Tropes associated with this episode (Note: This recap covers both parts of what was originally a two-part episode):
Birthday Episode: Jennifer's 13th birthday ... of which Steven allows her new valley girl friends to attend. Of course, Steven embarasses Jennifer with a kiddie-type puppet play that wouldn't even entertain a mere idiot ... a point Jennifer makes sure Steven understands when she storms out of the house.
Friendless Background: What Jennifer thinks she's going through. With her in junior high school (at the time this episode is set), she and many of her classmates are going through the same friendship changes, and as is oft the case sometimes wholesale. She has just one true friend, Beth, who ends up being the friend she needs to have, but she won't realize this until she re-evaluates her brief association with the valley girls, with whom she thinks is her ticket to everlasting popularity and more friends than she knows what to do with.
I Just Want to Have Friends: The main driver of the plot ... Jennifer is in a funk with making friends but finds the new group of seemingly popular girls at school — valley girl wannabes who are total and complete snobs — aren't the right fit she initially thinks they are. In addition to Alex hinting to her that these girls are bad news, she learns that she is not alone in her dilemma about wanting friends and that — more importantly — true friendships take time to develop.
Out of Order: Filmed in (likely) the fall of 1985 and perhaps intended to air yet that fall as part of Season 4, for some reason this episode doesn't air until the summer of 1987. Among the clear clues: Andrew is a baby, rather than the 4-year-old played by Brian Bonsall; Alex and Ellen are dating (they broke up a year earlier); Mallory is still without a boyfriend (she and Nick had been together for more than a year when the show finally aired); and there are references to a Bengals-Steelers game that took place in the fall of 1985. Word of God states that the reason that the episode was held back was because NBC Entertainment president Brandon Tartikoff initially vetoed it, claiming that the plot made Jennifer seem too nasty.
The Reliable One and True Companions: Jennifer's friend, Beth, although unpopular and unspectacular ... the true friend in the end.
Rule of Cool: How the valley girls — and Jennifer — fancy themselves as ... trendy clothes, hairstyles, attitudes, social lives and lots and lots of alcohol and shunning the unpopular geeky kids ... especially Jennifer's true friend, Beth.
Small Names Big Egos: Likely the truth with the supposedly popular girls Jennifer becomes friends with ... most of their classmates know these girls are just snobs and are involved with activities that are nothing but trouble. Jennifer herself is briefly this, until she realizes that these girls aren't really the ones who will help her become the type of popular she hoped she'd be.
Speaking Like Totally Teen: Like, Jennifer speaks totally like this throughout, like, the whole phase of her being in this, like, clique of popular girls. She even, like, writes this note to her parents so she can, like, go to this righteous party with all her friends. And, like, that dude and dudette (Steven and Elyse) try to, like, decipher her "like"-littered note explaining such.
Wild Teen Party: Jennifer's new friends, Stacie and Chrissy, begin pushing their luck when they try to hold a party at the Keatons while Jennifer is home alone (and under orders to not have any visitors over) ... bringing lots of boys and alcohol with them. It isn't until Beth pays a visit and they demand Jennifer to tell her to leave, that Jennifer finally realizes her new friends aren't those she wants to be associated with and she finally kicks them out. Incidentally, Steven and Elyse find out about the party when they see beer cans strewn around the house and really want to come down hard on Jennifer, but Beth explains everything and how Jennifer stuck up for her ... and they relent.
Valley Girls: Lots of them, including Jennifer (temporarily). Alex, who doesn't like them, calls them "trendy friends."
You Are Grounded!: When Steven finds out Jennifer has been truant from school (her friends had suggested they ditch class to go to the mall), this is the tipping point for him. Already growing increasingly impatient with his daughter's new attitude, Steven tells Jennifer he will no more and that she is grounded indefinitely.
