Louise, Tina and Gene go to a rich people's neighborhood named King's Head Island to trick or treat, but get caught up in the "Hell Hunt", a tradition of older kids to pick on and prank the younger ones. Meanwhile, Linda and Bob go to a Halloween party that goes haywire when Teddy's guinea pig is killed.
Full Tropes:
- Accidental Murder: Bob accidentally kills Teddy's guinea pig Frances. It's so accidental that the corpse gets discovered before Bob even realizes he's the culprit.
- Adults Are Useless: Exploited; Milo says that Hell Hunt begins once all the adults are too drunk to stop the teens.
- All Men Are Perverts: Louise exploits Bryce's crush on a high school senior named Amanda to save the kids from Hell Hunt.
- Amazing Freaking Grace: Played for Laughs. Teddy tries to sing it, but doesn't quite remember the lyrics.
Teddy: And thaaaaaat's Amaaaaaaaaazing Grace!
- Armor-Piercing Question: Bob asking Teddy why he spray painted his (supposedly) 14 year old guinea pig, quickly making it clear that Bob only mildly accelerated the inevitable.
Bob: Wait, why would you spray paint your guinea pig, Teddy?
Linda: For the party, cuz it went with everything.
Bob: I know - Lin, I know that - but why, Teddy, would you do that?
Linda: It's pretty stupid.
- Artistic License – Animal Care: Teddy claims that Frances was fourteen years old when she died, but guinea pigs kept in captivity tend not to live more than a third of that length. Given it's Teddy we're talking about, it's entirely probable that he was very mistaken on how old she was—though all of this is ignoring how Teddy's treatment of Frances should've killed her sooner, something that even the characters in-universe acknowledge.
- Asshole Victim: Amanda gets her phone smashed when Louise attempts to inconspicuously return it but when you realize she's standing by and letting little kids gets harassed and bullied, a ruined phone is the least she deserved.
- Bait-and-Switch: As the kids approach King's Head Island, the ferry travels through a fog which makes the lights on shore vaguely appear like a skull.
- Berserk Button: Discussed; Linda describes V-neck t-shirts as being one for Bob, though we don't actually see it in action.
- Big "NO!": Gene, when his bag rips and he loses all of his candy.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- The hot sauce Gene gets during the kids' initial trick or treat session is later put into the older boys' underwear by Louise.
- The Wagner house, which is empty because they are on vacation. The Belcher kids later send the teens there for skinny dipping, allowing them to save the other kids from Hell Hunt.
- Conscience Makes You Go Back: Just as the Belcher kids are about to take the ferry back to the main land, Tina convinces her siblings to go back and save the kids who are being tormented by the Hell Hunters.
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Teddy does CPR on his dead guinea pig, Frances. However, this instance was not clean (putting your mouth on a dead rodent typically isn’t considered so), not reliable (it didn’t work), and certainly not pretty (nobody wants to see that).
- Didn't Think This Through: Everyone questions why Teddy would spray paint an elderly guinea pig expecting nothing bad to happen.
- Dude, Not Funny!: Bob reacts this way when Teddy calls Mike the Mailman "Wobbles". Subverted, however, as it's not actually a jab at Mike's uneven legs—Wobbles is really Mike's last name.
- Easily Forgiven: Teddy ends up forgiving Bob pretty easily for the death of his guinea pig, mostly because Frances was old for a guinea pig anyway and Teddy admits dyeing her fur with spray paint probably didn't do her health any favors, and him being the one that forced Bob to wear the fat suit that caused him to unintentionally roll over the guinea pig while trying to put it on also partially puts the blame on him.
- Egging: One of the many pranks the teenagers pull during Hell Hunt.
- Enemy to All Living Things: Teddy probably should not be allowed to ever own a pet again.
- Foreshadowing: Bob is the first person Teddy directly accuses of killing Frances, and Bob quickly retorts that her death was almost certainly accidental. Sure enough, Bob was responsible, but it was so accidental he wasn't even aware he'd killed her until Linda spotted fur on Bob's costume.
- Going Commando: Louise attempts to prank the older kids by putting hot sauce in their underwear while they swim. However, only one of them wore underwear; that kid immediately collapses in pain.
- Good-Times Montage: There's one while the kids go trick-or-treating and get full-sized chocolate bars. At one house, Gene is given two 2L bottles of soda.
- Groin Attack: The kids try to invoke one on the teens by placing hot sauce into their underwear. An idea they got because Gene did the same to himself once.
