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Recap / Total Drama: "That's Off The Chain!"

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The campers are challenged to create their own bikes and then race against each other, using each others bikes in the first race and using their own if it finished the race in the second... with the last place racer going home. Meanwhile, Izzy takes Leshawna on a terrifying bike ride all over the island, making them miss the challenge, Geoff is a wreck due to Bridgette's elimination, and Lindsay begins to doubt her alliance with Heather.

Tropes:

  • Accidental Misnaming: Before Lindsay got booted off the island, she said goodbye to each one of her competitors, while also calling them by other names.
  • All Girls Like Ponies: Lindsay models her bike to look like a unicorn.
  • Animal Reaction Shot: When Lindsay goes on her swearing tirade against Heather at the end, we get to see a shot of a loon looking surprised at what Lindsay is saying. After Lindsay's final diss, the same loon is seen laughing.
  • Armor-Piercing Response: While getting brushed off, Lindsay's on the receiving end a couple times in succession.
    Lindsay: Aren't you even sad? We're BFFs.
    Heather: Yeah, for the contest. I mean, it's not like we're gonna be best friends for life or anything.
    [Lindsay gasps]

    Lindsay: You mean, I've been helping you all this time, and you didn't even like me?
    Heather: Uh, truth? [Lindsay nods] Not really, no.
    [Lindsay gasps again]
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In Lindsay's "Reason You Suck" Speech towards Heather, the last point Lindsay makes that Heather's shoes were tacky. This horrifies Heather and impresses everyone else.
  • At Least I Admit It: Duncan thinks Heather's treatment of Lindsay is cold. When Heather claims that he scares people into submission, Duncan retorts that at least he's honest with people.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Even Duncan got impressed by Lindsay telling Heather off.
  • Bird-Poop Gag: Heather is mean and dismissive to the other girls when a gull poops on her hair. As she runs away screaming, Gwen gives a shout-out to karma.
  • Bowdlerise: When Duncan calls Heather out for betraying Lindsay, she answers, "Oh, like you're such a team player! All you do is go around scaring the crap out of everyone!" In the American version, "crap" was changed to "snot".
  • Break the Cutie: Lindsay over realizing that she spent so much time helping a "best friend" that dropped her without a second thought and didn't even like her in the first place. After looking sad for a moment, though, she hits her Rage Breaking Point.
  • Caught the Heart on His Sleeve: Lindsay does everything in her power to make Heather win the challenge as per the stipulations to their alliance. She believes Heather to be her friend and that they both want each other to make it to the finale. Then Chris reveals that Lindsay's facing elimination for crossing the finish line last and only Heather has immunity to give away to save her. She refuses and walks off, prompting a confused, hurt, and desperate Lindsay to grab her by the wrist (Heather's outfit doesn't have sleeves) to talk it over. The ensuing conversation is brutal.
  • Cluster Bleep-Bomb: In the original version, Lindsay goes off on Heather with a long series of bleeps when she discovers that Heather never was her friend, has been using her all this time, and now is throwing her away. In the American version, the bleeps are replaced with childish swearing.
  • Cool Bike: A bunch of 'em, especially Duncan's and Izzy's.
  • Death Glare: Gwen, DJ, and Geoff in response to Heather callously kicking Lindsay to the curb.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Even Duncan thought that Heather using Lindsay was cold.
  • Everything Makes a Mushroom: Chris spices up the second half of the bike race with landmines. Each landmine creates a mushroom upon ignition.
  • Exact Words: Chris did say the last person to finish got eliminated, and since Duncan and Owen wiped out, Lindsay gets eliminated.
  • Former Friend of Alpha Bitch: Up until Heather betrayed her, Lindsay believed that their alliance was a genuine friendship.
  • Flapping Cheeks: Owen goes so fast during the first round of the bike race that his cheeks go flapping. During the second round, it's Heather whose cheeks catch wind due to the speed she's going at.
  • Flipping the Bird: Heather coldly betrays Lindsay after the latter has done everything in her power to make Heather win. Finally seeing Heather for who she truly is, Lindsay flips her off and unleashes a Cluster Bleep-Bomb.
  • Gross-Up Close-Up: When Heather demands that Lindsay trim her toenails, there is a close up of Heather's nasty foot.
  • The Hedge of Thorns: Izzy steers her bike through a wall of thornbushes. It doesn't wipe the smile off her face, but Leshawna, her co-rider, is less amused. The chipmunk they picked up along the way loses all its fur from being cut by the sharp branches.
