"So there might not've been a millionth customer winner, but there was a big loser!"
During a yard sale at the Banana house, Gumball happens upon a collection of paintings done by Banana Barbara, all of which have been finished before the events portrayed in them occurred. When her latest work of art depicts Gumball appearing naked at the mall in front of an angry mob, Gumball does everything he can to prevent it from happening.
Tropes:
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Nicole doesn't believe Banana Barbara can paint the future, despite all the other weird things she's seen/experienced in the other episodes, like housing an amnesiac Santa Claus in "Christmas".
- Bittersweet Ending: Gumball ultimately realizes that he cannot change the future and exposes himself on live TV as the painting foretold, but at least he did it on his terms.
- Brick Joke: At the yard sale during the episode's beginning, Richard plays with the zoom on a pair of binoculars. At episode's end, the Wattersons are disturbed by Barbara's painting's being a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy and we get a zoom in and out on them which turns out to be a P.O.V. Cam of Richard playing with the binoculars again.
- Continuity Nod:
- "The Shell" previously showed Banana Barbara painting a prophetic image involving Gumball bursting in on Banana Bob's bath as an unexplained gag. Here, it's established that she's been doing this for years and it's shown that what she's doing is very disturbing, especially when the episode closes on her revealing her latest work of art.
- Banana Barbara's painting includes one of the Watterson kids sneaking into Tina's room in "The Quest" and Darwin kissing Carrie in "Halloween".
- A partially visible sign for gum has the words "So fresh is gives penguins brainf—". Gumball tried to tell Penny almost the same thing in "The Mirror" ("You're so cool you give penguins brain freeze."); possibly that's where he got the line.
- One of the billboards at the mall is for Daniel Lennard cosmetics.
- The painting shown at the episode's end has the rejected design for the Watterson house and a background of floating land pieces in television static (a very specific pattern in fact), just like the dimension of bad ideas seen in "The Void". The scene ends with the same musical sting as was used throughout "The Void".
- Deliberately Cute Child: Gumball tries act cute to get Nicole to take him to a thrift shop instead of the mall, but he lays it on too thick and just annoys her.
- Dressed in Layers: Gumball wore his winter jacket under his sweater just in case it was torn off.
- Droste Image: The first of Banana Barbara's paintings we see in this episode is of Gumball holding the same painting in the air, which can be seen repeating inside the painting to several levels.
- Epic Fail: Gumball tries to sabotage the car so it won't start, but accidentally makes it faster—until it could have taken him away from the mall, then it breaks down and causes another part of the painting to come true (raining raccoons).
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: When Banana Joe is asked who made the painting and he points to his mom inside the house, she is already in the process of making the painting shown at episode's end.
- Human Knot: Gumball pretends to tie the shoes he doesn't wear and ends up tying his toes in a knot.
- Internal Homage: After finding Banana Barbara's paintings, Gumball, Darwin, and Anais almost reenact the shared "What?" "The?" "What?" Gumball, Darwin, and Mr. Small had in "The Void", but Anais wasn't paying attention and came in late.
- Left the Background Music On: What Gumball thinks is ominous music turns out to be a bunch of dads moaning and banging their heads on the wall because they had to come to the mall.
- Metaphorgotten: Gumball claims Banana Barbara knew about Darwin kissing Carrie because he has a reputation as a lady's man, describing him with a long, strange metaphor that Gumball admits to losing track of.
- Noodle Implements:
- The Banana family own a sort of pelvis-mounted harness called a toilet swing, which they use to keep from slipping into the toilet because of their weird body shape. Bob begins to explain how it works, but Darwin and Gumball both loudly cut him off.
- In the background of the Banana family's backyard there's a tutu which, judging from the initials "BJ" sewn onto it, belongs to Banana Joe.
