"Some of the others I'll have to identify using yarn records."
"This is cray cray... cray. It's three crays!"
—Louise
When a case of mutilated therapy dolls gets a water park field trip cancelled, Louise has to team up with Millie Frock to save it. Elsewhere, Teddy gets into the motivational poster business, with disappointing results.
The Silence of the Tropes:
- Adults Are Useless: Louise takes up the investigation because she assumes Frond won't be able to catch the culprit. Little did she know, Frond and the other teachers invoked the trope because they're the culprits.
- Berserk Button: Implying the teachers drink too much coffee is one for Mr. Ambrose.Tina: You could've just drunk less coffee.Mr. Ambrose: NO WE COULDN'T HAVE, TINA!
- Blackmail: Once it’s revealed the teachers blew the trip budget on coffee, the kids threaten to tell the principal the truth if the teachers don’t let the students go on the waterpark trip. They reluctantly agree to pay for the entire thing from their pockets.
- Book Dumb: Literally; Miss LaBonz was seriously unaware that there were even 500 books in existence.
- Brick Joke: Linda puts one of the motivational posters over the poster on how to perform the Heimlich maneuver, and Bob warns her that it might be inconvenient should someone start choking in the restaurant. During the end credits, Teddy starts choking and Bob has to run to the kitchen and rip the poster so he can administer the Heimlich.
- Children Are Innocent: This episode has one of the many reminders that Louise, despite her manipulative nature, is still just a 9 year-old child. Even after seeing that Old Yeller gets rabies, Louise assumes that a vet will be able to save him at the last minute. She's horrified to find that she was wrong.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Tina tells Mr. Frond that the faculty could have avoided an excuse to cancel the water park trip by cutting down on their coffee expenses. Mr. Ambrose responds by screaming that was never an option.
- Crazy-Prepared: Frond left one doll unharmed, seemingly for no clear reason (but likely just because it was his favorite)... until Zeke falsely confesses to let the kids go to the water park, after which Frond unravels the last doll to exonerate Zeke and force the investigation to continue.
- Death by Newbery Medal: Discussed. After reading Old Yeller, Louise's report has her conclude that all kids literature ends with a cute animal dying.
- Did Not Think This Through: Teddy and Janine really should've considered ordering less than a thousand copies of their inspirational poster. Bob lampshades the amount was too much.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Louise has to cooperate with Millie in order to save their water park trip, but in the end her efforts pay off.
- Enemy Mine: Louise has to work with Millie, her essential arch-enemy, to solve the mystery.
- Epic Fail: The poster Teddy and Janine created bombs pretty badly, from a mix of its message not making sense and their customer base being too pretentious (one guy says he lives in a "converted gazebo," and a woman rudely posts the image online without buying a copy or advertising it's for sale).
- "Eureka!" Moment: When Louise comments that Old Yeller was put down by his owner despite their loving relationship, she quickly realizes that Mr. Frond unraveled his own dolls.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Extremely downplayed; the end of the episode shows that Louise has grown slightly more tolerant of Millie, with her mere existence no longer pushing her Berserk Button, but not exactly enough to call her more than just an acquaintance.
- Foreshadowing: Mr. Frond mentions the new coffee machine the teachers have, which would later be relevant to the cause behind the destruction of his dolls.
- Glurge Addict: Linda is all for Teddy's inspirational poster in spite of the fact that it doesn't really make much sense.
- Groin Attack: Subverted. While on the trampoline, Gene complains that his testicles are banging into each other. He quickly decides it's not that much of a problem after all.
- Hated by All: Discussed; Louise's first idea of the culprit is someone who hates Mr. Frond—only to scratch that idea since literally everyone does.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: The flipside of Millie's obsession with Louise comes with her apparently disliking Tina and Gene—she simply refers to them as "Not-Louise", and has never mentioned either of them to her mom among the many stories Millie shares about Louise's life. Keep in mind it's not just her being hyper-focused on Louise—she even mentioned Bob, Linda, Teddy, Teddy's job, and the restaurant.
- Hypocritical Humor: Linda was the only one who cared for Teddy's inspirational poster, but can't be bothered to remember what it actually says as she tells Bob to keep looking at it.
