Fandom Pains: Lucy is upset that Lori and Leni started watching her vampire series, as a new character is introduced.
Rita Her Rights: After racking up tickets, Mom finds it more relaxing to perform community service than being at home.
"Fandom Pains"
- A Day in the Limelight: For Lucy, Lori and Leni.
- Aesop Amnesia: Lucy forgets to simply talk things out with her siblings.
- Alliterative Name: Blake Bradley.
- Bizarre Seasons: Even though there are orange trees outside when Lucy and her friends are collecting signatures, later, Lori and Leni are marking a calendar that says “April,” even though it is clearly fall outside.
- The Bus Came Back: Haiku makes her first Season 3 appearance in this episode.
- Classical Movie Vampire: Lincoln is dressed as one in the title card.
- Cosplay: Lucy has Leni and Lori cosplay as vampires, supposedly as part of a ritual prior to watching The Vampires of Melancholia.
- Covers Always Lie: Lincoln is shown in the title card, dressed like Dracula, but he's nowhere to be seen in the episode itself.
- The Danza: In-Universe, Edwin is played by Edward Moore.
- Disney Villain Death: Though for a non-villainous character; Tristan is killed off in the show when he falls off a cliff. He eventually comes back as a vampire, but since he did technically die, it’s still this.
- Estrogen Brigade: Tristan, played by a super hot actor named Blake Bradley, is this for The Vampires of Melancholia.
- Evil Laugh: Lucy when she plans to get rid of Tristan so Leni and Lori will stop watching.
- Gone Horribly Right: Lucy manages to expel Tristan from the show (in her conception), and consequently dismiss her sisters. But in the show's next chapter, when Edwin realizes that he made a huge mistake in murdering Tristan, Lucy identifies with him and realizes that her sisters didn't deserve this.
- Instant Messenger Pigeon: Lucy and the Morticians Club members use messenger bats to send their protest letters and the petition to the studio of The Vampires of Melancholia.
- Irony: Lucy always scares everybody with her ability to suddenly show up. In this episode, however, she herself is startled this way by Leni and Lori.
- Just Here for Godzilla: Lori and Leni only watch The Vampires of Melancholia because of Blake Bradley, and clearly know little to nothing about the rest of the show. Lucy constantly has to remind them about the main characters and the plot. This is averted near the end of the episode, when they confess that while Tristan is what got them interested in the show, they now watch it mainly because they enjoy spending time with Lucy.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Lucy when she realizes how harsh she was to Lori and Leni by getting their favorite character killed off in the show.
- Edwin expresses remorse within the show after killing Tristan.
- The Scrappy: As far as Lucy is concerned, Tristan is this due to how much screentime he gets, how much he changes the show, and for the fact that he's an Estrogen Brigade for Lori and Leni. The members of the Morticians Club likewise don’t like him. Haiku even admits she stopped watching the show because of him.
- Sending Stuff to Save the Show: Lucy and the members of the Morticians Club create a petition and write protest letters to the studio to get Tristan banned from The Vampires of Melancholia, because they feel he ruins it. It doesn't work. Tristan is seemingly killed off in the show, but later comes back as a vampire.
- Series Continuity Error: Lori and Leni ask questions about The Vampires of Melancholia even though they watched it in "Spell It Out". Of course, seeing as how they had lost their voices in that episode, it is possible that they were simply disinterested in the show back then and didn't care.
- Slasher Smile: Lucy sports quite a wicked one before discussing pre-show rituals with Leni and Lori.
- Shout-Out: The Team Tristan and Team Edwin shirts are a reference to the Twilight fandom.
- Springtime for Hitler: All Lucy's attempts to make Leni and Lori hate the show (cosplay as vampires, watch the show from within a coffin, and toast to each episode with fake blood) backfire, and only make the two of them more enthusiastic.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In real life, petitions almost never make a television show change course. And even if that were the case, Lucy's petition would never make the show change as of the next episode, since the entire season would already be fully taped. In the cartoon, everything happens exactly as in real life.
