The Greens are comin' at you in 3D!
Level UpCricket introduces Bill to the world of video gaming and he immediately gets addicted to a farm simulation game.
"Level Up" contains examples of:
- Achievement System: The farm simulation game has lots of achievements for performing farm duties. At the end of the episode, Tilly references it when she gives Bill an achievement when his real farm "levels up".
- Added Alliterative Appeal: "Papa, we've come to pry you loose from this polygon prison!"
- Anti-Escapism Aesop: Bill becomes addicted to the video game because he's frustrated with the limited space he's got in the yard for farming; the game lets him make his farm as big as he wants, and he can level up with achievements. Meanwhile, he's neglecting his real crops, the family's only means of support. After confronting him and making him stop playing, the family finds that Bill misses having a big farm; they solve this by convincing Mrs. Cho to allow a roof garden on top of Big Coffee, thus giving Bill a chance to "level up" the farm.
- Art Shift: The video game sequences shift to Stop Motion CGI.
- Bottle Episode: Most of the episode takes place inside the Green house, prominently the living room, with plenty of Art Shifts to the simulation game, and the brief scene at Big Coffee in the end.
- Button Mashing: Tilly's strategy is to press buttons randomly until something happens.
- Call-Back:
- Tilly once again saves the day with the "Tilly Tornado".
- The Bintendo Twist from “Cyber Bullies” returns.
- The Cameo: Gloria makes a non-speaking cameo in this episode.
- Chekhov's Gag: Tilly struggling to find a way to pet the baby lamb causes her to unlock an achievement which leads to destroying the farm.
- Deep-Immersion Gaming: Cricket, Tilly, Remy and Gramma play the game to get Bill to stop. Aside from a few shots of them in the living room, the whole thing plays inside the game.
- Shout-Out:
- The CGI video game sequences are in the style of Minecraft.
- The Bintendo Twist reappears and is still a parody of the Nintendo Switch with “Bintendo Twist +” being a likely referencing the (at the time) new Nintendo Switch Lite (and eventually the OLED model). And the - and + additions could reference the symbols on the controllers.
- Stylistic Suck: The farm gaming graphics are consciously low quality, with low polygon models and jerky, stiff movement. Justified as the game is a mobile app Cricket downloaded in a few seconds.
- Title Drop: "There's just no room for me to level up."
- Wham Episode: The Greens' planting is expanded to the Big Coffee rooftop.
WILD BOY!
Wild SideCricket lets his yearly feral "itch" - or "wild side" take over him when Bill fails to replicate their country camping trips and goes loose in the city, while Tilly and Nancy camp out in their place.
"Wild Side" contains examples of:
- Bait-and-Switch: When Bill goes after Cricket and Remy crashing the play, it seems like he's going to punish them once he meets up with them, but then he admits he wants to be wild like them, and ends up joining in. Probably because he was slightly entranced when he saw the fun they were having, and decided to join them on his own end.
- Camping Episode: Usually, the cure for Cricket's "itch" to go wild is to take him out camping in the wilderness. Unfortunately, now they're in the city, so Bill resorts to camping in the backyard. This is insufficient for Cricket, who goes feral and runs amok in the city. Tilly and Nancy's subplot, however, plays this completely straight.
- Continuity Nod: In “Mama Bird” Cricket asked what worms taste like, Tilly says they taste like a caterpillar. In the flashback, Cricket is seen eating caterpillars.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Cricket manages to avoid the Greens and Remy in a matter of seconds, to the point of even quickly escaping whenever caught.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Upon seeing Cricket and Remy mess up the Romeo and Juliet performance, Bill looks mildly surprised, and slightly impressed by them. Three guesses to what he does once he catches up with them.
- I Am X, Son of Y: Cricket calls himself "Cricket Green, son of Bill Green" while feral. Bill does not appreciate him making it known.
- Idiot Ball: Bill obviously has no excuse to set up a campsite in the backyard instead of take Cricket into the woods like he does traditionally. And when he finally catches Cricket during the Romeo and Juliet excerpt, he does not bother to take him home with him and instead admits he too wants to go wild.
- Karma Houdini: Cricket straight up brainwashes Remy and destroys a play set as does Bill, neither have any consequences to their actions.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Bill gets his comeuppance for not taking Cricket out into the forest as tradition by witnessing him turn feral and is later tempted into becoming feral like him.
- More than Mind Control: The effects of Cricket's itch becomes this toward manipulating his friends and family to become feral like him. He first captures Remy and tempts him into being wild which he is instantly pulled into, then he convinces Bill into doing whatever makes him happy, turning him wild as well. By episode's end, everyone is wild.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Bill felt this way when his fake camping trip caused Cricket's itch to take its full effect and he runs amok all over Big City.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Bill not taking Cricket camping in the woods and just going camping in the backyard is enough for Cricket to go ballistic and feral, and by the time this happens, he's in for it.
- No Ending: The episode ends with Cricket having turned everyone wild with no explanation how they got back to normal.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: The only reason Cricket's itch gets the better of him is because Bill never took him on a proper campout.
- Only Sane Man: Out of everyone, Gramma was the only one who isn't manipulated to be feral by Cricket by episode's end, instead controlling herself and being simply proud of him. She still goes wild, but it’s her own choice.
- Rage Breaking Point: The backyard camping trip is obviously not a good substitute in Cricket's book, and it causes his itch to reach high levels and he becomes completely feral. Do note that Cricket was fine with trying camping in the backyard, its just that Bill attempting to replace an actual bonfire with flashlights and telling him to keep an inside voice while outside is what pushes him to the edge.
- Running on All Fours: Cricket does this when in wild mode.
- Scenery Censor: At the end, Gramma is standing on the backyard naked, with chickens blocking her torso.
- Shout-Out: When Cricket observed the moon from a streetlight, a man who bears a resemblance to Andrew Ryan said "Now that kid has the right idea. No Gods or Kings. Only moon!"
- Space Whale Aesop: Not doing something as tradition leads to consequences for someone.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Cricket's yearly "itch" which makes him become a feral animal, which can only be soothed if he is taken into a forest.
- The Walls Are Closing In: Tilly tells a scary campfire story about Nancy mysteriously finding herself in a room with only one door. Through the door is another, smaller room with another door. That door leads to an even smaller room, and so on, and so on, until Nancy has to crouch to fit. Still, her curiosity is irresistible to open the next door. This unnerves Nancy with enough claustrophobia to leave the tent.
- Wild Child: What Cricket becomes, and later the rest of the family thanks to his manipulation.
- Unstoppable Rage: Fail to take Cricket camping properly on the day he gets a wild urge, and he turns feral.
- You No Take Candle: Cricket speaks this way when in wild mode. Same goes for those who join him.
