Tropes featured in this episode:
- Biting-the-Hand Humor: Coop at one point comments that the melodrama and tension surrounding Spencer and co.'s romance story "is just like Dynasty". At the time the episode aired, The CW concurrently aired a reboot of that soap opera.
- The Call Knows Where You Live: Shawn bitterly muses that the trouble he and Coop have just gotten into means that he will never settle down into a legal life.
- Dance of Romance: Layla invites Spencer for a dance after she breaks up with Asher. It is interrupted by Asher's rambling, but they eventually finish the dance in a private place.
- Delayed Reaction: It takes Shawn a while before he registers that Tyrone taking drugs himself means that he and Coop are in deep trouble.
- A Friend in Need: Olivia comforts Asher, who severely intoxicates himself after Coach Baker benched him.
- Grand Staircase Entrance: Olivia gets a moment like this as she comes down the stairs in her dress at the Baker home where all the friends and their dates are waiting. Spencer is mesmerised, as is Olivia's date, Spencer's friend Chris.
- High-School Dance: The focus of this episode.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Asher starts drinking the moment Layla dumps him.
- In Vino Veritas: Asher, hurt by his breakup with Layla, drinks and rants about the cheating between him, Spencer, Layla, and Olivia in front of the entire school.
- Kiss Diss: Spencer turns away when Layla leans in to kiss him at the overlook. He explains that a lot is going on for her and they should be friends.
- Like Brother and Sister: Discussed. When Spencer talks to Chris about Olivia and Chris dating, Spencer tries to invoked this trope about himself and Liv, but Chris is not buying it and tells Spencer that Liv still has feelings for him. Spencer tries to deny that, saying that he thinks she liked him when he first moved to Beverly Hills, but lost interest.
- Locked in a Room: Billy accidentally locks himself and Grace in his office, and they face some of their shared past. Grace asks Billy why he married outside of the culture. He tells her he loves Laura, and that, for him, Grace was his last tether to Crenshaw.
- Love Dodecahedron: Chris has feelings for Olivia, who has feelings for Spencer but once cheated with Asher, who loves Layla, who has just cheated on him with Spencer, who loves her back.
- The Promposal: At the café where Spencer works, he serves two customers a pizza. It turns out to be shaped like a heart asking a girl to the homecoming dance. Spencer looks on bemused at the scene playing out as the girl says yes to her date.
- Quirky Girl, Quirky Tux: Coop, a recently came out lesbian, wears a tux for the homecoming dance.
- The Reveal: Billy, Grace and Corey were in a Love Triangle in high school and Grace chose Corey.
- Shout-Out: To Carrie, as Coop expects the ritzy Beverly Hills to go haywire.Coop: Hey, listen, if a white girl end up onstage getting doused in pig blood, I'm out.
