"You do realize if I'm successful, Oscar will be working here with us. Like, a lot. With us."
A Plot: Lacey wants to participate in the town time capsule, but seems underwhelmed by her choices of what to put in it. She eventually finds out that it's something they do every year and re-open a year later.
B Plot: Mosquitoes are all over Dog River and everyone is affected, except for Hank. The townsfolk organize their schedules around Hank so that they can get around the town without being bitten, while Davis, Karen, and Lacey try to figure out his secret.
C Plot: Oscar starts helping out around the gas station, where he proves a major annoyance for Brent and Wanda. Meanwhile, Emma is glad to have some peace and quiet in the house for once, but quickly finds out that she gets bored when she's not forced to deal with Oscar's insanity all the time.
Tropes Referenced:
- Gag Echo:
- Emma gets Brent to convince Oscar to help out around the gas station, because he's been driving her crazy around the house. When asked, Oscar is only too eager to help out... because Emma's been driving him crazy around the house.
- Both Davis and Hank suggest that Lacey put a plain coffee mug in the time capsule. When Lacey expresses her displeasure at putting a mug in the capsule, they both claim they don't mean a mug, but that mug. Later, when Brent takes a jab at Lacey for wanting to put a carafe in the capsule, she remarks that it isn't a carafe, but this carafe.
- Ghost in the Machine: Hank claims that people only have a certain amount of space in their brains for knowledge. We then see inside Hank's mind, which appears as a white void with several Hanks sorting cardboard boxes full of information.Hank 1: I got some new knock-knock jokes.
Hank 2: Ah, great! Put 'em up there with the Bananarama lyrics.
[Cut back to outside the Ruby]
Hank: Hey, you wanna hear a knock-knock joke? [...] Knock, knock!
Lacey: [sigh] Okay. Who's there?
Hank: Bananarama! [chuckles] ... No, wait, uh...
[Cut back to Hank's brain, the boxes have fallen and mixed together]
Hank 2: [annoyed] Way to go... - Going to the Store: Brent's repeated "I'll be at the Ruby" every time he is annoyed by Oscar.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: Emma discovers that she's so used to Oscar's weirdness that being without it drives her even crazier than putting up with it. The same thing happens to Wanda after she spends all day working with him at Corner Gas.
- I Warned You:Lacey: People can't figure out the new carafes.
Brent: I hate to say I told you so...
Lacey: Do you? Because I'm not really getting that feeling. - Mosquito Miscreants: This is the crux of the B Plot, with mosquitos terrorizing the town and buzzing around so much that people don't want to spend more time outside than necessary.
- Running Gag: No one can figure out how to use Lacey's new carafes. She replaces them again and people still can't figure them out.Brent: This new carafe is worse than the old new carafe!
- Shout-Out: Davis and Karen compare the mosquitoes to The Birds. Lacey attempts to compare them to When Harry Met Sally.... Hank doesn't get either reference.Karen: That movie, The Birds. Except instead of birds, mosquitoes.
Hank: Yeah, I don't know that one.
Lacey: It's like When Harry Met Sally, but instead of funny, romantic moments, mosquitoes.
Hank: ...Who's Sally?
Karen: You're not helping.
Davis: There. Are a lot. Of mosquitoes. - Something We Forgot: When Oscar finally goes back home, Brent comments that it'll be nice that he's finally not causing them problems...right before an entire delivery truck of dish soap arrives, as Oscar made the order mid-episode when the town believed it was Hank's mosquito-repelling trick.
- The Complainer Is Always Wrong: Lacey gets lambasted by the whole town for suggesting that an annual time capsule is "a tad goofy".
- Time Capsule: Parodied. The town dig up and re-bury the time capsule every year. When Lacey points out this ruins the entire point of a time capsule, Brent explains that it used to be a real time capsule before the town decided to use it as an annual excuse to get drunk.
- Unwitting Test Subject: Parodied. Karen, Davis and Lacey run an "experiment" on Hank to discover why the mosquitoes don't bite him, which mostly just involves following him around closely. They eventually learn that he uses liquid dish soap to bathe, and assume that's why the mosquitoes leave him alone. It turns out it's actually his hat that does the trick, which he foolishly puts into the new time capsule (and even more foolishly in Lacey's carafe, which deters his attempt to dig the capsule back up and retrieve it). The dish soap, on the other hand, makes the mosquitoes more vicious than ever.
- When I Was Your Age...: All the complaints Oscar has about the current products sold at Corner Gas. Includes both
They Changed It, Now It Sucks! and It's the Same, Now It Sucks!.Oscar: Why is all the gum sugar-free?
Brent: You tell me. Commies, or hippies?
Oscar: In my day you could get sugar in gum. Made you stronger. Prepared you for the real world.
Brent: Uh huh...
Oscar: Jeez, they got all kinds of pop now!
Brent: Uh huh...
Oscar: Used to be you just got cola, and that was it. Take the rust off nails. Now they got vanilla, or lime— Holy Hell! Orange?!
Brent: You know Dad, you don't have to verbalize every thought that crosses your mind.
Oscar: Licorice sticks!
Brent: Don't tell me, licorice was somehow better in your day.
Oscar: No! It's exactly the same, they haven't changed one iota! The licorice people have gotten lazy. They've had it too good for too long.