  • Heroic BSoD: Geoff is distraught over Bridgette's elimination in the last episode, going so far as to tearfully cry in the confessional while singing a heartbreak song.
  • I'm Not Here to Make Friends: Heather's justification for letting Lindsay get eliminated. Even Duncan (who, despite his attitude, actually did make some friends) thinks that's cold.
  • Kick the Dog: Heather had been leading Lindsay along the entire time, but Heather's callous betrayal was the straw that broke the camel's back for Lindsay.
  • Lame Comeback: After Lindsay's entire rant against Heather, including two long string of curses, and ending by calling her shoes "tacky", while everyone else is cheering Lindsay on or laughing at Heather (even the loon in the lake), all Heather says in return is telling Lindsay to go jump in the piranha pool before storming off.
  • Oil Slick: One of the obstacles on the final part of the challenge. This is where Duncan wipes out.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
    • The girls are rightfully suspicious of Duncan showing concern for Geoff when he cries. Justified as they know that the guys are now in an alliance.
    • DJ and Geoff glaring at Heather. You know she went too far when even the nicest guys in the cast are pissed!
  • Piranha Problem: The final obstacle in the final race is a pool full of piranhas, which Lindsay only just manages to get across.
  • Plot Hole:
    • Duncan's bike has got an engine attached to it even though Heather was the only one who had access to one through Lindsay taking it from Chef's motorcycle. So how was Duncan able to get his hands on one? Maybe Duncan was just that good at building bikes?
    • Furthermore, Chris said the last person to cross the finish line is out. However, this causes everyone who crashed out of either race to automatically win immunity, and Izzy and Leshawna, who were MIA the whole challenge, to automatically win immunity, too. Thus, everyone could have announced right then and there that they're not going to participate, and they would have all been safe from elimination by that logic. Chris simply pulled a Batman Gambit on the contestants in this episode. If everyone could just have announced that they weren't going to participate? Yes, they could. But they would never do such a thing, and Chris knew it.
  • Properly Paranoid: DJ was right in trying to get all of that armour onto him before starting the race, seeing as he gets involved in a crash halfway through the first race and is taken out of the invincibility part of the challenge.
  • Pun-Based Title: The title is a play on the phrase "That's off the hook!".
  • Rage Breaking Point: In the prior episode, Lindsay begins questioning her friendship/alliance with Heather. When Heather openly admits that she'd never liked Lindsay to begin with, it causes the normally happy-go-lucky Lindsay to go ballistic verbally.
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Lindsay delivers an epic, swear-filled one to Heather complete with giving her the finger.
    Lindsay: You really are mean! And all that bad stuff people say about you is true! Like how you're a two-faced, backstabbing, lying little... (long censor bleep as she flips Heather off) I always told them they were wrong. I stood up for you, because I thought we were BFFs! But they're right! You really are a two-faced, backstabbing, lying little... (even longer censor bleep as Heather looks shocked and everyone else, including a loon swimming in a nearby lake, looks either stunned or impressed) And guess what?! I don't wanna be BFFs anymore! I'd rather spend the day staring at Owen's butt than shopping with you! And P.S. Your shoes are tacky!
    (Everyone laughs... even the loon swimming in the lake!)
    Gwen: Yeah! You tell her!
  • Riding into the Sunset: Because Lindsay is eliminated for losing the challenge rather than being voted off during the evening campfire ceremony, she leaves the island a little earlier in the day than the other contestants do. As the Boat of Losers with her on board sets sail, the sun sets before it.
  • Running Gag: Chef is, for some reason or another, harmed by Owen in the challenge, by getting covered in sand in the first race, having Owen crash into him at the end of said first race, and being his landing pad after he's wiped out by an explosion.
  • Shout-Out:
  • Tiebreaker Round: This is first episode in the series to feature a sudden death elimination. Lindsay, on a technicality, was the last person to cross the finish line in the final race.
  • Undying Loyalty: In her "Reason You Suck" Speech towards Heather, Lindsay mentions that she stood up for Heather several times when the others called her mean.
  • You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Heather callously betrays Lindsay after the latter allowed the former to win the race.

 
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Lindsay chews out Heather

When Lindsay gets backstabbed by Heather, the former gives the latter a profanity-laden dressing down.

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