Recap / Big City Greens S 2 E 16

Cricket x Gabriella is finally canon.

Gabriella's Fella

When Cricket reencounters the girl he crushed on at the Valentine's Day dance, Remy seizes the opportunity to encourage him to get to know her and confess his feelings, while Tilly gets hung up in running the center while Community Sue is away.

"Gabriella's Fella" contains examples of:

• All Love Is Unrequited: It’s shown Vasquez has feelings for Rashida (Remy’s mother). Obviously, nothing came out of it.
  Vasquez: I know that love can fill you, but leave you empty.
• Big Good: Community Sue. She reveals to Cricket that Gabriella's in love with him despite all the weirdness, prompting him to catch up to her before she leaves for Montreal.
• Birds of a Feather: Cricket discovers Gabriella is a troublemaking prankster just like him, which is what causes him to instantly come out of his shell and hit it off with her perfectly.
• Bodyguard Crush: It's made clear that Vasquez is hopelessly in love with Mrs. Remington.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: When Remy gets a call from Vasquez and gets an idea on how to help Cricket win Gabriella, he says Cricket's famous catchphrase, "Bingo-bango."
• Bottle Episode: Most of the episode takes place at the Community Center, with a short scene on the streets as Cricket chases Gabriella to learn her feelings for him.
• The Bus Came Back: Gabriella comes back, not having been seen since "Valentine's Dance".
• Call-Back: Cricket mentions the events of "Valentine's Dance" as he watches Gabriella.
• Cannot Talk to Women: Cricket suffers from this madly whenever he's around Gabriella, to the point of unable to speak a single sentence coherently. He slowly phases out of it while Remy is Playing Cyrano, and soon after he begins easily talking to her on his own as they begin to bond. After they confess their love for each other and become a couple, this trope is averted completely.
• Character Development: Following the lesson Cricket learned in "Valentine's Dance", he knows love doesn't take but gives, and is truly in love with Gabriella and manages to win her heart — and something special like a person who understands him — in the end.
• Chastity Couple: Teased with. After Cricket and Gabriella confess their love for each other and Gabriella asks Cricket if he wants to go out with her, he is nervous at first, thinking they'll be doing really romantic things like Holding Hands constantly, sending each other presents like flowers, and smooching a lot. She promptly dismisses of those, as right now it's best if they just tell those they know about their relationship. He's cool with that, and happily accepts.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Tilly still has her ears pierced since the events of "Tilly Style".
  • Cricket being slightly feeble over displaying overt signs of his and Gabriella's newly-established romantic relationship could be a call back to "Rated Cricket" when he saw Kiss of Death.
• Crush Blush: Cricket has this the first time he tries to talk to Gabriella and on the bus as he reveals his feelings for her and she asks him if he'll be her boyfriend. Doubles as a Blush Sticker.
• Did Not Get the Girl: Turns out Gabriella wasn't romantically interested in Remy as Cricket thought, and they're Just Friends. Averted for Cricket himself, as this time he is successful at winning her heart, and she becomes his girlfriend.
• Distaff Counterpart: Gabriella is revealed to be a mischievous prankster just like Cricket. She also shares his blue clothing and her shoes don't match, like how he doesn't wear shoes. No wonder they had so much in common and decided to become sweethearts.
• Door-Closes Ending: The episode ends with the gym doors closing behind Sue as Tilly makes her exit.
• Drunk with Power: Community Sue puts Tilly in charge of handing out equipment, but Tilly assumes this means she's being put in charge of the community center itself. She then makes changes to the center, like letting stray cats inside, putting glitter on the water fountains, and giving names and faces to all the balls.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Gabriella was obviously not impressed when Cricket repeats Vasquez's spiel, assuming he's teasing her. This was kinda the reason she didn't want to do anything that romantic at first when becoming his girlfriend.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After all he's gone through, Cricket catches up to Gabriella where she confesses her feelings for him, and he confesses his feelings for her as well, and they happily become a couple.
• Foreshadowing: Sue encouraging Cricket to talk to Gabriella when things become quiet foreshadows her role as the Reasonable Authority Figure, as she is able to tell Cricket has a crush on Gabriella and realizes she likes him as well.
• Given Name Reveal: This episode reveals Gabriella's full name: Gabriella Carlita Espinosa.
• Global Ignorance: Cricket thinks Montreal is in Europe; it's actually in Canada.
• Jaw Drop: Sue's reaction at the end upon seeing Tilly's modifications to the gym.
• Love Confession: Cricket catches up to Gabriella on the bus and finally confesses his love to her, and she reveals her love for him as well, leading to their Relationship Upgrade.
• The Moving Experience: Just as he's getting along with Gabriella, Cricket discovers that she's going to Montreal, and thinks that he'll never see her again. Downplayed in that she's actually just going there on vacation.
• Official Couple: Cricket and Gabriella become one as of this episode.
• Playing Cyrano: Remy hands Cricket an earpiece and relays what he wants him to say to Gabriella. Unfortunately, Remy has no idea what he's doing, and he starts yelling at Gabriella, which Cricket repeats despite that Gabriella can hear Remy. Remy has to call Vasquez to help him out, becoming a second Cyrano to Remy's Cyrano.
• Prim and Proper Bun: Tilly wears her hair like this as she assumes Sue's identity.
• Put on a Bus: Subverted. Cricket thought Gabriella was moving to Montreal, but she's only going there for vacation and will return some time later, hinting this is not the last we see of her. As an added visual, she uses a literal bus.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Sue becomes this to Cricket, seeing through the awkward situation with Gabriella and discovers she's in love with him, which gives him hope and sets off to reveal his love for her before she leaves for Montreal.
• Relationship Upgrade: Cricket and Gabriella are now dating.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Remy to Cricket and Gabriella. Unfortunately, he causes more harm than good.
  • Sue proves to be this after Gabriella leaves, as she is able to understand her situation with Cricket and reveals she has feelings for him.
• Single Tear: Vasquez sheds one as he crushes on Rashida.
• Sequel Episode: To "Valentine's Dance". Cricket once again encounters Gabriella and is still lovestruck, but has discovered what it really is and Remy helps him get close to her and eventually, they finally become an Official Couple.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: The last time Cricket tried to get close to Gabriella, he failed because of his antisocialness. Thanks to his Character Development here, this time he's successful.
• Toilet Humor: Why was Gabriella painting the mural? She was on the intercom last week and blabbed the word "dookie". Cricket also similarly said "trash butt" on the intercom the following month.

