line #3 Recap/TotalDramaDialMForMerger


1	The teams merge just in time for a spy movie challenge. Leshawna tries to get Harold and Duncan to form an alliance with her.
2
3	!!Tropes:
4	* {{Blackmail}}:
5	** When Chris prepares to blow up the room (the second time), Courtney is the one who has the tools they need to escape. She demands they all agree to split the grand prize money with her, regardless of who actually wins. They reluctantly agree.
6	** Later when it's time to use tomato juice to wash off the second challenge's stink, the others only let Courtney join in when she gives up her demand.
7	* BlatantLies: Courtney's insistence that she gave Duncan a pity hug and that he was the one who was terrified instead of her.
8	* BrainlessBeauty: Justin admits to having rarely used his brain his entire life, though he does end up using it here to some success.
9	* BringMyBrownPants: The contestants escape a water tower that they're told will be blown up within seconds. It proves to be a hoax only when they've already escaped. Beth is unamused and claims she nearly peed her pants from stress, while Harold outright did wet himself.
10	* CallBack:
11	** Leshawna tries to form an alliance with Harold and Duncan again, as she previously tried to do in "One Flew Over The Cuckoos".
12	** A trash-filled time bomb also showed up in "Phobia-Factor".
13	* CompanyCrossReferences: After Chris announces the merger, there's a parody of the ''WesternAnimation/{{Sixteen}}'' theme song, referencing another show by Creator/FreshTV.
14	* DoorDumb: Lindsay attempts to open the door to the girl's trailer by pushing against it. Courtney has to remind her that she needs to use the doorknob.
15	* EyeAmWatchingYou: Courtney suspects that Beth stole her PDA when she hands it back, to which Beth replies she only found it. Courtney's reply is to gesture from her eyes to Beth.
16	* FacialRecognitionSoftware: The first victim of Chris's challenge collection drive is Lindsay, who when trying to enter the girls' trailer is met with a camera that scans her face. Specifically because she gets recognized, Lindsay is denied entry and dropped in a hole.
17	* FrenchMaid: Beth says she has such a costume. Everyone is relieved to learn it was just for a school play.
18	* HollywoodHomely: In-Universe. Justin considers himself a hideous freak over a few minor injuries.
19	* {{Jerkass}}: Chris points out they wouldn't wire each bomb in the second challenge the exact same way. It's not because it'd make it an easy puzzle; it's because he enjoyed forcing the production crew to work extra hard and to see what would happen if the contestants fail.
20	* KnockoutGas: The final victims of Chris's challenge collection drive are Leshawna, Justin, and Beth. They've barricaded themselves inside a trailer, so someone throws a smoke bomb in there loaded with knockout gas.
21	* LaserHallway: For the first challenge, the contestants have to get to a bag protected by a bell jar and a field of red laser beams. Chris says they can split someone in half and given that Harold burns his butt on one beam, that's probably true. Justin has a minor edge because he's got a mirror on him, but it's Courtney who successfully dodges all beams and takes the prize.
22	* NeverMyFault: Beth and Lindsay blamed each other for getting stuck in between the lasers, not taking the fact that them deciding to go through the lasers together is what got them stuck.
23	* NonSequitur: Right after Chris announces that he merges the teams, the episode rolls into a parody of the ''WesternAnimation/{{Sixteen}}'' intro, using the same song but with this show's characters and settings. There's no lead-up to it, and when it's over no one acknowledges it.
24	* PlotAllergy: Courtney angrily retorts that she's lactose intolerant when she's asked if she's happy to have won a trip to a local cheese factory.
25	* PopCulturePunEpisodeTitle: The title is a play on the film ''Film/DialMForMurder''.
26	* RightHandCat: For his role as spy movie villain, Chris gets himself a white cat to sit on his lap. He accidentally knocks it off, provoking the critter to put claw marks all over Chris's face.
