Basic Trope: A situation is made to resemble another to convey a different meaning than what is actually occurring.
- Straight: Francine meets Gina in a back alleyway to... see her collection of stuffed animals for sale.
- Exaggerated: The entire affair is treated like a drug deal: Francine is visibly disheveled and talks about needing "the stuff" while Gina is dressed in shades and a trenchcoat and cajoles Francine into making a larger purchase than last time.
- Downplayed: Francine meets Gina in a private room instead of an alleyway.
- Justified: The stuffed animal market is that intense.
- Inverted: Harry treats doing heroin like getting a doctor's shot.
- Subverted: Francine and Gina conduct their business, then move on to discussing their real reason for meeting: buying some coke.
- Double Subverted: As in, Coca-Cola. ("The good stuff, all the way from Mexico. Real cane sugar and everything. None of that corn syrup mess.")
- Parodied: Stuffed animals are listed as a Schedule One substance by the DEA. Francine and Gina are busted by police and sent to jail.
- Zig Zagged: Gina is the town's "gal who can get it for you", and has several items for sale — including illicit ones. Francine sticks around for one of her drug deals, after which she makes her own sale to a ecstasy junkie with a penchant for soft objects.
- Averted: Francine and Gina trade stuffed animals without any subterfuge.
- Enforced: Rule of Funny.
- Lampshaded:
- "Are we still talking about stuffed animals?"
- Invoked:
- Exploited: Gina takes advantage of her shady image as a cover for her side project: cleaning up the bad side of town.
- Defied: Dealing in stuffed animals and/or drugs is presented without irony or visual dissonance.
- Discussed: "Could've sworn Francine and Gina were doing... That. Thank goodness it's just teddy bears."
- Conversed: "Is... Is this supposed to remind me of something? A drug deal, perhaps?"
- Implied: Gina gives Francine complicated instructions for their meeting time and place, and tells her to come alone.
- Deconstructed: Francine's acquiescence to Gina's unorthodox trading style leads people to actually believe she's a drug addict. People begin to drop hints about her "habit", eventually leading to an embarrassing public reveal of her hobby.
- Reconstructed: Staging a stuffed animal buy as a drug deal allows the viewer to draw parallels between the drug trade and commercial toy distribution, which was the writers' intent.
- Played for Laughs: Gina has an inexplicable Cuban accent during the entire trade.
- Played for Drama:
- Gina and Francine are accosted by another dealer who mistakes Gina for a rival on the streets. They escape unharmed, but shaken.
- Gina and Francine are arrested by the police for being in the wrong place at the wrong time with a very suspicious disposition, the souvenirs destroyed when checking for concealed drugs, and they get a rap sheet that annihilates their lives even when they manage to get it expunged and a public apology from the police.
- Played for Horror:
- Gina's odd trading habits are explained as a result of being a Loony Fan one day away from escalating in some fashion like going full Anne Wilkes on the dolls' creator.
- A drug dealer mistaking Gina for a rival (or worse yet, knowing she is not dealing drugs but being angry at her trespassing all the same) murders her in a truly horrible fashion as a warning for future idiots.
- Gina and Francine not only get mistaken for drug dealers by the cops, they are murdered in the ensuing act of Police Brutality.
- It may be doll collecting, but nevertheless Gina's obsession is portrayed as life-destroying in a Whole-Plot Reference to Requiem for a Dream.
Head on back to Does This Remind You of Anything?, fellas. First hit's free.
