Guilt Trip: Ronnie Anne and her primos try to win a trip around the world for Maria.
Short Cut: When Carlota fails at hair cutting, she trains with CJ, the master barber.
"Guilt Trip" contains examples of:
- An Aesop: Win or lose, true parental love is unconditional.
- Animate Inanimate Object: The fridge Ronnie Anne and Bobby win from the Korean mart has some sentience, changing the letter magnets on its doors to spell different words depending on the situation, helps with the pizza eating contest, and wrestles the sumo, and participates in the dance contest.
- Bilingual Bonus: The sumo wrestler's name is "Reizōko," which also happens to be the Japanese word for "refrigerator."
- Bittersweet Ending: Bobby and Ronnie Anne lost every contest they tried to enter, therefore they are unable to win a trip overseas for their mother. But Maria's touched by her children's thoughtfulness and, in her own words, raising them "has been the journey of a lifetime." And besides, with Great Lakes City being a veritable melting pot, Ronnie Anne and Bobby can take their mom to hear Korean music, eat Italian pizza, and drink Japanese tea without having to leave the city.
- Braces of Orthodontic Overkill: Apparently, Sergio had them when he was younger.
- Bring My Brown Pants: The fridge ejects some ice from its dispenser when its about to sumo wrestle, or rather gets beaten by the sumo.
- Competition Freak: Rosa came to the dance marathon to win.
- Dwindling Party: According to Mrs. Kernicky, the last couple still dancing during the dance marathon will win a trip around the world. Naturally, the dancers drop out in the following order:
- Three hours into the dance competition, Frida stops to take pictures (costing her and Carlos the trip), CJ and Carl are sent out for fighting, Hector tries to take a snack from the fridge (which ruins the contest for him, Rosa, Reizouko, and the fridge), Sergio stops to cheat (which disqualifies him and Carlota), and Carlitos soils his diaper (while also soiling his and Lalo's chances of winning).
- Finally, six hours into the dance competition, there are only two couples left. Bobby and Ronnie Anne end up dropping out because Bobby falls asleep from exhaustion, resulting in Mrs. Kernicky and Mr. Scully winning the competition.
- Failed a Spot Check: The flyer for the pizza eating contest promising a trip to Italy has the bottom curled up covering the part that says "*for your mouth".
- Failure Is the Only Option: Bobby and Ronnie Anne's attempts to win their mother a free trip overseas:
- First, they try spinning a wheel to win Mom a free trip to Korea, but instead win a fridge and a big tuna.
- Next, they try eating a gigantic pizza to win Mom a free trip to Italy, only to learn an Italy-shaped pizza was the prize instead.
- Then, they try sending the fridge to face off against the sumo wrestler Reizouko, who doles a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on the fridge.
- Finally, they, along with the Casagrandes, enter a dance concert to win Mom a trip around the world, but six hours into the competition, Bobby falls asleep, so Mrs. Kernicky and Mr. Scully win. This is especially frustrating because Mrs. Kernicky and Mr. Scully are not the main characters of the show
- Foreshadowing: A minor one. The pizza on the contest flyer is shaped like Italy, but Ronnie Anne, Bobby, Sergio, Lalo and the fridge is a regular shaped pizza almost the size of the table its on. The Italy shaped pizza is their prize.
- Irony: As a high schooler, Maria was voted "most likely to travel the world," but Bobby notes that she has never gone overseas (although this doesn't necessarily mean that she's never been outside the United States).
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When it looks like Ronnie Anne and Bobby have won a free trip to Korea, she celebrates, hitting the wheel and instead winning a booby prize—a fridge.
- Pubescent Braces: This episode reveals that Maria Santiago wore braces when she was in high school.
- Put Off Their Food: Bobby's reaction to Maria's mention of boils, bunions, and blisters."Mom! I'm eating!"
- Running Gag: Throughout the episode, the magnetic letters on the refrigerator change to express its current mood.
- Temporary Bulk Change: Sergio becomes very fat from eating lots of pizza.
"Short Cut" contains examples of:
- Barbershop Episode: In this episode, Margarita has Carlota become her assistant in her barbershop because her normal assistant becomes sick. However, Carlota's first attempts to style people's hair are absolutely disastrous, so she trains with CJ, the master barber.
- Digging Yourself Deeper: Both Carlota's inability to style other people's hair and Carl's bad haircut are rubbed in when Sergio makes a movie about "the bad hairdresser," and Bobby mistakes Carl for Abuelo.
- Epic Fail: Carlota's simple cut of Carl's hair results in him looking like he was shaven nearly bald.
- Has Two Thumbs and...: After his hair is restored, Carl says to himself, "Who has two thumbs and is muy guapo? This guy."
- Hidden Depths: CJ's revealed to be an excellent hairstylist in this episode.
- Milholland Relationship Moment: When Carlota confesses the truth to Margarita, the hairstylist is a little disappointed in Carlota for lying to her, but assures her that she would've given her more time and argues that you don't have to be good at everything right away. In the end, Carlota continues working at the salon until Carlota genuinely earns the proper certificate to be a hairstylist.
- The Reveal: Carl's regular hair stylist turns out to be CJ, his own brother.
- Sick Episode: Downplayed, in that it doesn't occur to any of the major characters—Margarita has Carlota fill in as her assistant because her regular assistant is out sick (with both the chickenpox and the flu!).
- The Stool Pigeon: Sergio uses his video to show the entire bridal party that CJ did the bride's hair instead of Carlota.
- Tears of Joy: The father of the bride sheds these when he sees his daughter's fabulous new hairdo.
- Tempting Fate: Upon seeing the bride and her father at Margarita's, Carlota assumes that Margarita's hair styling for a wedding won't be so bad...until all the bridesmaids show up.
- Traumatic Haircut: The first time Carlota tries giving Carl a haircut, she ends up giving him a haircut similar to Abuelo Hector's. Carl is horrified!
- Visual Pun: Margarita calls her hair "a bird's nest," and sure enough, there are literal birds in her hair!
