Y2K mania strikes Arlen, with everyone worrying about how they'll survive and make it in the upcoming millennium, with even the normally unflappable Hank succumbing to the madness.
Tropes:
- An Aesop: Don't dread the future, but enjoy the good moments it brings.
- Ass Shove: While it doesn't insert itself into Hank, he definitely feels the force of the mole in a whack-a-mole game when he sits on it as Bobby plays it (with it being the only working game due to it being activated by gears with the other arcade games shut down due to diagnostic testing).
- Christmas Episode: A Christmas episode centering around the Y2k bug that ends as the New Year begins.
- Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: As Hank gets ready to do some Christmas shopping, he calls Dale over to him and telling him in a discreet whisper he's getting Peggy a computer. This makes Dale yell out in excitement "A computer?!!", which earns him a Death Glare from Hank. Dale then repeats the phrase in a more hushed, but excited tone before he joins him in computer shopping.
- Disaster Dominoes: It's implied that all the things Dale hoarded ended up being ruined thanks to the hamster and the gerbil he was trying to breed for meat: they likely escaped the cage, chewed through the hoses of the kegs of pressurized Mountain Dew, flooding most of the food and the cigarettes and then ate their way through the rest of the food.
- Emergency Food Supply Animal:
- Dale naturally falls into the hysteria (despite him pretending he's not worried about it in front of Hank and the guys) and hoards tens of boxes of breakfast bars and several pressurized barrels of Mountain Dew. He also got two gerbils so they can breed and be a reliable food source for his family. That plan has one flaw: one of them is actually a hamster, as Nancy points out to him.Dale: Laugh now, lady. After a month of eating cockroaches, you will be begging for gerbster.
- Being tasked to find a source of food for the millennium survival, Dale and Chappy make their way to the animal shelter so they can "adopt dogs for their wives". But Chappy gives the charade away when he comments on the physical condition of the dogs and adds he wants one with a lot of meat on it, making the security guard drive them away.
- Dale naturally falls into the hysteria (despite him pretending he's not worried about it in front of Hank and the guys) and hoards tens of boxes of breakfast bars and several pressurized barrels of Mountain Dew. He also got two gerbils so they can breed and be a reliable food source for his family. That plan has one flaw: one of them is actually a hamster, as Nancy points out to him.
- Hypocrite: While not willing to admit it to his family and friends, Hank himself begins to fall for the Y2K frenzy just as Dale rushes to Hank's house after his gerbils destroy the food he's hoarded. Hank gets upset with him and tries to decline him food. But Dale calls Hank out on how he hoarded tanks of propane, which makes Hank admit he believes in the hysteria as well before planning on what to do to make it through the upcoming year.
- Millennium Bug: Computer problems run rampant throughout Arlen with Peggy fearing her old Kaypro won't survive the new millennium and her attempts to print off the files she has stored on her computer results in her printer getting jammed, destroying much of her hard work. And later on, when Hank attempts to get her a new computer for Christmas, he is unable to buy one due to the store having its own computer problems and Bobby only being able to play whack-a-mole due to the other arcade machines being down due to diagnostic testing.
- Mountain Man: Chappy, who runs a Christmas tree business, is a survivalist who doesn't use electricity. He in his own words "lives in a shack and poops in an outhouse". Someone who Hank runs to, along with Dale, when they all fall into the Y2K hysteria.
- My New Gift Is Lame: Fearing how technology will fall when 2000 rolls in, Hank buys the family incredibly primitive gifts in hope of survival, with Bobby getting toilet paper (although he's not upset about it as it was his favorite brand, plus he was in on his father's plan), Luanne a laundry mangler and Peggy a grandfather clock (when she was really wanting a new computer). And Bobby gives Luanne toilet paper too. Naturally both Peggy and Luanne get upset at these lackluster gifts as Peggy angrily heads out to buy them real Christmas gifts. In the case of Peggy's grandfather clock, it gets doubly subverted when Hank starts a bonfire with the toilet paper and the primitive gifts. Just as he gets ready to dump the clock into the fire, Peggy stops him, saying how she finds it charming, but after Hank tells her she's getting a computer for Christmas, Peggy gets ecstatic and kicks it in the fire.
- Not So Above It All: Hank tries hard to maintain his composure of the Only Sane Man just as everyone loses their minds over the Y2K bug, but he then falls for the hysteria himself, with him not being able to buy Peggy a new computer due to the computer store's own computer issues and the final straw being the propane commissioner freaking out over not being able to help with the propane shortage Arlen is facing, due to, you guessed it, computer issues. It was at that point when Hank believes in all the hysteria as he sneaks out of Strickland and takes some propane tanks for himself.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: At the beginning of the episode, Dale declares his trust in the US government and claims to support any of its decisions, which makes Hank comment that it took 2000 years but he's finally making some sense. The reason he's acting this way is because he thinks one of the doomsday scenarios he's been preparing for is finally here and he'll be able to become some kind of Wasteland Warlord as a result.
- Opinion-Changing Dream: Hank is fearful of what the Turn of the Millennium will bring, and when he puts some varnish on Peggy's grandfather clock, the smells of it combined with lack of ventilation in the garage make Hank fall unconscious. He has a dream where he's a mole in a a game of Whack-A-Mole, with several moles (including a version of Peggy). Hank is initially fearful of getting whacked, with mole Bobby regressing to infancy and making a fort of toilet paper. It's not until he talks to a mole version of legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry that he should stop fearing getting whacked and enjoy the moments when he pops out and doesn't get whacked. When Hank recovers, he then learns that he shouldn't be afraid of what the future will bring.
- Take That!: In-universe, with Peggy's old computer model, the Kaypro. When Peggy inquires to an employee at Dell if the Kaypro is Y2K compliant, she laughs at her. And later on, when computer shopping, Hank asks the clerk if it's Y2K compliant, the clerk jabs that the it's not even Y1K compliant.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: For Bill, when he inadvertently gives away to Peggy Hank is Christmas shopping. Peggy then invites Bill to the house, making him a cheese plate and pouring him some wine as he tries to tell her a story about which drawers he keeps his combs. Peggy stops him and asks what Hank is getting her. When Bill reveals she's getting a new computer, an excited Peggy abandons Bill, leaving him to kick himself for letting her slip away.