27	* RuleNumberOne: Beth and Lindsay get stuck together in a laser hallway. Beth accuses Lindsay of forgetting the Number #1 requirement of being [=BFFs=]: don't allow the other to get stuck between dangerous, life-threatening lasers. Lindsay retorts that Beth doesn't live up to the #2 requirement, which is the first requirement.
28	* ShoutOut:
29	** In the beginning of the episode, when Chris, wearing a tuxedo, appears in front of the camera (which is looking at him through the barrel of a rifle) and throws a tomato at it which makes its view turn red like blood, which is just like the iconic opening of every ''Franchise/JamesBond'' film to date. Also when he finishs his explanation of the day's movie genre, Chris says "Let the 007-ing begin".
30	** The booby-trap that captures Lindsay is the same as a booby-trap seen on Max Zorin's airship in ''Film/AViewToAKill''.
31	** The tranquilizer dart being fired into Duncan's neck references Bond getting shot in the neck with a tranquilizer dart in ''Film/{{Goldeneye}}''.
32	** The bowler hat that knocks out Courtney is a reference to Oddjob, the bowler-tossing henchman from ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}''. The bomb defusing challenge is based on the nuclear time bomb defusing in the same movie.
33	** Chris wears an eyepatch like Emilio Largo in ''Film/{{Thunderball}}''.
34	** The "accents" that Chris gets accused of all have been referenced as the accents or nationalities connected to various Bond villains, actors portraying the villains, or nations where Bond films took place: [[Film/DrNo Jamaican]], [[Film/YouOnlyLiveTwice Japanese]], [[Film/NeverSayNeverAgain Swedish]], [[Film/{{Moonraker}} French]], [[Film/{{Thunderball}} Italian]] and [[Film/FromRussiaWithLove Russian]].
35	** The contestants do a parody of the ''WesternAnimation/{{Sixteen}}'' theme song.
36	** Harold mentions a spy film called ''[[Film/TheBourneUltimatum Ultimate Ultimatum]]''.
37	** The scene of Courtney going through the lasers is a reference to the film ''Film/{{Entrapment}}''.
38	* SolarPoweredMagnifyingGlass: The contestants each are in charge of a ticking stink bomb they need to [[WireDilemma cut one wire]] of. Beth cuts her bomb's blue wire by taking off her glasses and using them to concentrate sunlight onto the wire. Inspired, Justin places his mirror under Beth's glasses to channel the sunlight onto his bomb's blue wire too.
39	* SpyFiction: This episode's theme is spy movies.
40	* TapOnTheHead: The fourth victim of Chris's challenge collection drive is Harold, who gets knocked out from behind with a baton while in the confessional.
41	* TimeBomb: The second challenge. They have three minutes to disarm massive stink bombs.
42	* TomatoSkunkStinkCure: The contestants each need to defuse a stink bomb with undisclosed content. They fail and so they are treated to a bath of tomato soup that doubles as dinner to get rid of the stench. They have to soak for over twelve hours to get any effect.
43	* TranquillizerDart: The second victim of Chris's challenge collection drive is Duncan, who gets hit in the neck with a tranquilizer dart and falls into the hole.
44	* {{Troll}}: Chris made the contestants think he was going to blow up the room in ten seconds just to see them panic.
45	* WeaponizedHeadgear: The third victim of Chris's challenge collection drive is Courtney. In a ShoutOut to ''Film/{{Goldfinger}}'', she's knocked out by a bowler hat with boomerang behavior and falls into the hole.
46	* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent: Chris's supervillain accent is, according to him, supposed to be Russian, but mainly sounds Jamaican with French overtones. The campers themselves suggest Jamaican, Japanese, Swedish, French, and Italian. Chris is not amused.
47	* WireDilemma: The second challenge has the contestants each defuse a stink bomb by cutting one of three colored wires. Lindsay cuts the blue wire and deactivates her bomb, and everybody else follows suit. Unfortunately, since Chris didn't wire all the bombs the same way, the other bombs blow up.
48	* WolfWhistle: Duncan howls like a wolf, as he himself puts it, upon seeing Courtney work her body through the laser hallway.

Context Recap / TotalDramaDialMForMerger