When Hanks cries during a dramatic movie, Peggy suspects it reminds him of his distance with Bobby. But his emotions are tied to something else: His dying truck.
- The Alleged Car: While it's shown to be rather unreliable even at the best of times, Hank's truck is on its last legs during the episode, though Hank denies it.
- Didn't Think This Through: After Hank's destroyed truck is towed away, Hank realizes shortly afterwards he should have asked them to give him and Bobby a lift too, since now they don't have a ride of their own. He presumably didn't ask before because he was too angry at Bobby.
- Five Stages of Grief: Hank goes through this in a different order when it comes to his dying truck.
- Denial: Hank denies he's crying when pressed on it.
- Despair: Hank admits that he's crying because there's something wrong with his truck and bawled over finding out there was "water in the exhaust".
- Bargaining: Despite being told that the truck will cost more to fix than its worth, he tries to fix it himself but it flames up on him every attempt until the truck meet its end when it gets stuck on the railroad tracks to get hit by a train.
- Anger: Hank gets angry after his truck which overheated cost Strickland Propane their big account and then when his truck gets destroyed by a train, he takes his anger out on Bobby claiming he got his truck killed despite the evidence that it doesn't have much to live.
- Acceptance: Hank comes to enjoy the new features and upgrades of the F-250 he test drives to find Bobby and apologizes to him for blaming him for the truck's destruction.
- Hope Spot: Hank desperately tries to get the car to start when it stalls out on the railroad tracks. It starts for a second, and Hank is overjoyed... and it immediately conks out before he can switch gears.
- Insane Troll Logic: After his truck is destroyed, Hank angrily blames Bobby for what happened. When Bobby reminds him of how the mechanic said the truck only had 500 miles left, Hank stubbornly declares that even if he was right, which he says he wasn't, if he had only driven his truck 5 miles a year he could have kept it another hundred years.
- I Reject Your Reality:
- After leaving the oculist, Hank breaks down in tears, and admits to Peggy that he is in fact crying, and when she tells him that she'll help him with the emotional issues he has with being Bobby's father, Hank tells her that he's crying because of his truck not Bobby, but Peggy refuses to believe him. After Hank comes back from a bad day at work, he snaps at Bobby and Peggy, and she tries to reassure Bobby that Hank didn't mean to snap at them, and still loves him, and when Bobby says that Hank is upset because his truck keeps breaking down, Peggy dismisses his claim.
- Hank to some extent also falls into this, believing that his truck is fixable and blaming his own son when it actually gets destroyed midway through the episode.
- Manly Tears: Hank cries because his beloved truck is breaking down.
- Men Don't Cry: After Hank breaks down at the movie because the emotional scene between Ethan Hawke and Charlton Heston's characters reminds him of the issues with his truck, Dale, Bill, and Boomhauer make fun of him. It was only after his friends learned why that they stopped teasing him and check on him while he tried to fix his truck.
- Never My Fault: Hank blames Bobby for the destruction of his truck when it gets hit by a train, but soon comes to the realization that it wasn't Bobby's fault when Bobby decides to walk back to Arlen from the truck dealership.
- Railroad Tracks of Doom: Where the truck breaks down for good, and quickly meets a crashy end courtesy of an oncoming train.
- Retcon: The truck, often animated as a mid-90s Ford and even confirmed to be from the 1994 model year in "Jumpin' Crack Bass", is instead revealed to be over 20 years old when Hank mentions it survived 4 presidents. This is also the only time it's shown having a manual transmission instead of an automatic, as seen in previous episodes.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Peggy is correct that something is deeply upsetting Hank, but incorrect about what that something actually is. Even after Hank tells her, she doesn't believe him at first.
- Sand In My Eyes: Hank at first tries to play off his crying as some sort of physiological issue, before admitting to Peggy that he's sad about his truck, but she doesn't believe him. At the very end, when Hank takes a brand new truck on a test drive, in order to find Bobby who decided to walk home after Hank scolded him, Bobby tells him that he loved the old truck and had many good memories of riding in it. He then gives Hank the old truck's gear stick knob, and even says that maybe the reason the truck stalled on the train tracks is because the truck wanted him to move on and let it rest after a good service life. After hearing this, Hank and Bobby tear up because of the "new car smell" which Hank describes as "very strong."
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Played for Drama with Bobby. Hank's anger at Bobby over his truck getting destroyed, even though it wasn't his fault, eventually leads to Bobby ditching Hank and trying to walk back home, which is 45 miles away, rather than stay and continue to get insulted. When Hank realizes Bobby is gone, he borrows a new truck by test-driving it so he can find him.
- Skewed Priorities: Hank very nearly gets himself killed trying to get his truck off the train tracks as a train is approaching. Bobby even shouts for his dad to just leave it and get to safety.
- White-Collar Crime: After Hank arrives at the office, Mr. Strickland asks Hank to drive him to a trailer park, that is one of their biggest clients and whose owner wants to cancel their contract. When Hank asks why, Strickland admits that he ordered Enrique to only deliver half of the agreed amount of propane, but charge them full price. At the meeting, the owner grills (no pun intended) Hank and Strickland about the accounting discrepancies, and after Strickland delivers a half hearted lie, he passes out from heat exhaustion, from Hank turning on the heater on his truck on the drive over to keep the engine from overheating, and Hank awkwardly asks: "Uh, we lost the account, didn't we?"
