Gender-Separated Ensemble Episode

In this episode, the men attend a bachelor party while the women attend a bachelorette party.

Whenever you have a mixed gender group of friends, often there will be episodes where the women get their own adventure together without any of the men along. And similarly for the men. Because even though you are all good friends, sometimes you just need some Girl Time.

This is particularly common with a Power Trio setup (two girls one guy/two guys one girl), and how the odd man out either feels lonely, or more commonly gets a side adventure with a minor cast member.

This makes sense in some cases. Would you want your guy friend there while you shop for lingerie, or would it really make sense having your female friend there trying out for the football team with you?

This Trope is similar to the Girl's Night Out Episode, with some expansions:

• The Girl's Night Out Episode is specific to one gender, this is not.
• The Girl's Night Out Episode does not have a subplot involving the other gender.
• While the Girl's Night Out Episode is used as an opportunity to show off the few female members of the cast interacting with each other, this trope can apply to either gender, and the purpose is less of a "just because we need to focus on the women" and more circumstantial.

Common setups for this include the Macho Disaster Expedition, A Day in Her Apron and a Girls vs. Boys Plot. See Two Lines, No Waiting for other kinds of A- and B-plots.

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Examples:

Live Action TV

• Lizzie McGuire, particularly in an episode where Lizzie and Miranda goes to buy bras as the A-plot, whilst Gordo hangs back to help Lizzie's little brother Matt and Mr. McGuire make a martial arts film as the B-plot.
• That's So Raven: Most of the time, while Raven and Chelsea were off doing some disguise adventure, Eddie was the the occasional big brother figure to Raven's brother Cory or the other son to Raven's dad Victor.
• Weird Science: Lisa tends to make Gary and Wyatt solve their own problems.
• Hannah Montana: Miley and Lily were almost always together while Oliver often ended up paired with either Jackson or Rico.
• A season one episode of Friends has the guys go to a hockey game, and the girls spying on George Stephanopoulos.
• There are a few episodes which follow this for iCarly:
  • "iFence", where Freddie and Spencer took up Fencing. Sam had to read a book for a bet, whilst Carly had to deal with her cousins, and ended up getting mad because their fencing took too much time.
  • "iWas A Pageant Girl" had Carly and Sam go off to a beauty pageant, with Spencer roping Freddie into a double date that derailed when they started playing the 'What Am I?' game.
  • "iTake On Dingo" started with Spencer, Carly, Sam and Freddie all heading to the Dingo studio because they were ripping off their webshow. Once there, Freddie and Spencer split up to find the frozen severed head of Charles Dingo, whilst Sam and Carly beat up TV writers with a sock full of butter. Their stories came back together in the end, but it probably counts.
• Happened in the episode of That '70s Show when the boys went to Canada (including Leo) while Jackie convinced Donna to come with her to a modelling try-out. Also, in an another, Red and Bob hunted the deer with the boys while Kitty and Midge stayed at home with the girls and played poker.
• Modern Family had this in "The Wild" where the male cast hunted the eagle and finally confessed about their fears to each other while Haley and Alex helped Gloria and Claire with a pizza delivery man.
• Naturally, Sadie: Rain would often be paired up with Sadie's brother Hal or one of the male supporting characters for a 'boy's adventure' while Sadie and Margaret where involved in a female plot.
• Happens regularly in Coupling, where pretty much every episode will have a separate discussion by the guys and the girls highlighting the different attitudes and perceptions of the two sexes. This is largely because the cast is composed or two Power Trios with alpha couple Steve and Susan as the centered egos, each with their own same-sex id and superego friends.
  • The ultimate example is the third season opener "Split", where for most of the episode there's a Split Screen, as Steve and Susan's friends try to help them get over their split-up.
• Happens in Farscape but the gender subplots are separated into two different episodes: "Mental as Anything" for the guys and "Bringing Home the Beacon" for the girls.
• Super Sentai has one every year, often involving a female Monster of the Week who kidnaps the boys on the team or incapacitates them in some way, leaving the girls to rescue them.
• Dawson's Creek had some episodes like this. One that comes to mind is "Road Trip", where Dawson and Pacey go into the city to hit on girls and Joey and Jen deal with a rumor a jock started about Joey.
• Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles had the one where John and Derek go to a military school to protect Martin Bledell while Sarah and Cameron stay behind to protect a child also named Martin Bledell.
• Leverage had the episodes "The Girls' Night Out Job" and "The Boys' Night Out Job", which took place on the same night. Each one showed one half of the teams night in full, while providing extremely strange, out-of-context glimpses of the other.
