Rembo
After freezing up in the face of danger of a hyena attack, Remy decides to learn martial arts to become more self-defensive. But when Vasquez refuses to teach him and he seeks help from Gloria and Gramma instead, he must put his skills to the true test.
"Rembo" contains examples of:
- Breather Episode: One last tale of Big City fun in Season 3A before the tear-jerking and game-changing nature of the next episode.
- Chekhov's Gun: The episode opens on Cricket and Remy looking at a frilled lizard, which uses its frill to scare potential predators by making itself look larger. At the end, Remy remembers this and scares off the hyenas by using his coat like a frill and acting all crazy.
- Deer in the Headlights: While Cricket runs for cover from the hyenas, Remy is too scared to move, and had it not been for Vasquez, he would have been attacked. This drives him to learn to defend himself.
- Disaster Dominoes: Cricket gets scared by the frilled lizard and the lollipop he was holding goes flying and hits a balloon vendor in the face. He bumps into his cart, sending it crashing into the gate of the hyena enclosure, letting the beasts loose to threaten Remy.
- Epic Fail: Remy battles Tilly to show Vasquez that he can defend himself. Unfortunately, Tilly is too good at dodging, and Remy just ends up getting tangled on the velvet ropes and hurting himself with the pole.
- Escaped Animal Rampage: Hyenas break out of their cage at the zoo and threaten Cricket and Remy. Vasquez saves Remy from them, but in doing so let them loose in the city. Later, Remy is cornered by the hyenas again, but this time he scares them off by acting like a frilled lizard, and Vasquez captures them and takes them back to the zoo.
- Hidden Depths: Cricket shows very good understanding of the frilled lizard, explaining the purpose of the frill.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Vasquez deals with the escaped hyenas by tossing them over the wall. The zookeeper tells him he just let them loose in the streets, but Vasquez is only concerned with Remy being safe.
- Offhand Backhand: Done by Vasquez when Cricket tries to ambush him.
- Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Averted. the Zoo Keeper points out that by throwing the hyenas away, Vasquez threw them into the city.
- Strolling Through the Chaos: Remy is too distraught after failing his self-defense classes to notice all the panicking people running away from the hyenas.
- Training Montage: Remy training on top of the café roof with Gloria and Gramma, having finally understood the means of martial arts.
- [Verb] This!: When Remy ditches his smartwatch and Vasquez points this out, Remy responds, "Smartwatch this!"
- Wax On, Wax Off: Gloria tries to teach the kids the first moves of taekwondo by "scooping the beans and steaming the milk." Cricket thinks she's just tricking them into doing her work for her, while Tilly does the moves perfectly.
Dirt Jar
After Cricket's dirt jar goes missing which sets off a mad search through the house, this prompts the story of the Greens' last days in the country, revealing how he learned to adjust to living in a new place and why it was so important to him, and soon a huge potential change to the Greens' life comes to surface.
"Dirt Jar" contains examples of:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The "For Sale" sign at the end of the episode.
- Answer Cut: While Cricket is trying to find the dirt jar, he pickets: "Where could it be?" Cut to Bill rummaging through a trash bag out back, which is where the dirt jar is due to accidentally throwing it out.
- Big "WHY?!": In the flashback, Cricket screams several of them when Bill reveals they're moving to Big City.
- Big "YES!": By Bill when he finds Cricket's dirt jar in the trash.
- Cliffhanger: A positive, yet surprising one. Upon reaching their old home, a sign states that it is currently for sale and Bill says he just got a crazy idea.
- Didn't Think This Through: After accidentally destroying the dirt jar moments after finding it in the trash, Bill is forced to construct a makeshift one using the backyard dirt and paprika, because he's afraid to tell Cricket about it. However, Bill didn't count on Cricket smelling the dirt upon receiving it, which is how he realizes it's a fake.
- Distant Reaction Shot: After Bill finds the dirt jar only for it to break, Bill lets out a scream so loud the camera jumps back to show the house and the whole cityscape. It is even heard by the kids inside the house, which reminds Cricket of the next part of the flashback.
- Dumpster Dive: Alice finds Bill rummaging through the trash for Cricket's dirt jar, having thrown it away accidentally while cleaning.
- Epic Fail: Bill mentions he was on a house cleaning spree some time ago and accidentally threw out Cricket's dirt jar while he was at it.
- Five Stages of Grief: Tilly explains to Cricket how she's going through each stage after being told that they are moving. When she's at stage three, bargaining, she starts collecting bargain coupons.
- Gosh Dang It to Heck!: Cricket says "Dang it all" when moping over the loss of the dirt jar.
- Hope Spot: Bill finds Cricket's dirt jar in the trash, intact. Then suddenly the jar cracks and falls to pieces in his hands, all the dirt blowing away in the wind.
- I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: Bill says this near the beginning when he reveals the farm and café have become successful and things have never been better for the Green family. This is suddenly followed by Cricket coming in and panicking things have never been worse for the Green family after realizing his dirt jar has disappeared.
- I Need to Go Iron My Dog: When Cricket brings up the missing dirt jar, Bill realizes he must have thrown it out but nervously hides it from Cricket by saying random made-up gibberish about attaining to some sort of farming method before exiting out the back door to the backyard. Naturally, Cricket buys.Cricket: No prob, Dad. Good luck with the "garm farden".
- Memento MacGuffin: The dirt jar. The day the Greens moved to Big City, Cricket refuses to leave the farm, where he's spent his whole life. Bill convinces him to come by collecting some of the dirt from the farm in a jar, so a bit of the farm is always with him.
- Moving Angst: The flashbacks show Cricket and Tilly were against the idea of moving to Big City, especially the former, and tried to do all they could to cancel it. When the moving day came, Cricket, despite saying earlier it could be fun, admits he still does not want to go and flees into a cornfield, worried over what he could become.
- Pardon My Klingon: When Cricket brings up the missing dirt jar and Bill realizes he might have thrown it out, he barely audibly utters, "Flip-flabbit!"
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Bill to Cricket in the flashbacks. He understands his son's Moving Angst and his worries over what he could become after the move, and shows him he will always have the country with him which in turn leads to the creation of the dirt jar.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: On the day of the move when Bill calls for Cricket if he's ready, Cricket just flees away in sadness, prompting Bill to chase him.
- Sequel Hook: The episode closes on Cricket and Bill seeing their old house is up for sale again...
- Shout-Out: When told that they're moving, Tilly wants her new home to be a haunted house, so she can be friends with ghosts and get in adventures and solve mysteries, which may be a nod to Scooby-Doo.
- Spotting the Thread: After Bill makes a makeshift dirt jar using dirt from the backyard and paprika, Cricket immediately recognizes it as a fake when he smells it and doesn't detect any "restorative country air".
- Tempting Fate: After Bill finds the dirt jar in the bag of trash, he says, "Safe and sound with not a scratch on it!" Not even one second later, the jar cracks and breaks.Alice: Think fast, Bill.(Bill proceeds to do a Skyward Scream)
- Travel Montage: Done towards the end of the episode while Bill is taking Cricket to Smalton to get a new dirt jar.
- Wham Shot: After arriving at their old house in the country for Cricket to make his new dirt jar, Bill sees a sign in front of the house; the camera rotates to reveal it reads, "FOR SALE".
- Whole Episode Flashback: Much of the episode is Cricket telling the story of the dirt jar, and we flashback to the day Bill moves the family to Big City.
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