Horse discovers a powerful ability: she can jump into backstories! And seeing the tough times her herd friends faced helps her feel less alone.
This episode contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: After some foreshadowing in season one, this episode depicts just how terrible Durpleton's parents really were, with his father yelling at him, insulting him, throwing away his toys and openly refusing to show any kindness, and his mother calmly accepting her husband's actions without even looking at her son.
- Burning with Anger: Horse is so fed up wit being frozen in ice for no reason for the third time that she turns red, breathes hot steam through her straw and breaks out of the ice block trapping her.
- Calvinball: The titular Bunch o’ Scrunch game follows a complicated set of rules that seemingly requires every player do a completely unrelated task, resulting in a gameplay that’s incomprehensible for the audience. At one point, Ched is wearing a peacock headdress and Glendale is skating with clothespins pinched to her arms, all while Gebbrey is holding a glass container filled with mulch.note
- Distracted by the Sexy: Ched saying that Zulius has to kiss him sounds like a joke at first, but then he focuses on the thought and watches Zulius carefully, hoping to see a positive reaction. This disctracts Ched so much that he doesn’t notice Horse charging at him until she’s too close to dodge.
- Enraged by Idiocy: Durpleton’s father is very unpleased with his son’s silliness and outright forbids him to use nicknames.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Wammawink refers to the characters' establishing past experiences as Backstory.
- Parental Abandonment: As shown in a flashback, Durpleton's parents ended up leaving their little son alone in a grim wasteland, demanding him to earn their approval.
- Pensieve Flashback: Horse’s newfound backstory magic allows her to experience other characters' most defining memories as if she were present there.
- Perfectly Cromulent Word: The terminology related to the eponymous party game consists of fairly unusual words like Sniff-Snirk, Splurf-Dorrf and Sflü. These are apparently commonly used in Centaurworld, as Malangella uses them even outside of the game context.
- Second-Hand Storytelling: When the herd prepares to rescue Horse from a pit, the all make silly faces while thinking about a suitable way to do that. In the next scene, Horse is already safe on the surface and the herd is happily discussing the good job they did using rather unconventional methods. None of their actions are shown onscreen.
- See the Invisible: Malangella is somehow able to see and hear Horse when she jumps into Ched's backstory, though she denies it.Malangella: [peering through opera glasses] Well, Splurf-Dorrf my Sflü! Is that who I think it is?
Horse: [incredulously] Wait. Can Malangella see me?
Malangella: [beat] Nope! I can't see ya.