• Happens in the Community episode Aerodynamics of Gender, except Abed spends the whole episode with the girls. Shirley, Britta, Annie and Abed take a Women Studies class together and take down an evil Girl Posse using Abed's supreme observational skills. It backfires when the girls get high on power and become the new alpha bitches of the school. Meanwhile, Jeff and Troy find a hidden garden with a trampoline, which they promise the groundskeeper to keep a secret because trampolines aren't allowed on campus. Pierce realizes that they're hiding something and spends most of the episode trying to figure out what they're up to.
• Murdoch Mysteries: "Friday the 13th 1901" has two plots: Julia and Emily go to an island with several women friends for a weekend "hen party" (a bachelorette party) for one of the friends, while the guys of Station 4 play in a curling match on a bet. Brackenreid urges Murdoch to get involved in a effort to remedy the detective's depression over Julia's rejection of his marriage proposal, and true to form, Murdoch studies the game and invents a sliding shoe for the team. Meanwhile, the doctors' enjoyment of food, alcohol, tobacco and camaraderie are rudely interrupted by an axe murderer.
• In the Warehouse 13 episode For the Team, Myka and Claudia go off to hunt an artifact and are joined by (the female) H. G. Wells, while meanwhile Artie and Pete stay back at the Warehouse.
• Faking It had an episode in the second season where the girls have a night in - watching twilight and playing truth or dare, and the guys go out to a dive bar.
• Family Ties has an episode were Elyse takes Mallory and Jennifer away to a cabin for a mother-daughter weekend. Steven stays home with Alex and Andy and attempts some male bonding. Neither weekend goes well.
• Sort of subverted in Brooklyn Nine-Nine's "Paranoia". the ensemble splits between Rosa's bachelorette party and Adrian's stag party. It would be a perfect example of this trope, except Charles is at the bachelorette party, due to being one of Rosa's closest friends, enough that she asked him to be her "man of honor". On the other hand, Charles is rather In Touch with His Feminine Side.
• The Parks and Recreation episode "Two Parties" separates the cast by sex for the most part. Justified, since Chris and Ann are throwing Ben's and Leslie's respective bachelor/ette parties. Chris brings Ben, Jerry, Andy, Tom, and Ron along on a bunch of group activities subbing in for the bachelor parties they never got to have, while Ann's party for Leslie (bringing along April and Donna) is quickly derailed by a gambit Leslie pulled earlier and needs to undo.
• USA High has one where the boys go camping with Mr Elliot, which the girls organised so they can have a girls' night (which Miss Dupree joins in with).
• Most episodes of Kirby Buckets featured Kirby, Fish, and Eli in the A-Plot and Dawn and Belinda in the B-plot.
• On The Big Bang Theory, Penny spent the first four seasons as the only woman in the main cast, but once Howard's girlfriend/wife Bernadette and Sheldon's girlfriend/wife Amy joined the group, the show leaned heavily into this trope.
  • One early episode with the full ensemble sees the guys planning on attending a screening of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Amy originally plans to join them, but upon hearing that Bernadette and Penny are planning a girls' night, she decides to do that instead. It eventually becomes her first-ever slumber party.
  • In "The Bakersfield Expedition", the guys head to a comic book convention in full Star Trek gear. Amy, Penny, and Bernadette, who don't understand why they're so into comics, decide to get a few issues for themselves to see what all the fuss is about—and end up getting into a nerdy argument about Thor.
  • Two separate episodes saw Raj and Sheldon tagging along on the women's "girls' night out". In the first, Amy becomes upset when she finds out that Raj had crushes on Penny and Bernadette, but not her; in the second, Sheldon reveals that he's a skilled dancer thanks to cotillion training in his youth, and the women insist on dragging him to a ballroom dancing group to show off.
  • In one episode, the guys are invited to give a lecture to a group of preteen girls about the importance of women in science. Penny, Bernadette, and Amy go to Disneyland for the day instead and get princess makeovers, leading to some Hypocritical Heartwarming when Sheldon calls Bernadette and Amy (both scientists themselves) to offer some genuine insight to the preteens; they offer advice about focusing on academics instead of appearances while dressed in extremely "girly" outfits.
  • One later episode meant to showcase Penny's Character Development sees the women going to Vegas for a weekend that coincides with Penny taking a test to get a promotion at work. Originally, Penny was the Hard-Drinking Party Girl of the group, but she stays focused and responsible by studying while Bernadette and Amy proceed to get wasted.
  • In the penultimate season, Bernadette and Penny plan a Little House on the Prairie-themed bachelorette party for Amy. Due to her own Character Development, she finds it uninspired, so they take her to a bar instead...and Amy ends up passing out after one shot of vodka.
• The Mick:
  • The episode "The Bully" has a plot line where Jimmy takes Ben and Chip to the dentist, which leads to him doing some DIY Dentistry to avoid having to pay the dentist. The episode's other subplot involved Mickey and Alba helping Sabrina get back at a girl who leaked her journal online.
  • The episode "The Implant" has Jimmy taking Ben and Chip to see a ballgame. The other plot is Mickey trying to convince Sabrina not to get breast implants.
  • "The Visit" has Chip and Ben go with Jimmy to visit the kids' dad in prison. Sabrina meanwhile goes with Mickey to see the kids' mom in prison too.

