Recap / Big Mouth S 3 E 7 Rankings

Andrew: Nick, Andrew and Jessi: virgins until college.
Jessi: Oh my god.
Andrew: Sophmore year.

The boys make a ranking of what is the hottest girl in school, hurting the girls and prompting them to make a ranking to rank them, and the school goes into a frenzy on rankings. Meanwhile, a new girl in school, Ali, comes out as pansexual to class, which makes Jay think of coming out to his class as well.

Tropes:

• Adults Are Useless: Lars lampshades this when he officiates the wedding.
  Lars: We are gathered here today, because no adult will stop us.
• Double Standard: Ali being pansexual is considered cool and hot, but Jay coming out as bi is considered weird and makes his male friends uncomfortable. Even Andrew acknowledges that this is an unfair double standard, but can't help it. Furthermore, nobody questions Ali's sexuality, but Matthew says that bi men are just in a stage of transition to gay, while Nick and Andrew think this is just a plea for attention.
• Exact Words:
  • Jay hires a "stripper" for DeVon's bachelor party, only for an eight-year-old girl to do the floss. Well, the girl did say she was a "dancer".
  • The rankings themselves. The actual question was: who is the hottest? Nick (trailing everybody else in terms of reaching puberty), Jessi (disinterested in her looks and prone to reacting badly to male attention) and most especially Devin (beautiful, but such a bitch that nobody but DeVon wants to date her) all place low in the rankings.
• The Faceless: Leah's friend in Andrew's fantasy, since he never memorized her face.
• Fille Fatale: Downplayed. Jessi is not usually inclined to flirt, especially with her male friends. But she does use flirtation to get Andrew to spill who ranked where on everybody's lists at DeVon's bachelor party.
• Frankenstein's Monster: Maury builds Andrew's "ideal woman" based on the top body parts he listed, but it ends up a monstrosity.
• Freudian Slip: When the boys decide to rank the girls, Jay shouts out "Top three guys and girls!" before realizing what he just said and saying he meant just girls.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: Because of this, Ali is considered the hottest girl in class, since she is pansexual. Andrew also fantasizes about Leah and "Leah's friend", a girl (whose name, and even face, he does not know) that Leah posted a picture at the beach with on Instagram.
• Historical In-Joke: Marlon Brando and Richard Pryor really were rumored to have had relations once, at least according to Pryor's widow.
• Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Ali, with regards to sexuality. While she acts like being pansexual makes her the definitive expert on all matters pertaining to sexuality, her opening speech on the topic is shot through with the kinds of fallacies that one would expect from a 13 year old who probably hasn't even had sex yet, much less had sex with all the different types of people she claims to be attracted to.
• Malicious Slander: Matthew says that Aiden told him that Ali was expelled for making out with a nun. She actually quit school after extensive bullying when she came out and confessed to her best friend. Gossip Evolution quickly inflates the story of Ali's sexual adventures at her old school.
• Nightmare Fetishist: Andrew is quite open about it in this episode, and oblivious to how it makes others uncomfortable. When Maurice points out Devin's beautiful hair, Andrew says he would like to cut it off and put it down his pants. This prompts Maury to honestly ask if Andrew is the Ponytail Killer. Later, while talking about Ali's smooth skin in the locker room, Andrew says he wishes that you could remove someone's skin and still have them be alive. Nick calls him Hannibal Lecter.
• No Bisexuals: Invoked. Jay, inspired by Ali's confidence, comes out to the whole school, but his friends (especially Matthew, who should know better) all tell him that he's either a straight boy who's experimenting or a gay boy in denial, largely thanks to Ali's misinformation.
• Pair the Spares: As of this episode, Gina and Charles Lu are dating. They both came in at number two on the hottest girl and boy lists respectively.
• Pet the Dog: Ali, whose misinformation on sexuality ruins Jay's coming out as bi, tells him that he's brave for doing so.
• Remember the New Guy?: Charles Lu is first acknowledged in this episode, despite all the guys acting as if he's been part of the gang the whole time. Justified as it is a fairly large middle school.
• Runaway Bride: Gender Flipped. DeVon panics after Devin is not voted as the hottest girl in school, and he questions if the wedding is a good idea. Nick brings him down to his senses.
• Sexiness Score: The Bridgeton Middle School students create an app ranking the most attractive students in school, with each student choosing their top three candidates. This upsets several characters, like Nick (who wanted to be on his crush Gina's list), Jessi (who knows the idea is demeaning but still feels left out), and Devin (the Alpha Bitch who ends up very low on the list because of her bad attitude).
• Shout-Out:
  • The girl Jay brings to the party does the floss, the memetic dance from Fortnite
  • Ali transferred to Bridgeton Middle from Our Lady in the Water Roman Catholic school.
  • Connie compares the boys' list to Schindler's List.
    Connie: You wish there didn't have to be a list, but if there is going to be, you wanna be on the motherfucking list!
• Sorry, I'm Gay: Inverted when Charles Lu says he's straight to Jay, who lampshades the fact that this is the only other thing he says besides "Dude".
• Surprisingly Creepy Moment: The camera does a double take from panning over the crowd at the Devins' wedding when the twins talk about eating the children.
• Tempting Fate: When the boys decide to rank the girls, Nick says that nothing bad could come of it. Of course, he is very wrong.
• True Beauty Is on the Inside: Both played straight and subverted.
  • It's mentioned in the episode that nobody actually thinks Devin is that good, with her final rank being number 13, and that it is actually because everybody can see she's a bitch.
  • Jessi and Nick discover that their personalities do not count for much when everyone is ranking each other based on how sexually attractive they are.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Jessi pumps Andrew for information about the lists that the boys made and then takes the information straight to Matthew, who escalates the drama via the school news and an app written by Caleb. Soon people are miserable, fighting and wondering why they ranked the way they did - including Jessi herself. Also, Lola put Mr. Lizer on her list, which was visible on the app, and he manipulates her into an utterly indecent relationship a couple of episodes later.
• Wedding Episode: An important aspect of the episode is Devin and DeVon getting married.

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