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We're gonna be spending 11 entire minutes in this room.

Cheap Show

In this special meta-reference episode, the Greens want to go to a street fair, but Bill would rather stay home to save money.

"Cheap Show" contains examples of:

• Animation Bump: The family's expressions after Bill suggests remembering old memories are much more fluid than past expressions, particularly Tilly's.
• Bottle Episode: Most of the episode is set in the living room. In keeping with the original spirit of the trope, the fact that this is being done to keep the show's costs low is constantly Lampshaded.
• By the Lights of Their Eyes: When the power is shut off, only the characters' eyes are visible — yet another way of playing with the idea of the episode being done on the cheap.
• Celebrity Cameo: Tom Hanks appears offscreen when the family goes to the street fair.
• Clip Show: Starts out as one, but then the clips get misremembered and Tilly shows a clip from a memory she made up that's only shown in animatic form.
• Cross-Referenced Titles: To "Cheap Snake" back in Season 1.
• Deliberately Monochrome: Tilly's storyboard is drawn in black and white, which Cricket complains about.
• Fourth Wall Psych: After the power comes back on, Tilly mentions Cricket broke the "fourth wall". All the Greens turn to look at the fourth wall (us), then the camera cuts to the actual fourth wall with a bust in it.
• Fun with Subtitles: In Tilly's story, a man gives her a device and "says something in Japanese." When the man speaks in Japanese, the subtitles actually read "[Something in Japanese]". That's also what he said in Japanese.
• Gag Dub: The clip from “Gramma’s License” gets one, with Cricket only able to say his own name, Tilly commenting on how she barely gets any dialogue, and the robot dinosaur Suddenly Voiced. Gramma blames it on her faulty memory.
• Get Out!: Bill says he tried to go back to the seafood fusion restaurant they were lifetime banned from (except Nancy) and was immediately told to leave.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: This episode pretty much leans heavily on that fourth wall. Bill talks about "blowing production budget", but actually refers to the production of his farm. Cricket compares Bill's flashbacks to a TV episode "where the cheap producers reuse old clips because they're too lazy to write new stuff". The kicker comes in the middle when Tilly says that Cricket has broken the fourth wall, and all the characters actually look at the camera. But Tilly was actually referring to a literal fourth wall.
  Tilly: What, you guys don't number the walls?
• Minimalist Cast: The only characters present are the four nuclear Greens.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The street fair. When the family calls Nancy, who is at the fair, she has trouble describing it. When the family finally goes to the fair, because of budget constraints, the camera stays on the living room for an entire thirty seconds, while the family is still speaking offscreen.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: This episode was presumably made because the production crew actually did use up the season's animation budget, wanted to save it for the last few episodes of the season remaining after this one, or save some money so they could afford Tom Hanks' cameo at the end so they decided to make an episode set entirely within the Green's living room so as to not have to draw any new environments, and even include a sequence completely in a storyboard format. They decided to be extra tounge-in-cheek about it, however, and make this episode the most meta the show has ever been, not only through constant Leaning on the Fourth Wall and Double Speak, but through Cricket mentioning his favorite TV show, which is an in-universe knockoff of Big City Greens itself, and Cricket's inner monologue acknowledging that he might not be as charming or adorable as he would like to think he is.
• Studio Audience: Joked at when Cricket complains, "The people at home expect entertainment!" He was referring to everyone in the house, but there's more to it.
• Take a Third Option: The Greens want to go to the street fair, but Bill refuses to let them, because their money is running low, so he forces them to stay home to their discomfort. In the end, Cricket realizes what Bill was doing and decides to compromise — they do go after all, only they don't buy anything.
• Take Our Word for It: The street fair. The reason it wasn't shown was because the episode was low on budget and it would be too expensive to animate. Based on the comments, it's probably grandiose in scale.
• Take That!: Believe it or not, the entire episode is a jab at low budget cartoons.
• Toku: Parodied in Tilly's story, in which she battles a Kaiju with a Humongous Mecha.
• The Unreveal: We never get to see the street fair; all we see are a sign pointing toward it and flashing lights.

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