Original air date: 11/2/2005
Mrs. Garrison realises she still has feelings for Mr. Slave. But Mr. Slave has moved on, and plans to marry his new boyfriend, Big Gay Al as soon as the Governor signs the same sex marriage bill.
This episode includes examples of:
- Accidental Hero: Mrs. Garrison makes a deal with the governor of Colorado that she can get him a scientific study proving gay couples can’t raise children, said study being her students who are paired up and assigned to take care of eggs, with Stan and Kyle representing a gay couple. Despite her efforts to sabotage them (to the point of hiring a hitman to try and take out their egg), Stan and Kyle are able to get their egg safely to the press conference, and the governor declares that gay couples can get married. When Randy tells the boys he's proud of them, a confused Kyle asks, "What did we do?"
- Bait-and-Switch: Cartman admits to breaking his and Heidi's egg, but actually tries to ask Mrs. Garrison to give him an F and Heidi an A which is very generous and out of character for the self-centered Cartman, but then he asks for the grades to be averaged into a C minus even though it was all his fault and not Heidi's.
- Batman Gambit: Kyle knew Stan was too paranoid to trust him with the egg, so he sneakily gave him a fake while holding on to the real one himself.
- Big "NO!": Garrison's reaction to the Governor allowing same-sex marriages.
- Continuity Nod: The episode begins with Mrs. Garrison deciding to patch things up with Mr. Slave after they broke up in "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina".
- Didn't Think This Through: The governor's compromise for marriage equality is to simply deem all language referring to male homosexual relationships be replaced with "butt buddies", explicitly dismissing any consideration for lesbians. Naturally, the gay community doesn't go for it.
- Disproportionate Retribution:
- Mrs. Garrison conspires to have the gay marriage bill vetoed because Mr. Slave wouldn't take her back.
- Also, when Cartman refuses his replacement egg, Mrs. Garrison threatens to break his legs and burn down his house.
- Double Standard: Mrs. Garrison comes down harder on Stan and Kyle as egg-parents but says nothing of Wendy and Bebe. Paralleling this, during a protest rally, the governor says "Like anyone cares about fucking dykes." The reaction is predictable.
- Egg Sitting: Turns out to be the B plot of the episode when Mrs. Garrison's tirade against gay marriage takes center stage.
- Everyone Has Standards: The gay marriage protesters side with Mrs. Garrison's homophobic speech, until she insists on causing physical harm to gay people through what she called a "fag drag". As one of them put it, they don't hate homosexuals, they just don't think they should be allowed to marry each other.
- Evil Is Petty: Although Mrs. Garrison claims she's acting against same-sex marriages as a protest about the sanctity of matrimony, it's pretty obvious she's doing it purely to spite Mr. Slave.
- Freak Out: Stan after Mrs. Garrison's assassin shoots the egg.
- Green-Eyed Monster:
- Mrs. Garrison's reason for preventing same-sex marriage becoming legal is because she wants to get back at Mr. Slave leaving her for Big Gay Al.
- Stan thinks Kyle is trying to get together with Wendy ever since Mrs. Garrison initially paired them up for the Egg Sitting project and takes full custody of parenting when Mrs. Garrison pairs up Stan and Kyle later on in order to prove that he's every bit as good as Kyle is.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Mrs. Garrison's plot to make gay marriage illegal ultimately makes it legal in the end.
- Hypocritical Humor: Stan says he wanted to prove to Wendy he was a good egg sitter, only to brush her off at the end when she says he is. Though the scene where Stan and Kyle reconcile made him realize he doesn't really care what Wendy thinks of him, may have something to do with it.
- It's All About Me: Mrs. Garrison wants gay marriage illegal to spite Mr. Slave for moving on and being engaged to Big Gay Al. Before that she attempted to rally a lynch mob.
- Left the Background Music On: When Mrs. Garrison broke into song during class, everyone stopped what they were doing and looked at her like she had gone more nuts than usual.
- Karma Houdini:
- The assassin Jakartha gets away with killing numerous people while trying to destroy Stan and Kyle's egg.
- Garrison, who hired him in the first place, gets away with a slap on the wrist.
- Only Sane Man: Kyle is the only one who treats the egg sitting assignment as what it is, a school project.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Cartman is shocked that Mrs. Garrison would allow him to get away with switching his broken egg.
