Arthur and Francine enter a contest to see who can conserve the most water during a drought.
Tropes for "Feeling Flush" include:
- Bittersweet Ending: Francine loses the competition due to Nemo, but she's learned her lesson about water conservation, as has Arthur. She's also gotten one over her grouchy landlord by convincing the apartment's tenants to successfully petition for a more water-efficient toilet in their units, doing more good in the long run.
- Cats Are Mean:
- Francine's cranky landlord is an anthropomorphic cat.
- Nemo turns out to be the one responsible for why the Frenskys' apartment was wasting so much water, by playing with the flush toilet. Whether or not it was due to his jerkish personality as shown in the Animal Talk episodes is up for debate.Arthur: That's why I have a dog.
- Drama Queen: Muffy groans about how she has to put the pool cover on once they’re done with the pool, complaining how she has to do it all by herself… and she presses a button, activating an automated pool cover that slides over the pool.
- Exact Words: D.W. doesn't understand that saving water means using it in a more efficient, conservative way, not actively hoarding it. As such, she fills up numerous containers with water thinking she's saving water the right way.
- Graceful Loser: Francine accepts that even though it was unintentional, her failure to keep an eye on Nemo is part of her failure to conserve water, so she concedes the contest.
- Hate Sink: Francine's landlord notably is one of the few adults on the show without many, if any, redeeming qualities. He gripes openly to Francine about her and her family, openly wishes everyone would go back to the archaic system of water payment that would inconvenience them, and refuses to even consider a more water-efficient toilet system out of spite until the entire building signs a petition for it.
- Hypocrite:
- In The Teaser, the gang turns furious with Arthur when he finishes their water by taking a drink, ignorant of how they were wasting the water supply to begin with.
- D.W. gets on Arthur's case for wasting water while brushing his teeth but then she wastes water when she filles massive tubs of water and hoards it for herself.
- Jerkass Has a Point:
- While she goes about it the wrong way, even D.W. notices that Arthur can be wasteful with water.
- While he’s still a petty asshole, anybody in a management position can attest to the fact that a suggestion box often produces nothing but irrelevant or impossible submissions, so it’s not unexpected that Francine’s landlord would potentially grow to hate the concept.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Francine’s landlord refused to consider her research for a more cost-effective toilet replacement for the building purely out of spite. Francine responds by making her case to the entire building’s populace, who agree and sign a petition to get the replacement. The landlord is forced to acquiesce to the united front of the tenants despite all his griping against it.
- Only Sane Man: In The Teaser, Arthur is the only one who takes their water crisis seriously, but even he succumbs to thirst and finishes off their last bottle of water.
- Singing in the Shower: Francine at the beginning of the episode.
- Spanner in the Works: Both Arthur and Francine suffer these during the contest. Muffy blabs that Francine took her long showers at her house instead to cheat, while Arthur finds D.W. collecting huge amounts of water out of a misplaced desire to save water for herself. Francine learns that another big reason her family uses so much water is because Nemo has been playing with the toilet handle while no one is looking.
- Too Dumb to Live: In The Teaser, the other members of Arthur's class carelessly waste their tiny water supply. Muffy uses it to squirt at a vulture, Binky fills water balloons with it, and Francine uses it to try to wash off a spot on her arm.
Arthur looks for antiques that the family could sell and make a fortune off of.
Tropes for "Family Fortune" include:
- Artistic License – History: Implied. Muffy claims that her great-grandmother met an Archduchess of Moldavia. In Real Life, the ruler of Moldavia was a prince, not an archduke, so an archduchess never existed. While the "archduchess" Muffy's great-grandma met turns out to have been an imposter, the historian on Treasure Caravan is only unfamiliar with the name of the supposed archduchess and not the whole concept of an Archduchess of Moldavia, implying Archduchesses of Moldavia did exist in the Arthur universe.
- The Bad Guy Wins: As explained to Muffy, her family was successfully robbed and they didn't find out for decades. The one consolation is that the dummy trinket matches Muffy's eyes and they still believed it was special, so it was special.
- Bittersweet Ending: The Read’s don’t get to pawn the dance apron worth thousands of dollars, but Arthur has learned his lesson about family treasures and Kate gets to keep the apron.
- Disguised in Drag: The man who robbed Muffy's great-grandmother disguised himself as an archduchess named "Irina Katrina Von Hapsonburg" to gain her trust.
- Hypocritical Humor: Muffy’s in fine form. When Arthur is shown fighting Kate for the blanket, she scoffs at how people let money go to their heads.
- Invented Individual: Implied. Muffy claims that her great-grandmother Taffy met an Archduchess of Moldavia named "Irina Katrina Von Hapsonburg" while on a steamship. However, the historian who acts as the hostess of Treasure Caravan has never heard of an Archduchess of Moldavia with that name, implying it was an identity fabricated by the man who robbed Taffy to gain her trust.
- Jerkass Realization: Arthur realizes he’s being a jerk after remembering that he’s fighting his baby sister for an apron to sell.
- Shown Their Work: Thora and the auction hostess correctly describe the Native American Chilkat tribe and their Potlatch ceremony. The tribe's dance apron is also historically accurate.
- The Unreveal: The contents of the cigar box D.W. finds aren't shown to the viewer, and the episode ends right when she gives the box to the antiques show host.
- You Dirty Rat!: The man who robbed Muffy's great-grandmother was an anthropomorphic rat.