Visual Novels

• The Little Busters! episode "Hell Yeah, This Totally Rocks!" has the girls trick Riki into coming to their sleepover and dress him in the girl's school uniform. When the other guys find out he has been "kidnapped", they spend the night playing games to decide who will be the one to rescue him.

Web Original

• This happened in most of the second season of The Guild, with Zaboo moving into Vork's house and discussing girl troubles with Bladezz, while Clara and Tink took it upon themselves to help Codex with her love life.

Western Animation

• Every so often, The Simpsons has an episode where Bart and Homer are off together on a caper. As a result, the subplot has Marge and Lisa (and occasionally Maggie) dealing with something else. There doesn't appear to be an episode where this is reversed; if the main plot is about Lisa or Marge, then the guys just sort of hang around.
  • Bart and Homer become truckers, replacing a truck driver that won a steak eating contest against Homer and died of "beef poisoning", while Marge and Lisa deal with an annoying doorbell.
  • Homer and Bart went to the Superbowl. Marge and Lisa had to deal with a Vincent Price egg painting kit that didn't come with any feet. They really do get the short straw.
  • Homer and Bart become con-men, Lisa and Maggie have to deal with Marge's sudden addiction to Long Island Iced Teas. Although at the end, they re-enter the main plot as it turns out that isn't all they've been doing.
  • The family get split up while camping in an early episode. Marge and Lisa manage okay; Homer and Bart suffer a Macho Disaster Expedition resulting in Homer being mistaken for Bigfoot; Maggie gets adopted by bears.
  • Homer drives Bart to a camp while Marge and Lisa run a garage sale.
• When Kim Possible and her sidekick Ron get Trapped in TV Land with their arch-enemies, they quickly get divided by gender lines - Kim with Shego, and Ron with Dr. Drakken.
• In an episode of Teen Titans Go!, Robin, Beast Boy and Cyborg are having a boys' night out, so Starfire decides to rope Raven and Jinx (who she has to break out of prison) into a girls' night out. The boys do things like eat fries and try on hats, while the girls bring bumper cars to life and lead a high speed chase. Each side thinks their night was better.
• Dinotrux episode "Battering Ram" has the girls Skya and Ace investigating what happened to a device Ace has built while the guys look into breaking open a rock of junk to see what's inside.
• An episode of House of Mouse has Mickey allowing Minnie to host a "ladies night" at the club while he, Donald, and Goofy take the night off and go bowling.
• Kaeloo: Episode 60 has the boys and the girls split up and go to different places. Subverted since Stumpy winds up ditching the other guys, disguising himself as a girl and joining the girls.
• "The Quest for the Flying Rock", an episode of The Backyardigans, does this, pairing up Pablo and Tyrone, and Uniqua and Tasha. Both parties are searching for the titular rock, but they do so in completely different ways.
  • This is actually pretty common in episodes where Austin is absent. Another episode, "The Snow Fort", has Pablo and Tyrone as Mounties guarding a gigantic snowball and Uniqua and Tasha as ski patrollers who help anyone who needs it. The girls think someone in the fort needs to be rescued, but when they come to the fort, the boys think they want to steal the snowball, so they turn on their booby traps and cause a lot of slapstick. It's not until the end of the episode that both sides see the situation from the other side.
