Ashley has bully trouble at her school, causing Will and Carlton to intervene and later Uncle Phil and Aunt Viv. However, these interventions end up going sideways.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Adults Are Useless: After Will and Carlton's attempt to put a stop to Paula results in her overpowering them as much as she does Ashley, she and Ashley eventually make amends on their own. However, this occurs simultaneously as Uncle Phil tries and fails to reason with Paula's parents, leaving things not much better than when they started.
- An Aesop: Violence is never the answer for people who trouble you, even though it may feel good at first. The episode further makes the point that this lesson applies to all ages.
- All for Nothing: A minor subplot in the episode has Hilary being asked to be a bridesmaid for her friend's wedding and engaging in painstaking work to design the perfect bridesmaid dress, only for the bride and groom to end up eloping without a ceremony at the end of the episode.
- Boxing Lesson: Played for laughs in two instances, first when Ashley tells Will about her bully problem and later when Philip and Vivian decide to talk to Paula's parents. Both times, Will suggests they train to box in preparation for what he believes will be a physical confrontation.
- The Bully: Paula Hoover plays the role fully straight, with her most common tactics for tormenting Ashley being to take her money or beat her up (sometimes both).
- Bully Hunter: Will and Carlton show up at Ashley's school to confront Paula, but it goes poorly.
- Cute Bruiser: Despite being smaller than them (but not to a considerable degree, especially with Carlton), Paula ends up physically intimidating Will and Carlton and extorting money from them.
- Daddy's Little Villain: It turns out Paula's abusive and bullying tendencies are directly reflective of her parents, particularly her Psycho Psychologist father.
- Evil Feels Good: Phil warns Ashley against this trope, admitting that as good as it felt punching Dr. Hoover's lights out (well, really, really good), Phil was wrong to do it.Phil: Sometimes, doing what feels good is wrong.
Will: [smiling in remembrance] Yeah...
Phil: [to Ashley] Everything that feels good is wrong! Everything! Do you understand me?! - Fighting Back Is Wrong: The main Aesop of the episode. Despite Will's inclination to have Ashley fight back against Paula at first, he realizes better when Uncle Phil ends up punching Paula's dad. Later on, Phil apologizes for his heated action. Carlton expresses this view throughout the episode.
- If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You: Inverted. Phil starts to tell Ashley that Fighting Back Is Wrong, even if it feels good; noticing Will's smile and imagining all too well what he's thinking, Phil hastily amends that everything that feels good is wrong!
- Jerkass: Paula's parents turn out to be arrogant, pretentious and obnoxious persons who deny any wrong their daughter is doing, accusing Ashley of being the one to bully their daughter instead despite it being clear that she can't, and twist everything Ashley, Phil and Vivian say into some sort of disorder. Paula's father even makes a jab at Phil's weight and insult his mother.
- Papa Wolf: Phil tries to be civil and diplomatic with Paula's parents, but when Paula's father keeps inventing nonexistent disorders that Ashley has, and tells him that he and Vivian should seek psychatric help for her he really starts to lose his patience toward him and his wife.
- Playing Sick: Ashley tries to fake a fever to get out of going to school and facing Paula, but her methods involve holding a thermometer over a hot lightbulb to get a temperature reading of 180 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Psycho Psychologist: Paula's father is a psychiatrist who mainly uses his practice to make an ass of himself in polite conversation, namely by twisting everything Philip, Vivian, and Ashley say and do into some sort of disorder.
- Relative Button: Inventing disorders for Ashley and saying that she should be institutionalized causes uncle Phil to lose his patience at Paula's parents, and to finally responds in kind to them. Paula's father then proceeds to insult his mother, causing him to finally lose it and punches Paula's father in retaliation.
- This Is Reality: Phil decks Dr. Hoover with one punch - then shakes his hand in pain, because punching someone that hard really hurts.
- Your Mother: Dr. Hoover makes the awful mistake of insulting Phil's.
