Original air date: 3/14/2012
After Clyde's mom dies on the toilet because he left the seat up, the Toilet Safety Administration (TSA) is called upon to monitor everyone on the toilet. Meanwhile, Stan convinces Clyde to sue the long-dead inventor of the toilet.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Cartman mocks Clyde over how his mom's died, and the ensuing issues with TSA interference meant jack all in the end as the bathroom returned to being "the last bastion of American freedom", even if the rules were changed slightly.
- Amoral Attorney: The lawyer is clearly a scam-artist that offers "sue-ances" to siphon money from gullible people.
- Bait-and-Switch: The episode starts with 2 different scenes involving Clyde's mother complaining about Clyde's habit, seemingly setting up a plot where Clyde has to constantly deal with his mother antagonizing him, however, the actual plot begins when Betsy gets stuck in the toilet and dies, setting up the events relating to the TSA and the misery put onto Clyde's life.
- Bait the Dog: When Clyde's mother reappears as a ghost, she appears to have Took a Level in Kindness without showing any hint of rudeness and even points out that the attorney is a scam-artist, immediately after, she goes back to being rude and unpleasant to her own son, then proceeds to blame him for her death.
- Big Bad: Downplayed, while Betsy is just a plain Jerkass at most and the fact that she dies only a couple of minutes into the episode, she is entirely responsible for Clyde being miserable for almost the entire episode and her death is what causes the TSA to form.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Both genders are correct in blaming the other over the toilet seats. Men are at fault for leaving the toilet seat up, but so are women for not taking a second to check. Then it turns out that neither side is right, since they all sit on the toilet the wrong way.
- Break the Cutie: Poor Clyde! His mom dies and a bunch of insensitive jerks blame him for her death just because he didn't put the toilet seat down. Understandably, he spends most of the episode silent in grief.
- The Can Kicked Him: Mrs. Donovan falls into a toilet as it's flushing and gets her organs ripped out of her body by the negative pressure.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: Everyone looks at Butters like he's crazy when he reveals that he sits backwards on the toilet. We later learn from the toilet inventor's ghost that this was exactly what he intended users to do.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Played for Laughs. Clyde's mom gets killed while she is stuck in the toilet as it flushes.
- A Day in the Limelight: Clyde is the focus of the episode. Though unlike other examples he doesn't talk much.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Clyde's mom comes to school, embarrasses Clyde in front of his class for yet again leaving the toilet seat up, and makes him come home just to put it down.
- The Dissenter Is Always Right: Played for Laughs. Butters reveals that he's been sitting on the toilet backwards so that he can put objects like books on the tank, as opposed to everyone else, who sits on toilets forwards. Then the ghost of John Harrington reveals that the toilet is actually meant to be sat on facing the tank so you can place things there.Butters: (triumphant) Aha! I told you that you should sit on it that way! I told you!
- The Dog Bites Back: The last scene of the episode shows Clyde putting up the toilet seat to spite his mother, fully aware that she's dead and that she can't force him to put it up anymore.
- Everyone Has Standards: A Deleted Scene has everyone (even Cartman) being visibly appalled at Butters insensitively bringing up how Clyde unintentionally killed his mom and Jimmy cracking a joke about it.
- Flipping the Bird: At the end of the episode, after using it, Clyde was about to put the toilet seat out before deciding to leave it back up and showed his middle finger to the sky (aka at his mom) before leaving.
- Hate Sink: A variant where a character wasn't one before, but becomes one. The writers made it glaringly obvious that you are supposed to feel bad for Clyde and not Betsy. She's an Insufferable Imbecile who emotionally abuses her own son for putting up the toilet seat, makes him put it up rather than doing it herself, says that she could've been more strict on him than actually apologizing for her bad behavior, (indirectly) causes more misery for Clyde by people blaming him, and to top it all off, she blames him for being the ENTIRE cause of her death, even though it's mostly her fault for not checking if the toilet seat was up and blindly sitting on it with Clyde having smaller part in it. Is it no wonder that he decided to disrespect her at the end?
- Hypocrite: At Mrs. Donovan's funeral, when men and women begin fighting over whose fault it is, one woman breaks up the fight to talk about Clyde's grief... and then immediately blames him for not putting the toilet seat down and blames him for his mother's death.
- Kick the Dog: A lot of people, including Clyde's mom herself, blame Clyde for the death of his mother, even saying that "her blood is on his wiener."
- Killed Off for Real: Betsy Donovan.
- Laser-Guided Karma: As a result of being a complete asshole towards Clyde, Betsy dies from the very habit her son does (although Clyde didn't intentionally mean to kill her), gets her life savings wasted by a scam from an Amoral Attorney, and finally, her own son decides to put up the toilet seat and begins Flipping the Bird at her from beyond the grave.
- Never My Fault: Both genders. The women place the blame solely on the men for not putting toilet seats down, and the men blame the women for not checking that the seat's down in the first place. In the end, they decide the blame must belong to the guy who invented toilets in the first place, who then blames all of them for using his invention the wrong way.
- Only Sane Man: Cartman is the only one who thinks the government keeping watch over everyone's bathrooms is a bigger issue than which gender is responsible for raising/lowering the toilet seat. He was also the only one to question the concept of a "Sue-ance".
- The Peeping Tom: The TSA hires one to watch over their security cameras. He even attempts to get off to Cartman's act of terrorism with a baby and one of the officers... it's only when Cartman spray paints the camera that he actually acts.
- Shaming the Mob: Subverted. When the men and women are using their eulogies at Mrs. Donovan's funeral as an excuse to argue who is at fault for her death, one woman berates them for it, only to put the blame on her son for not putting the toilet seat down, as having "blood on his wiener".
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Butters assumes you use the toilet backwards, facing the tank so you can put your objects on it. Turns out this is exactly how John Harrington invented it.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Although Betsy frequently makes a big deal over his habit and makes Clyde's life even worse after she dies, he holds no hard grudges against her and merely feels bad for killing her by accident despite all the emotional abuse she gives him. Subverted at the end however, as he stops, thinks for a moment, and then realizes how terrible of a parent she is just before he goes off to spitefully put up the toilet seat and flip her off.
- Take That!: This episode takes shots against post-9/11 airport security imposed by the actual TSA, as well as lawyers who prey on grieving people.
- Too Dumb to Live: Clyde's mom gets killed when her organs are pulled out of her because she sat down on a toilet without checking the seat, despite the fact she knows it's Clyde's habit.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Mrs. Donovan goes from simply being "Clyde's mom", like she was in all previous episodes, to being unbelievably bitchy and domineering about Clyde leaving the toilet seat up.
- Undignified Death: Mrs. Donovan gets the organs ripped from her body because she didn't check to see if the toilet seat was down.
- Vocal Dissonance: Clyde's mom's voice sounds more masculine in this episode, as opposed to earlier episodes. Justified because her voice actress, April Stewart, wasn't available to re-record her lines for the episode after the script was rewritten, so Trey Parker had to fill in for her.
