After Luanne gets dumped by Buckley, Hank helps her recover and tries to find her a new boyfriend.
This episode contains examples of:
- Age-Gap Romance: Averted. Despite Luanne thinking Boomhauer has feelings for her, the man himself has absolutely no interest in his best friend's niece (who is half his age to boot). He even tries to convince Hank he's not interested, though it ends up falling on deaf ears.
- Appeal to Flattery: When Peggy protests Hank helping her issues, Hank tells her she's pretty, making her blush and laugh. And when she tries to resume her protest, Hank repeats the compliment, making Peggy giggly and causes her to drop the subject for the moment.
- Averted when Hank tries the same tactic with Luanne, who angrily yells at him when he tells her this. He instead switches over to talking negatively about Buckley, which actually does work.
- Art Evolution: When Luanne cries, her tears are colored bright blue. This would be explicitly banned in an animation guide written by the show's creators
about a season later, instead encouraging animators to draw tears and other forms of water in more realistic shades.- Also, one of the men who Hank considers as a potential boyfriend for Luanne is drawn with a very exaggerated pig-like nose. This kind of cartoonish art would almost certainly never appear in any episode from Season 2 onwards.
- Bait-and-Switch: Buckley picks up Luanne on his motorcycle and they appear to go out on another date. But a few houses down, the motorcycle stops and Buckley breaks up with her.
- Big "NO!": Hank gives a pretty good one when he sees Luanne kissing Boomhauer goodnight (on the cheek) after he brings her home from her disastrous date.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Wade is an attractive man, and seems like an all-American, clean-cut football quarterback who loves his mother and propane. This all appeals to Hank, who hooks him up with Luanne. But the date ends off-screen when he gets all grabby with her.
- Broken Tears: Luanne goes on a crying binge after being dumped by Buckley, that seems to last for days until Hank helps her out.
- Cacophony Cover Up: With Hank hammering in his workroom, he gets distracted by Luanne's crying, so he turns on his saw to drown her out and keeps hammering.
- Characterization Marches On: As the guys scout the bar for a new boyfriend for Luanne, Bill distracts Peggy by dancing with her, and she even helps him learn some moves. Peggy's level of comfort with Bill getting so semi-intimate with her is something you won't see in later episodes, due to Bill's Abhorrent Admirer tendencies towards her.
- Chocolate of Romance: Subverted when Buckley arrive on his motorcycle with a box of chocolates wanting to get back together with Luanne. Buckley points out the chocolate was for him for later before Hank sends him away.
- Compliment Backfire: By Peggy's advice, during one of her crying spiels, Hank tells Luanne she's pretty. She doesn't take it well.
- Disney Acid Sequence: When Peggy chastises Hank over butting in with Luanne's emotion, he ends up hallucinating everything she says literally.
- Emotion Suppression: Hank swallows his emotions to help him whenever he has issues and he has Luanne do the same, which seems to help her deal with the break-up. The other guys do the same at the end when Hank and Boomhauer make up.
- Exact Words: When Hank shows Luanne to swallow her emotions, he tells her that Bill has been through the worst divorce Arlen has ever seen and you don't see him crying. Cue Bill closing his window blinds and him bawling his eyes out. So Hank is right: you don't see him crying.
- Forgiveness: Played for Laughs in The Stinger, with Hank and the guys out drinking, with Boomhauer standing on the other side watching the three. Hank's idea of making up is inviting him over for a beer. With Dale commenting "That was beautiful" and the four men swallowing their emotions.
- Heartbreak and Ice Cream: After Hank tells Luanne to swallow her emotions, the two of them start bonding, and shown eating raw cookie dough with her airing her grievances about Buckley. Hank is astonished that you could eat cookie dough raw and comment it's like ice cream. Luanne then says they make ice cream with cookie dough in it, which makes them both go to the store and get some.
- I Have No Son!: Hank pretty much disowns Luanne after she defies him and tags along with Boomhauer. Though Hank forgives her in the end and lets her move back in.
- Irony: After the bitter argument between Hank and Luanne ends with her and Boomhauer going into their house, Dale comments in his frustration that the neighborhood is turning into Melrose Place before going back in his house. After he does, John Redcorn slips out the window after messing around with Nancy.
- Mistaken for Gay: When the four men stake out to find Luanne a new boyfriend, Dale's idea for a good man is one with a round, muscular butt. Shortly after in the restroom, he uses a urinal with another man, whom he checks out, with him commenting "You seem like a regular guy". Cue the WTF look on his face.
- Noodle Incident:
- How exactly was Hank almost killed at work? He started to tell the family, but Peggy stops him as it was during one of Luanne's crying spiels.
- The last three boyfriends Luanne had were Buckley, a crazy tattoo artist who draws on his own skin, and a punk rocker in a Black Flag shirt who screams and bangs his head on trees. We don't know what happened to them or how Hank knows about them (especially if the last two were from when Luanne was living with her own dysfunctional parents).
- Tears of Joy: After Hank lets Luanne move back in and shows her how he fixed up the den to be her room, she is so touched by the gesture, she cries, much to the discomfort of Hank.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Despite her well-meaning intent, Peggy's advice to Hank towards comforting Luanne ultimately doesn't work, leading to the episode's main conflict.