- Halloween Episode: The first in the series. Bob and Linda attend a Halloween party that turns into a murder mystery, while the kids go trick-or-treating in a rich neighborhood and run afoul of some prankster teens.
- Halloween Trickery: The teens on Kingshead island use Halloween to pick on kids in costume and cause trouble.
- How Dare You Die on Me!: Teddy’s reaction when he fails to revive Frances with CPR.
Teddy: Live damn it, live!
- The Hunter Becomes the Hunted: Milo tries to tell this to the Hell Hunters. He doesn't quite get the phrase right.
Milo: And so, the Hell Hunters become... the ones who are being Hell Huntered.
Gene: Well put.
- I Got a Rock: Pretty much every house on mainland Seymour's Bay (from Jimmy Pesto to Mr. Frond) gives the Belcher kids crappy stuff in place of candy. The one place that actually gave out candy (Mort's funeral home) is out.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: Gretchen offers to do rescue breathing on Francis because she has good lungs. She inhales and immediately starts coughing and hacking.
- Innocently Insensitive: Mort arrives at the party after Frances has been found dead, and he notes the dour mood by asking who died, completely unaware that there was in fact a fatality.
- Irony: The Store Next Door is a year-round Halloween store that's only closed on Halloween.
- Jerkass Ball: Teddy holds onto this for a good chunk of the episode. In the beginning he gets rather pissy regarding Bob's "maybe" to his party invite, acting passive aggressive before screaming "I GOT 42 MAYBES, BOB! WHO CAN PLAN FOR THAT?!" Then after his guinea pig dies he's hostile to everyone until he finds out who killed her, acting like someone deliberately did it as an act of murder. Bob and Linda both lampshade that he's ruining his own party more than Frances's killer.
- Loose Lips: Linda lasts five seconds in the apartment before blurting out in front of the kids that Bob killed a guinea pig.
- Malaproper: When the teens involved in the Hell Hunt show up, Gene screams "Run! It's Helen Hunt!"
- No Name Given: We never find out what Milo’s friend’s name was, which is lampshaded by Tina.
Tina: Bye Milo! Bye Milo’s friend!
- Police Are Useless: Subverted. Teddy calls the cops after Frances is found dead, but because she was a guinea pig, they aren't concerned. Teddy doesn't take it well.
Teddy: YOU DON'T TELL ME WHEN TO DIAL 911!
- Recognition Failure: Linda calls Louise's Edward Scissorhands costume "sad Wolverine".
- Sanity Ball: Even if Linda could understand Teddy painted his guinea pig to match the party, she agrees with Bob that doing so was still a stupid thing to do. When Frances was first discovered, she also agreed with Bob's decision to leave immediately.
- Shoddy Shindig: Teddy's party wasn't so much a "Halloween" party as it was a "Black and orange" party, to the point he spray painted his entire apartment making everyone uncomfortable due to the heavy paint fumes (he spray painted the windows shut). The party then really suffers when Frances is found dead and Teddy refuses to let anyone leave, believing someone killed his pet on purpose while he throws wild accusations in their faces.
- Shout-Out:
- Smooch of Victory: Milo kisses all three Belcher kids on the cheek after they save the kids from Hell Hunt.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: After Louise steals a teenager's phone to prank the Hell Hunters, at the end of the episode she spots the same teen driving in a car. Louise throws the phone up and it seems like the phone is going to land in the car, with none the wiser that it had been stolen... and then the phone completely misses the car, hits the ground, and breaks.
Louise: Ooh, so close!
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Mort definitely does not wear a toupee.
- Tastes Like Purple: After Tina guilt trips them into going back to help the King’s Head Island kids, Gene says his chocolate bar now “tastes like guilt.”
- Tempting Fate: Gene questions why people don't eat tacos on the toilet, at which point he accidentally spills hot sauce on his penis.
Gene: Mmm, taco on the toilet. Why doesn't everybody do this- (spills hot sauce) AHHHHHHH!
- Title Drop: When the group gets full moon sized candy bars from the first house they trick-or-treat at on King's Head Island.
Louise: Full bars? Full bars!? FULL BARS!? Did she gave us full sized chocolate bars? Did she know? Oh my god! Was that an accident?
Gene: What just happened?! How does this not topple your economy?!
- Too Dumb to Live: Or too dumb for others to live in this case; Teddy wasn't exactly doing Frances any favors by spray-painting her.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: The kids are a bit too excited to learn Bob killed a guinea pig.
- Water Guns and Balloons: Part of the Hell Hunt tradition is throwing water balloons filled with urine at unsuspecting kids.
- Whodunit: Teddy treats the death of his guinea pig as one.