- Non-Natural Number Gag: Banana Joe offers Gumball a mask for half a penny, and won't take a full one. Gumball points out that there's no way to pay thatnote , so Joe lowers it to a quarter of a penny. Gumball decides to add a painting to make it half a dollar total, and pays with a torn half of a dollar bill out of spite. When Banana Joe points out he could have just paid fifty cents, Gumball would have hit him with the painting if the image hadn't distracted him.Gumball: Dude, half pennies don't exist. That's like half a sentence. It doesn't make any—
(Beat after Gumball stops talking)
Banana Joe: That sentence made no sense.
Gumball: Exactly. - Not What It Looks Like: Darwin breathes in on Gumball after being spilled by coffee to lessen the heat. Marvin comes by and sees what they're doing and thinks they're doing something inappropriate. He says he doesn't know exactly what they're doing and scolds them, making him crash into a store, causing a ruckus.
- Pun: Banana Bob calls his balaclava a "bananaclava".
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The events depicted in the painting were caused by Gumball trying to avoid them. At the end of the episode, Anais wonders if any of it would still happen if they hadn't seen the painting.
- Sequel Hook: The ending has Banana Barbara painting a picture of the Wattersons running from Elmore as it's collapsing around them, possibly foreshadowing a future episode.
- Screw Destiny: Gumball ends up naked on TV despite all his efforts to avoid it, but Anais maintains that it only happened because Gumball made it happen. Ultimately, despite everything else coming true by accident, Gumball was still only naked in the end because he deliberately took his clothes off, preferring to end up that way of his own choosing to someone else causing it.
- Short-Distance Phone Call: Gumball tries to get the cops to close the mall with a phone call warning about something terrible happening. Donut Cop knows its him because he's standing right behind Gumball, who didn't actually dial the phone.
- Shout-Out:
- The records in Banana Bob's yard sale include Joy Division's Unknown Pleasures, and the one with Bob on the cover is a parody of The Velvet Underground & Nico called "The Velour Overground".
- When Gumball's body gets antsy and starts moving without him, the erratic walking animation and music reference "going to the store
" by David Lewandowski.
- Signs of Disrepair: A billboard with several different posters layered over each other has some partially torn off, creating the message "[ALWAYS WATCHING] [GUM][BALL]"
- Skepticism Failure: Anais tries to deny that the painting is coming true even as a bunch of details in the painting start showing up at once. When raccoons start falling from the sky, she admits "I'm kind of running out of arguments, here."
- Stylistic Self-Parody:
- Anais is shocked to she how weird she looks like from behind, which Gumball describes as looking like butt cheeks after liposuction.
- Anais suggest the reason Gumball doesn't lose consciousness when taking a blow to the head is that his head is so oversized compared to his brain that it forms a cushion that prevents his brain and the inside of his skull from ever touching. Gumball adds that he can't see his whole face in the mirror and always wears the same sweater because it doesn't come over his head, keeping him from taking it off.
- Tap on the Head: Gumball tries to get Darwin to knock him out so he can be sure he won't be at the mall by the day's end. No matter how hard he hits, Gumball doesn't pass out.
- Understatement: Nicole remarks "Now that's a serious manufacturing defect." in response to her entire engine flying out of the car.
- The Unreveal: We never find out how Gumball escaped from the angry mob or the police that were chasing after him—as soon as the painting came true, we skip to Gumball watching it on TV.
- Wham Shot: The last shot of the episode shows Banana Barbara's newest picture, which features the Wattersons in the dimension of the world's mistakes (the same one from "The Void") running and screaming, setting up a future episode.
- Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Gumball tries to avoid ending up at the mall by just sitting in place at home, but he's too hyperactive then too paranoid to stay in place.
- Worst News Judgement Ever: "Crowds are flocking to the Elmore Mall today as the millionth customer is to win some sort of promotional bribe for pushing a shopping cart. You are watching Channel 6 news, where we make a lot of news about nothing."
- Your Television Hates You: Nicole switching through several radio stations has their messages run together to form one.Are you worried about your future?—
'cause indeed, you will reveal yourself~—
In front of the biggest televised audience ever!
