The Morgendorffer family moves from the home of Beavis and Butthead, Highland TX, to Lawndale, no state given — with varying results on the youth of the family; Quinn is immediately welcomed into the popular circles at Lawndale High, while her sister Daria is forced into self-esteem class, where she finds one new friend named Jane Lane (She is a very good friend). When Jane and Daria decide to graduate from the class early, they must deal with the consequences...
This episode provides examples of:
- Blah, Blah, Blah: O'Neill classes are like this. After all, he has a memorized speech.
- Brick Joke: Daria and Jane see a UFO convention on TV. To celebrate passing self-esteem class, Daria drags all the family to the convention.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Jane admits that she already has all the answers to the self-esteem class, but she doesn't use them yet because she has nothing else to do. Once she and Daria become friends and decide that they already had enough of it, they just pass an oral test. It's also implied to be the case with Jane and the other classes, as she is absent during Daria's first History class with Mr. DeMartino, and it's because of meeting Daria that she stops skipping classes.
- Characterization Marches On: DeMartino comes off as kind of a Sadist Teacher in his first interaction with Daria, while later episodes would play him as a more sympathetic character (and imply that Daria is one of the few students he actually likes). Helen comes off similarly with her "What's WRONG with you?!" outburst. Also, other than "Café Disaffecto," this is the only episode where Mr. O'Neill has a problem remembering his students' names.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: In one of the classes, Daria comments that she wants to have activities with all her family... so she can watch them suffer. She first takes them to a spoof of Chuck E'Cheese, and by the end of the episode, she makes them go with her to a Sci-Fi Con.
- The Dog Bites Back: After holding back the whole episode of Quinn lying to people about their relationship, Daria gets invited to make a speech about what the Self-Esteem class has taught her and she takes the opportunity to thank her sister Quinn in front of all the school.
- Giggling Villain: DeMartino, when he asked Daria to raise her hand, and then asked her a question because she had her hand raised.
- It's All About Me: In an attempt to bond with Daria, Helen takes the afternoon off to do whatever Daria wants. Cut to the mall where Daria is helping Helen shop for a new suit. It doesn't even seem to occur to Helen that this might not be Daria's idea of mother-daughter bonding.
- Limited Wardrobe: Parodied when Helen takes Daria for "mother-daughter bonding" where she tries on a baby blue version of the suit she always wears.
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: Quinn began pretending that she has no sister from the very first episode.
- "Not Wearing Pants" Dream: A variant: before they go up to talk in front of the whole school, Jane quips that normally she's wearing pink taffeta in this dream.
- Speak of the Devil: This episode contains the only references to Highland made in the show... and they are only about the city. Nobody would ever talk about those two guys.Helen: You don't want it to be like Highland again, do you?Daria: Not unless there's uranium in their drinking water here, too.
- Stealth InsultQuinn: Nobody told me about any test!Daria: Don't worry. It's a psychological test. You're automatically exempt.Quinn: Oh. All right.
- Suck E. Cheese's: Pizza Forest, which Daria drags the rest of her family to in order to "boost her self esteem". Costumed performers are the norm instead of animatronics, singing songs like "Row Your Boat" to any unsuspecting guests trying to eat. It got a 2/10 rating on Jane's "Gourmet's Guide to pizza pleasure" blog.
- Troll: Daria says during one of the sessions that she wants to drag her family so they can do stuff together, AKA watch them suffer in uncomfortable scenarios.
- Viewers Are Geniuses: Those who knew what was Manifest Destiny before hearing Daria say it, raise your hands.
