"Uh, look, guys, I got a new life, so I don't need anything from you."
— Rickety Cricket
Cricket is presented with a chance to escape the gang's influence and recover some of his old life when his estranged father turns up out of the blue to offer him a job.
This episode provides examples of the following tropes:
- A Day in the Limelight: For Rickety Cricket
- Addled Addict: This episode highlights that Cricket's PCP addiction has consumed him, as he now hides the drug in a bathroom at Paddy's and has reached the point where it causes him to lose perhaps his last chance at reclaiming a normal life.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: The twist ending reveals that Cricket's love interest Belle is actually his father's golden retriever, and that he'd been hallucinating her as an attractive woman because he was high on PCP.
- Call-Back:
- Cricket's parkour skills are demonstrated once again.
- The gang pay Cricket in lemons for services rendered.
- Chekhov's Skill: Cricket's considerable skill at parkour, which he demonstrates at the beginning of the episode, comes in handy later on when he needs to make it from his father's office down to the parking lot in order to catch the investor before he makes it to his car.
- Clip Show: Downplayed example, but because the episode is from Cricket's perspective, a few clips featuring Cricket from the two previous episodes are reused.
- Comically Small Bribe: Dennis and Charlie offer Cricket five dollars to appear in their male stripper show. When Cricket refuses, they lower it to a dollar and a half. Then when he asks for his money, they give him lemons instead. Which he accepts.
- A Day in the Limelight: Cricket is very much the main focus of the episode, with the gang only appearing in a few scenes and remaining on the periphery of the action.
- Embarrassing Damp Sheets: Cricket mocks his brother for wetting the bed until high school.
- Foregone Conclusion: Given that the previous episode, which chronologically occurs after this one, has Cricket smoking PCP in Paddy's bathroom, his attempts to get clean and reconnect with his family seem doomed from the start.
- Foreshadowing: Most of Belle's dialogue makes more sense after The Reveal. One of her first lines is about how much Davy's shoes stink. Also, remember how Belle said Davy calls her a bitch? It may be an offensive term towards women, but it's also the scientific term for a female dog. There's also the Spaghetti Kiss Belle and Cricket share, the Trope Namers were dogs.
- Gilligan Cut: After he ruins a business deal by openly kissing a dog, Cricket's father gives him one final chance at cleaning up or going back to the streets. The next scene is him going Paddy's Pub to smoke PCP.
- Ignored Epiphany: Cricket knows full well Dennis and Charlie will just screw him over and has been given a chance to get his life back together but he agrees to help them anyway.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As much as an asshole Davey is to Cricket, his telling him not to hang around with his "skeezy little arrogant douche bag friends" is both an accurate description of the gang and very good advice considering everything they've done to him.
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Belle, who doesn't seem at all put off by Cricket's appearance and encourages him to lighten up. As it turns out, there's a very good reason for this: she's actually a dog.
- Mushroom Samba: It's revealed towards the end that Cricket had actually been high and hallucinating Belle as an attractive human woman for much of the episode.
- Oh, Crap!: Cricket has a moment of this at the beginning right before he falls into a dumpster filled with manure... and then again when he realizes he's been making out with a dog.
- Once More, with Clarity: Scenes from "PTSDee" and "The Gang Tends Bar" are shown again, this time from Cricket's perspective.
- They also put the lie to the claim that the events of PTSDee represent the worst thing Dee's ever done, as the Gang's damage to Cricket is such that he's incapable of recovering even without their interference.
- When we find out Belle's a dog.
- Shout-Out: The episode references several Disney movies, including Aladdin when Cricket steal the bread,Lady and the Tramp with the Spaghetti Kiss, and most notably,Beauty and the Beast. At first it seems like Belle is beauty. But it turns out she's the beast when it's revealed she's a dog.
- Through the Eyes of Madness: Cricket did smoke the PCP, and consequently hallucinates that Belle, his dad's dog, is a human woman.
- With Friends Like These...: Cricket refers to the gang as his friends.