- Take a Third Option: The show itself does this for Lucy and her Estrogen Brigade sisters: Tristan is not written out of the show, like Lucy wanted, but he is turned into a vampire, which makes it easier for her to tolerate him, and which doesn't diminish Lori and Leni's enjoyment of the show.
- Take That, Audience!: The episode is basically calling out the show's toxic fandom and their behavior.
- Tears of Remorse: In the show, Edwin cries these after killing Tristan. At the same time, Lucy is also shedding tears as her Jerkass Realization kicks in.
- Tempting Fate: At the start of the episode, Lucy tells her Edward bust how it’s going to be just the two of them together. Cue Lori and Leni showing up to watch the show too.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Lucy's reaction when Leni announces The Vampires of Melancholia is going to be their new Friday night thing.
- Vampires Hate Garlic: Referenced. In one episode of the Show Within a Show, Tristan offers Edwin garlic, much to Edwin's horror. Later in the real world, Leni brings up garlic bread as a vampire-themed snack to Lucy's dismay, but Lucy soon decides it's perfect.
- Your Makeup Is Running: Lori and Leni when Tristan gets killed.
"Rita Her Rights"
- Bond Creatures: Throughout the episode, Rita manages to make a bond with a squirrel while doing community service.
- "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: As her husband and kids point out, Rita could've just been honest with her family about how she was feeling instead of essentially going out on a crime spree to try and avoid them.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Rita.
- "Eureka!" Moment: For Rita when she realizes she could have more relaxing days if she got herself more community service.
- Gone Horribly Right: Rita succeeds in committing enough small crimes to get multiple days of community service in a row. Unfortunately, all those small crimes eventually pile up to what is officially considered a crime spree, and she is promptly arrested.
- Hello Again, Officer: Every time Rita breaks a law to get some jail time, it's Officer Schoffner that ends up arresting her, like she was the only cop in town.
- Intellectual Animal: The squirrel Rita befriends is smart to the point it somehow tracks her home and brings acorn muffins.
- Jail Bake: Just as Rita is released, Lisa walks in the jail center with a cake that obviously includes a file.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Now behind bars, Rita can experience a small fraction of the pain she inflicted on Lincoln when she kicked him out of the house in "No Such Luck" (it's no coincidence that she also wears orange in jail).
- Loony Laws: Apparently in Royal Woods, smashing an old radio in public is a ticketable offense.note
- My Hair Came Out Green: Rita ends up with green hair when she confiscates a can of hairspray that Lori and Leni were fighting over, and uses it herself, only to discover that it was actually hair dye.
- Prison Episode: Downplayed, but Rita does eventually end up in jail due to the many small crimes she committed.
- Punny Name: Lana gets a new flea which she names Brad, because he lives in her armpit.
- Road Apples: Breaking yet another law, Rita takes Charles out for a walk and he does his business, and then purposely leaves it behind on the sidewalk.
- Running Gag: Rita waking up her kids, and having to remind Lincoln he too has to get out of bed.
- Secretly Selfish: Rita wants more time to herself, which is legitimate. But she loses her reason when she decides not to serve her family anymore.
- Skewed Priorities: Luan cares more about finding her whoopie cushion than arriving to school on time (but most likely she "lost" the pillow to prank her mother).
- Spit Take: The old man at the park spits out his drink when Rita surprises him with a move during their game of chess.
- Stuff Blowing Up: Lisa blows up the living room couch with her home made flea powder. Later she creates an explosion that knocks the roof of the house.
- Took a Level in Badass: Rita intentionally keeps breaking laws and racking up tickets to do community service in order to take a break from her family.
- Unishment: Rita is sentenced to do community service because of her many traffic tickets, but ends up enjoying it much more than being at home.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Lana throws up on Rita at the start of the episode.
- Whoopee Cushion: Rita sits down on one when Luan loses it in Vanzilla.
