Francine Redecorates
Francine dislikes the room she shares with her older sister. For one, Catherine keeps complaining about all the random items that Francine brings, and Francine hates Catherine's lace theme.
Tropes
- Apology Gift: As they start to realize they miss each other's company, Catherine gets Francine the fish mug from the Read's yard sale, and Francine gets her the tea set from the dump.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: After Catherine moves out into the living room, converting part of it into a loft, Francine at first thinks that she has her own room. After a few days of this, however, Francine starts to miss trolling Catherine with the weird stuff she gets, as well as having another person in her room, and Catherine admits the walls in the living room are too thin for her liking.
- Comically Missing the Point:
- The girls' designs on their room layouts miss that they have to room together, something that their parents point out.
- When Francine says her room feels empty without Catherine, Arthur suggests that maybe she needs more things.
- Continuity Nod: Francine's dad takes her to the dump to find more things, since a lot of the garbage is actually reusable and still functional. This comes from "My Dad the Garbageman" where he would repurpose stuff from the dump.
- Failure Montage: A montage shows Francine visiting her friends' places to see how they live, but she doesn't like most of them. Muffy has too much stuff, and she doesn't like Sue Ellen's room decorated with items from her travels or Fern's orderly, girly room. Fern explains that her mom decorated her room and she would much prefer something out of a Gothic-style book, which Francine likes and ends up going with.
- Hidden Depths: Fern's "style" is a dark Victorian mansion that Francine likes.
- Noodle Incident: Somehow, Francine got hold of a stuffed lizard statue and brought it into her room, which Catherine hates.
- Troll: It's implied that Francine buys the weird stuff for their room specifically to mess with Catherine. When she brings a bat mobile from the dump, she looks disappointed when Catherine goes to her "room" and gets privacy.
- Who Would Be Stupid Enough?: Jane puts out a wedding present she and Dave never used, saying she doesn't know who would buy it. As Arthur and D.W. make disgusted faces, Francine asks how much it is.
Arthur the Loser
Arthur can't stand losing at a new game, so he starts cheating.
Tropes
- Cheaters Never Prosper: Averted; Arthur does really well when he starts to cheat. It's only when he realizes his friends are cheering against him does he decide to lose on purpose. When his cheating gets exposed after the cards falls out of his sleeve, his friends chastise him for it and that they hope this teaches Arthur that cheating's not worth it.
- Daydream Surprise: The Cold Open features Arthur shooting a winning shot. Then it cuts to real life, where he misses the shot, badly.
- Didn't Think This Through: The kids pit Binky against Arthur because he is known to cheat at every game he plays. Unfortunately, No Guessing! is a trivia game, so Binky has no idea how to cheat at it.
- Distinction Without a Difference: Hilariously invoked when Arthur plays with Francine, and Arthur pleads with her not to repeat the "I win!" he's long been bombarded with. Francine, agreeing, then replies with "You lose!".
- Easily Forgiven: Arthur's friends are shocked in the end that he cheated them all in the game. Since his friends wanted him to get beaten by Binky after being a jerk to them, and he was exposed after he lost (though he decided to help Binky get the easy answers), they all were able to move on since he already learned his lesson.
- Graceful Loser: Brain is the only one of Arthur's friends who is fine with losing to him at first.
- Imagine Spot: Arthur has one with Buster when he realizes no one wants him to win, and imaginary Buster suggests he loses on purpose.
- Makes Sense In Context: In-Universe. Arthur imagined Buster giving him advice on how to turn around the episode's situation. Later, he sends him a letter thanking him for his advice. Naturally, Buster is confused.
- Throwing The Match: Arthur deliberately loses against Binky in the climax by giving him all the easy questions. Granted, Binky isn't always the smartest.
