Marco Diaz: Brave, daring, metrosexual.
When Tom vies for Marco’s company instead of Star’s, Marco becomes suspicious.
Tropes:
- Aesop Amnesia:
- Star forgets that all of Tom's previous interactions with her and Marco involve manipulation and ulterior motives on Tom's part. While Tom is relatively better in this episode, he's still manipulative.
- Tom still hasn't learned that manipulating someone into being with you doesn't make for a healthy friendship or relationship. Even though his basis was that he hates Marco, while he likes Star, his deception ruins the good bonding time that he and Marco actually have.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: "Where'd you get your sweet ride... at a funeral home?!"
- Batman Gambit: Marco challenges two obnoxious dude-bros who make fun of Tom's carriage to a drag race, which turns out to be a ploy to get them arrested for speeding and reckless driving.
- Becoming the Mask: Initially, Tom only pretended to befriend Marco to pass Anger Management. Eventually, he begins to truly bond with Marco. Also, he starts to become a true fan of Mackie Hand, which he initially faked to convince Marco to hang out with him.
- Best Served Cold: Marco shows Tom how to do this to two of the dude-bros so that Tom doesn't lose his temper.
- Beware the Nice Ones:
- Marco, a Nice Guy who is protective of his friends, teaches Tom how to get revenge on two hecklers without getting in trouble.
- When Tom reveals that the events of the episode were just a test in order to graduate from anger management and that he still deeply hates Marco. Marco becomes enraged which causes Tom to back away in fear and for Marco to break down a door that locked with chains.
- Bigger on the Inside: Tom's (skeleton) horse-drawn carriage looks like a tiny two-seater, but is the size of a small house on the inside.
- Call-Back:
- When trying to convince Marco to hang out with him, Tom claims that he felt he and Marco bonded over the time they played a game of ping-pong together, but Marco points out that Tom kidnapped him, referring to the events of "Mr. Candle Cares".
- Marco's A in psychology comes in handy when keeping Tom's temper cool.
- Continuity Nod:
- The boy band Love Sentence was first mentioned in "Red Belt," with Star also being a fan of them.
- Mackie Hand's reaction to being informed that he's dead mirrors the reaction Tom's carriage horse had to the same revelation in "Blood Moon Ball".
- Converted Fanboy: Tom only pretended to be a fan of Mackie Hand and says that Mackie Hand movies are garbage after the ruse is found out. Near the end of the episode, he appears to be genuinely impressed by Mackie Hand's martial arts.
- A Day in the Limelight: The episode is entirely about Marco and Tom. Star only appears in the first two minutes.
- Death Amnesia: When Mackie Hand is brought back to life, he believes mere moments had passed since his fatal accident.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: Turns out the white tiger in Tom's coach was his anger management counselor in disguise. Marco is especially shocked because he changed his litter box.
- Duet Bonding: After Marco storms away over being manipulated by Tom, Tom tries to reconcile by singing the Love Sentence song "Too Little Too Late", which Marco proceeds to sing along with him. While not alone enough to win Marco back over, it's the start of them becoming friends on a more genuine level.
- Fatal Method Acting: In-universe; Marco mentions Mackie Hand died thirty years ago performing a dangerous stunt on himself.
- Forgiveness: Subverted; Tom hasn't forgiven Marco for accidentally binding souls with Star and preventing them from getting back together, but he does get a Heel Realization.
- Hand Behind Head: Tom nervously rubs the back of his neck when Marco asks him why he's so nice toward him all of a sudden.
- Head Desk: Marco bangs his laptop against his head when the tickets to the Mackie Hand movie marathon get sold out.
- Heel Realization: Tom when Marco calls him out after learning about the anger management test.
- Hope Spot: For Marco and Star, seeing that Tom may have turned over a new leaf given that he bonds with Marco and keeps his temper. Of course, Tom has an ulterior motive.
- Homoerotic Subtext: A lot between Marco and Tom after discovering their shared love of a boy-band.
- Hypocrite: After his ruse is revealed, Tom accuses Marco of being "selfish." This is despite the fact that Tom only wanted to hang out with Marco so he could graduate from his anger management course, and only offered him the Mackie Hand tickets so Marco would agree to come with him.
- In Love with the Mark: More like "genuinely befriending the mark", Tom tricked Marco into spending time with him as part of a plan to pass an anger management exam, but by the time Marco realized the ruse, the boys had connected over a shared love of Love Sentence.
- Mundane Utility: Apparently, as a prince of the Underworld Tom has the power to raise the dead; he uses it to resurrect Mackie Hand as a token of apology to Marco.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Mackie Hand is an Expy of Jackie Chan, with the appearance of Chuck Norris
- Noodle Incident: We never find out how Star got tangled in Christmas lights, or why she was messing with them in the first place.
- Pass the Popcorn: Marco and Tom sit back, eat cereal, and enjoy Mackie Hand beating up the security guards and ticket booth guy.
- Photo-Booth Montage: During the Love Sentence song, Marco and Tom slips in the photo booth of the cart, with the classic montage of photos showing them fooling around following.
- Shout-Out: Mackie Hand is a parody of famed martial artist/film star Jackie Chan, while the manner in which he died is reminiscent of Brandon Lee, son of Bruce.
- Title Drop: Only mostly, but one of the Love Sentence songs in the episode has the word "frenemies" in the lyrics.
- Too Good to Be True: Marco is suspicious when Tom happens to have tickets to the movie marathon he wants to see and promises not to lose his temper, but Star encourages him to go.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Marco doesn't even look up when Star mentions she's tied up with Christmas decorations.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Admittedly, more on the vitriolic part than with Ponyhead, but this is Marco and Tom's dynamic at the end. They still don't like each other, but they've definitely bonded (and merely "not liking" someone is a far cry from the same person being your "most hated person").
- Was It All a Lie?: Marco is furious that the only reason Tom wanted to hang out with him was as a test of his anger management skills. The part about being a fan of Love Sentence was true, but it's "too little, too late."
- Your Costume Needs Work: The ticket booth guy denies the resurrected Mackie Hand entry into the theater, thinking he's just a cosplayer. Understandable since Mackie has been dead for over thirty years.
