Love is in the air for Cricket.
Valentine's DanceWhen the Greens attend a Valentine's Day dance, Cricket develops his first crush on a girl who wants to dance with him.
"Valentine's Dance" contains examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: Cricket gets called off by Gabriella and never gets to dance with her, but he does get to dance with Gloria whose date never showed up.
- Bottle Episode: The episode takes place mostly inside the community center, with the exception of the opening scene.
- Break the Cutie: Cricket is nearly reduced to tears when Gabriella rejects him.
- Break the Haughty: Cricket's resentment of love is immediately dropped out once Nancy brings up the true meaning of experiencing such.
- Crush Filter: Gabriella gets one when Cricket spots her.
- Did Not Get the Girl: Cricket ends up losing his dance with Gabriella due to his attitude toward her and that she didn't really love him in the first place and never accepted her request.
- Get Out!: Alice tried to separate a couple by getting the boyfriend to back so far away that he leaves the dance.
- Irony: Cricket finds himself unable to break Gabriella's heart; she ends up breaking his heart.
- Imagine Spot: Cricket repeatedly imagines himself having a romantic relationship with Gabriella when attempting to get his mind off her.
- Luminescent Blush: Cricket gets one when he first sees Gabriella.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Cricket repeatedly as he is discovering what it's like to be in love.
- Sue's reaction when she sees Cricket about to ruin the dance.
- Rack Focus: While Sue is deejaying and she sees something odd, her P.O.V. Cam shifts its focus from the squatting couples to Cricket approaching the sprinkler valve behind them.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Both Nancy and Gramma become one to Cricket when they reveal the true meaning of love and he won't know what it's like unless he gives it a try.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Cricket finally agrees to accept Gabriella's love and dance with her, but she refuses, revealing she doesn't really love him and just wanted to dance, and because he acted weird around her, she asked Remy instead.
- Space Whale Aesop: Avoiding whoever wants to dance with you will cause you to lose your chance to do so.
- Valentine's Day Episode: As told by the title.
- What Is This Feeling?: Cricket when he notices Gabriella and experiences love.
- What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Cricket's problem for the episode.
- Wingding Eyes:
- Cricket's eyes turn into dust clouds when Gabriella encounters him at the pool.
- Tilly's eyes have hearts in them when she becomes smitten with a punching bag man from her own arrow.
Chips: Big City Edition.
Green StreetsCricket joins Keys on patrol to catch a litterbug gone loose in Big City.
"Green Streets" contains examples of:
- Added Alliterative Appeal:Tilly: My own brother. A bonafide boy of the badge. A boy in blue. A blue boy.
- Ascended Extra: Keys gets his first major role this episode.
- Banana Peel: The plot begins when Cricket slips on one and vows to find whoever threw it on the sidewalk.
- Bittersweet Ending: Cricket confesses to Keys and he manages to drop his tough persona and goes easy on Cricket, but he cannot let him off scot-free and still punishes him into picking up all the litter he carelessly didn't clean.
- Book Ends: The episode starts and ends outside the Green house, complete with the same music cue. Also in the beginning Cricket is happy as he exits the house, while in the end he's cleaning garbage before the house and is very sad and annoyed.
- Chekhov's Gun: The security cameras in Keys' car. They recorded everything over the last few days, which is how Cricket is able to find out who the litterbug is.
- Eye Scream: When interrogating Benny, Cricket repeatedly squirts lemon juice in his eyes to get him to talk.
- Gone Horribly Right: Cricket manages to teach Keys how to be tough, but it all goes downhill when he finds out he was the litterbug and Keys turns against him.
- Hired to Hunt Yourself: Unbeknown to Cricket, the litterbug he was trying to bring to justice was himself. He had been carelessly tossing garbage all over the place, which he only discovers when he views the surveillance footage.
- Hypocrite: When Cricket discovers a litterbug has gone lose, he convinces Keys to act tough and cast away his humanity and severely punish the culprit. But once he finds out he was the litterbug all along, he regrets his decision and begs Keys to go easy on him.
- Ironic Echo:
- "You go easy on this litterbug, and they'll keep on littering and littering until we're up to our eyes in trash!" First time it's said by Cricket to Keys; the second, it's said by Keys to Cricket.
- Tilly's "Trust no one."
- Irony: Just after Cricket sees Keys on the security camera and goes, "You dirty rascal," he himself appears next; turns out Cricket is the "dirty rascal" himself.
- Mood Whiplash: The episode begins with Cricket exiting his house, happy to enjoy the beautiful day ahead of him, then he slips on a banana peel on the sidewalk, kicking off the episode's conflict.
- Oh, Crap!: Cricket's reaction to realizing that he was the litterbug.
- Red Herring: When told by Tilly to "Trust no one", Cricket starts thinking Keys is the litterbug. After he leaves for Big Coffee, he checks the security cameras to find Keys on one of them...then Cricket himself walks into the picture, and he realizes Keys is innocent and the real litterbug is himself.
- Took a Level in Badass: Keys takes Cricket's advice way too far and becomes so tough that his cheery self is thrown out the window. He reverts back to normal when Cricket confesses.