- Ice-Cream Koan: Teddy's attempt at an inspirational poster slogan is "Today is Tomorrow's Yesterday". Think about it for a second.
- Insistent Terminology: Gene is certain Old Yeller is actually Old Yellow.
- Irony: Jocelyn used Charlotte's Web to kill a spider. Even she seems to get the irony.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Louise has every reason to be uncomfortable around Millie. When Tina suggests they're becoming Fire-Forged Friends, Louise is quite justified in claiming otherwise.
- Late to the Punchline: It takes Tina some time to get Gene's "tramp named Oline" joke.
- Must Have Caffeine: The faculty blew the entire trip money on coffee pods. When Tina suggests they could have cut back they aggressively refuse that as an option.
- Noodle Incident: The Belchers bring up numerous events that led to Wetty Set Go temporarily closing, up to and including: a kid losing a finger, diarrhea, fake lifeguards, and flesh-eating bacteria.
- Not Me This Time: Louise is the first person Frond accuses of destroying the therapy dolls. She quickly notes that this is crazy even for her.
- No, You Hang Up First: Non-romantic case; Louise attempts to finally end her consultation with Millie in this way. By the time Louise realizes she still needs Millie's help, Millie has followed her advice.
- Paranoia Fuel: Millie's room being identical to Louise's is already creepy, but it gets worse when one remembers that Millie has never entered the Belcher house on-screen. The one difference between the rooms—Millie's has a window—arguably makes things worse, since that means Millie couldn't have just gleaned Louise's room's layout from outside the apartment.
- The Reveal: Mr. Frond destroyed the dolls himself to avoid having to take the kids on a class trip they can't afford (the teacher didn’t think the kids would reach the goal).
- Shout-Out:
- The Store Next Door reads That Thong You Do; the exterminator van reads Gone Insecty Seconds.
- The Burger of the Day is the "Weekend at Bearnise Burger".
- One of the things Millie placed in Louise's locker is a photo of the twins from The Shining with their faces glued on.
- Zeke and Jocelyn do their book reports on Animal Farm and Charlotte's Web, respectively.
- Spotting the Thread: Quite literally. The kids take one of the mutilated dolls to Edith, who notices that the yarn was intact, meaning that the dolls were unraveled rather than ripped. This is the first clue that Frond damaged the dolls himself—he unraveled them so that he could reknit them later rather than permanently destroy them.
- Stalker Shrine: Millie's entire room serves as one to Louise, in that she's remade it in the exact image of Louise's room. It's incredibly unnerving to the Belcher kids, and at one point when Louise gets flustered she tells Millie to get out of "My" room. Millie then starts maniacally laughing as she reminds Louise this isn't her room. Not helping is the fact that as far as the audience is aware, Millie has never set foot in the Belcher home, let alone Louise's room.
- The entirety of the Frock household technically counts, as there are countless pictures and photos of Louise.
- Stalker without a Crush: Millie not only has countless photos of Louise, her entire room is a remake of Louise's (down to the toys, including another version of Kuchi Kopi), and Millie has apparently told her mother about Bob and Linda, suggesting she's acquainted herself with the rest of the Belchers (even though she's only met Bob and Linda once).
- Taking the Heat: Zeke falsely confesses to ripping the dolls so that the kids (specifically Jimmy Jr.) could go to the water park. He gets to go to the water park after the case is solved and it's proven he didn't do it.
- Touché: When a rebuffed Millie tells Louise "she's a simple person," Louise can't restrain from laughing at how Millie is anything but simple. Millie begrudgingly concedes.
- Unperson: Millie is apparently not fond of Tina and Gene, as her stories about Louise's life have omitted all mention of them to the point her mom doesn't know who they are or that Louise even had siblings (and she even knows who Teddy is).
- Whole-Plot Reference: Consulting an insane person to solve a crime, plus the Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title, is a reference to Silence of the Lambs. In fact, there are a few scenes lifted from the film, such as when the Belcher kids first enter Millie's room with her standing like Hannibal Lecter in his cell, and when Gene gives Millie hard candy and she makes the same unnerving noise as Lecter.