- Product Delivery Ordeal: During the climax of the episode, Stan and Kyle aim to deliver their egg and call Ms. Garrison to tell her that they're on the way, but as they drive a car across the street they have to escape from a murderer whom Garrison hired to destroy the egg and thus sabotage their delivery.note The murderer is shooting at them during the pursuit, and also makes some landmines in the road explode. The two boys manage to escape but, due to their wounds and overall fatigue, they pummel right after showing the now-safe egg to Ms. Garrison; the state's governor sees this as proof that gay couples can raise a family and thus approves gay marriage.
- Properly Paranoid: Cartman immediately suspects Garrison wants something from him the moment Garrison tries to give him a new egg, and he's right. Garrison can't allow a straight couple to have a broken egg, or it will only highlight the one gay couple having an intact egg.
- Reasonable Authority Figure: Well, about as reasonable as any adult on this show gets. The governor of Colorado agrees that he will decide whether or not gay couples can raise children based on Mrs. Garrison's egg study. When Stan and Kyle show up at the press conference with their egg intact, he keeps his promise and grants marriage rights to all the gay couples.
- Reverse Psychology: Mrs. Garrison manages to convince Jakartha, who rightfully finds assassinating an egg ridiculous, to accept a contract on Kyle and Stan's egg by suggesting he's not good enough to do it.
- Sequel Episode: To "Mr. Garrison's Fancy New Vagina" for Mrs. Garrison's story and "Raisins" for Stan's story.
- Serious Business:
- Mrs. Garrison was so determined to make people think a gay couple couldn't handle a child that he enlisted the world's best sniper to shoot Stan and Kyle's egg.
- The kids take the assignment way too seriously as well. Stan thinks Kyle is trying to make himself look good in front of Wendy, Bebe treats Stan like a neglectful father because he's apathetic towards their egg, and Wendy's reaction to losing her egg to Stan and Kyle is to act like a mother losing her actual child. Meanwhile, Kyle is left wondering why everyone is acting so weird.
- Ship Sinking: Kyle makes it clear to Stan that he doesn't like Wendy and never meant to impress her.
- Ship Tease: Cartman's action above has led to speculation that Cartman has a thing for Heidi. Fast-forward to the Season 20 episode "The Damned", this is confirmed. In fact, they become a couple in "Wieners Out".
- Shout-Out: The reconciliation between Stan and Kyle is very similar to how Captain Picard and Lt. Worf reconciled in Star Trek: First Contact.
- Shown Their Work: The governor looks like Bill Owens, the real-life governor at the time.
- So Proud of You: Randy to Stan and Kyle after they (unwittingly) helped gay marriage become legalized.
- Take That!: The governor is portrayed as a spineless loser who only wanted the job for the money and respect, bursting into tears when Mrs. Garrison demands that he vetoes the gay marriage bill.
- There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The assassin Mrs. Garrison hires to deal with the egg doesn't hesitate to use live ammo and bombs in a crowded place.
- What a Drag: Mrs. Garrison initially has this in mind for dealing with the gay marriage issue before her fellow protesters suggest just getting the governor to veto the bill.Mrs. Garrison: Come on, everybody! Let's get some queers and some trucks and have us a good old-fashioned fag drag!
- Weak-Willed: The governor is pathetically spineless about avoiding criticism. He's willing to base his decision concerning the controversial issue of gay marriage on a scientific study, but it's only to absolve himself of any responsibility in the eyes of the voters, and the "scientific" study whose results he accepts is whether a same sex partnership on an elementary school project would fail at egg sitting.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Kyle calls Stan out for thinking Kyle is trying to steal Wendy when he doesn't really care about her since the break-up.
- Won't Take "Yes" for an Answer: When Cartman tries to negotiate Garrison for a better grade after he breaks his egg, Garrison instead just gives him another egg with the exact same face and lets him continue on with the project as if nothing happened. Cartman is so caught off-guard by his teacher's unexpected generosity that he refuses it out of sheer paranoia. It takes Garrison threatening to break both of his legs and burning his house down that Cartman relents and accepts.
- Would Hurt a Child: Garrison is more than willing to put the lives of Stan and Kyle at risk just to prove a point about gay marriage being immoral. She also has no problem threatening to break both of Cartman's legs when he refuses to take the new egg she made for him.
