Basic Trope: A seemingly unimportant episode has plot-relevant matters only clear in hindsight.
- Straight: The animated series The Alice Show is serialized with significant continuity. In an early episode, "Charlie's Chili," Charlie teaches Alice his recipe for chili. This seems to be all on the matter, until Alice cooks her own variation on the recipe to win a cook-off in the next season.
- Exaggerated:
- Alice, some time after this encounter, opens a diner with Charlie's signature chili.
- Charlie, from this episode, appears to be a one-off character. As of next season, he's promoted to the main cast.
- On top of the main plot, "Charlie's Chili" has Alice buy some new oven mitts, change a lightbulb, and joke about her car needing an oil change. All of these become plot points in later episodes; the oven mitts were created by Alice's Disappeared Dad, Bob, who she tracks down for an entire season, the lightbulb turns out to be an important part in defeating The Bully Danny, and the joke about her car needing an oil change becomes true when Alice runs out of gas just when she's about to meet Bob, causing him to abandon the meeting and leaving Alice with an Heroic BSoD.
- As of "Charlie's Chili," The Alice Show runs on Negative Continuity. However, the next season introduces Continuity Creep that includes bits from that episode.
- Downplayed:
- After this episode, Charlie makes occasional cameos, but he's never crucial to the plot.
- This episode makes it clear that Alice learning the chili recipe will be important. The lightbulb, she changed, however, has unexpected relevance later on.
- Justified: Alice didn't think any of this would matter either. If she did, maybe she'd have paid more attention.
- Inverted: "Charlie's Chili" seems to be important, but the main points become Red Herrings or Aborted Arcs.
- Subverted: The Alice Show is notorious for its continuity and every episode mattering. Despite this, when the series ends, "Charlie's Chili" turns out to be the exception.
- Double Subverted: As it turns out, "Charlie's Chili" was supposed to be important, but the tie-in got scrapped due to time. When "The Alice Show" was unexpectedly Un-Canceled, a plot connection was written in.
- Parodied: "Charlie's Chili" is written like a Breather Episode, except any insinuation of greater importance is written off with Suspiciously Specific Denial.
- Zig-Zagged: "Charlie's Chili" becomes important later, but not for the reasons one would normally expect.
- Averted:
- Episodes that appear innocuous stay that way.
- The Alice Show has Negative Continuity.
- Enforced:
- After "Charlie's Chili" was an unexpected fan-favorite episode, the writers decided to give some of the popular elements recurring purpose.
- During the production of "Alice's Cookoff", the producers decided it would save cost if they reused the slightly recolored chili animation cells from "Charlie's Chili", and the writers wrote around it.
- Lampshaded: "Hi Charlie! Didn't expect to see you again!"
- Invoked: Charlie really needs to teach Alice Chekhov's Skill, and making chili helps her learn it even if it's not directly related.
- Exploited: Alice's husband, Bob, and their kids, Betty and Adam, never forget how good Charlie's chili is, and they convince her that she should share it with the rest of the world.
- Defied: Alice makes a point to stay in touch with Charlie after the episode.
- Discussed: "I didn't know it at the time, but that time Charlie taught me how to make chili really became important."
- Conversed: "Sorry for telling you 'Charlie's Chili' was skippable. I thought it was just filler."
- Played for Laughs: The events of "Charlie's Chili" are the setup for a really long Brick Joke.
- Played for Drama: A later revelation paints the events of "Charlie's Chili" in a darker light.
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