• In the Harley Quinn episode "Bachelorette", Harley surprises Poison Ivy with a bachelorette party on Themyscira, home of Wonder Woman where no man may enter. Since Ivy doesn't have many friends, Harley invites Catwoman, Nora Fries (Mr. Freeze's wife), and a childhood friend of Ivy's named Jennifer to come too, and the women end up foiling a plot by Lex Luthor and Eris to steal the island. It also leads to Harley and Ivy getting drunk and having sex for the first time, causing all manner of issues—not the least of which is that Ivy is engaged to Kite Man. Speaking of Kite Man, the B-plot of the episode has him, King Shark, Clayface, and Ivy's talking plant Frank having a bachelor party of their own, with King Shark having to deal with an Arranged Marriage.
• Total Drama Island invokes this with the "Brunch Of Disgustingness", a non-elimination challenge pitting the remaining 10 campers (conveniently with a 50/50 male/female split) in an Eat That competition. Despite formerly being from opposing teams, the guys get along pretty well, but the girls experience a lot of preexisting friction between Heather and Lindsay vs. Gwen and Leshawna, and Bridgette (the only one who wasn't in their team and thus had no prior stake in the matter) is forced to choose her alliance — she ends up picking the latter, but tries her best to keep the girls working together (though unfortunately for her, the boys win the challenge).
• As South Park has added more female characters to the show, this type of episode has become more common, but they're still quite rare.
  • In "Marjorine", Cartman convinces the other guys that the girls have found a way to see the future with untold Psychic Powers. The girls are actually just using a paper fortune teller (or cootie catcher) for fun, but the boys insist on creating a Zany Scheme to steal the fortune teller for themselves by faking Butters's death and then having him infiltrate a slumber party as "Marjorine", the new girl in school.
  • In "Board Girls", some of the guys at school form a club, "Dice Studz", for tabletop gaming. A few of the girls want to join and prove that they're extremely good at all manner of games, leaving the boys feeling desperate. Cartman leads a push for Congress to make Dice Studz just for boys again, only for the plan to backfire horribly when the girls simply start their own club that proves much more popular—and Cartman can't join because of his own requests to Congress.
• Gravity Falls: "The Last Mabelcorn"'s A plot is about the four core female characters (Mabel, Wendy, Candy and Grenda) on a mission to get unicorn hair to protect the Mystery Shack from the Big Bad. The B plot is about Dipper and Stanford studying backup plans for protection and the origins of Bill Cipher’s connection to Gravity Falls.
• The Patrick Star Show: In "Klopnodian Heritage Festival", Patrick and Cecil practice the male Klopnodian traditions with a group of elder men, while Bunny and Squidina take on the female Klopnodian traditions with some elder women. The only one not involved is GrandPat, who still resents the Klopnodians and isn't doing the traditions anyways.

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