Clancy goes to a world inhabitated by clown-parasites and deer-dogs.
Episode's guests: Anne Lamott and Raghu Markus.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: At the end of the episode, Clown World explodes into a swarm of giant flies, so the rebels' efforts to overthrown the clown-parasites were futile.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: The rebels use giant flies as steeds. At the end of the episode, a giant fly feeds Slurry!Clancy and his friends to its larvae.
- Cartoon Meat: When Clancy and the other creatures are ground up, they look like shapeless beige meat slurry.
- Clown Species: The clown-parasites look like adorable clown-babies in their juvenile form, and spider-like monsters in their adult form.
- Contemplate Our Navels: Clancy, Annie, and Raghu have a sensitive conversation about Christianity, love, addiction, and coping with death.
- Crapsaccharine World: Meat City is clean and sleek, and the non-parasitized inhabitants look happy. However, the city is controlled by puppeteer parasites, and wildlife are ground up into meat slurry used for everything from water to children's toys to TV.
- Eye Scream: A little boy steals one of Slurry!Raghu's eyes, which his sister inserts into the face of her meat "doll". She later gives the "doll" to Clancy and his friends while they are in the form of a meat-kaiju, allowing Slurry!Raghu to get his eye back.
- Fighting Clown: The clown-parasites are shown firing guns and grappling with rebels.
- Graffiti of the Resistance: One of the rebels is shown spray-painting "THEY ARE PARASITES" on a billboard of a clown face.
- I Ate WHAT?!: Clancy pauses when he realizes that a baby clown just hatched from the same kind of fruit that he is eating.
- Instant Sedation: The clown-parasites shoot Clancy and the deer-dogs with tranquilizer darts that instantly render them weak.
- It Makes Sense in Context: In-universe. Clancy is horrified when the deer-dogs tear the baby clowns limb from limb. Later, when viewers learn that the baby clowns are the juvenile form of the clown-spider parasites, the deer-dogs' carnage makes sense.
- Kaiju: During the climactic battle, the glass vessel shaped like Auguste Rodin's "The Thinker" is shattered. Slurry!Clancy and his friends temporarily keep the shape of a colossal humanoid, and lumber through the city in the form of a meat-kaiju.
- Killer Rabbit: The deer-dogs look gentle, but rend asunder the clown babies with shocking viciousness.
- Major Injury Underreaction:
- When a frightened herd of deer-dogs stampedes over the tree in which Clancy is sitting, he's accidentally impaled on Annie's horns. He's annoyed at first, but quickly calms down.
- Clancy, Annie, and Raghu have no emotional reaction to being drugged, shipped to Meat City, ground up by spiked gears, and piped through the city in the form of ground meat. They have a friendly conversation throughout the episode as if nothing is happening.
- Meat Puppet: The humans who have been taken over by the clown-parasites are mindless puppets.
- Meat Versus Veggies: Meat City is plastered with billboards extolling the virtues of meat. One billboard shows a piece of broccoli inside an interdictory circle, suggesting that the clown-parasites take a dim view of vegetables.
- Monster Clown: The clown-parasites, which have cylyndrical clown heads and spider legs
- Potty Emergency: Clancy has to use the bathroom, but he's impaled on Annie's horns. Annie contorts herself in a bathroom stall in a futile attempt to lower Clancy onto the toilet. Frustrated, he decides to just hold it.
- Puppeteer Parasite: Meat City is ruled by clown-spider parasites who have attached themselves to the bodies of humans. Their goal is to render down the local wildlife into meat slurry.
- The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: An underground group of rebels in Meat City are trying to overthrow the clown-parasites. In one scene, the rebels bring a wounded member of the resistance into an apartment and presumably treat their injuries. In another scene, a rebel rips a clown-parasite off of its human host, kills the parasite, and walks off arm-in-arm with the liberated human.
- To Serve Man: During the climactic battle, clown-parasites are shown collecting the dead bodies of rebels onto the same carts used to transport animals to the slaughterhouse.
- True Art Is Angsty: Discussed. Annie mentions a time where she was the happiest and healthiest she had ever been, and feared that even in that environment, she needed to hold onto her sadness, bitterness and grief in order to keep producing good art. This is described by the group as one of the biggest and most toxic myths among any group of artists.
- Sickening Slaughterhouse: Clancy and the deer-dogs are tranquilized by clown-parasites and carted off to a funhouse/slaughterhouse in Meat City. There, their liquids are extracted for use as a gestation medium for new parasites, their bodies are ground up by spiked gears and blades, and the resulting slurry is piped through the city.
- Shout-Out: The cylindrical heads and faces of the clowns in "Officers and Wolves" resemble the Billy Roll
, a type of lunchmeat sold in Ireland. The Billy Roll has been nicknamed "meat clown", and the parasitic creatures in "Officers and Wolves" are clowns with a meat theme. - The Topic of Cancer: Annie tells Clancy about her late father's struggle with cancer, and his friendship with a neighbor who also had cancer.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Clancy, Annie, and Raghu have a pleasant conversation while being shipped off to Meat City and butchered by clown-parasites. They spend half the episode chatting in the form of sapient meat slurry.
- Villain Song: During the climactic battle between the clown-parasites and the rebels, one of the clowns sings a Tom Waits-style adaptation of "The Hearse Song".
