When the kids try to track down a lost family recipe for a Mother's Day gift for Linda, first they have to navigate an old family feud. Meanwhile, Teddy enlists Bob and Linda to help come up with a tattoo for his own mother.
Trope Side Story:
- Answer Cut: Bob asks the kids if whoever is taking them to get the recipe is someone they know and trust. Louise answers that it's someone they know... and cut to them being driven by Gayle, who just got her driver's license reinstated after being suspended.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Because Linda is convinced that Joey Volpintesta married into a family that got rich selling raincoats, she ends her story about how the feud got started by acting as though her grandparents and uncle Tony leaving Joey's place after the forking incident and getting soaked in the rain because they don't have raincoats as the "kicker."
- Both Sides Have a Point: Joey's side of the family has proven themselves to be Innocently Insensitive, and consistently act without consideration towards how others would feel. Meanwhile, Tony's side of the family have repeatedly jumped to physical altercations when angered and it's clear by Linda and Gayle conspiring to deliberately stab Lorraine and Nico that they aren't stopping. All in all, they both have reasons to be angry but they both end up looking like assholes who need to just stop.
- Call-Back: It's mentioned that Gayle's license was recently reinstated after being suspended. The cause of said suspension was mentioned in "The Pumpkinening" as Gayle letting one of her cats drive.
- Calling the Old Man Out: By the end of the episode, the kids tell Linda that her family's feud is completely ridiculous (though she ignores the fact Bob had said so earlier too).
- Embarrassing Tattoo: The B-plot involves Teddy taking his mother to have a tattoo removed. It's a deck of cards that she got as part of a gin rummy group, but she had a falling out. After learning how expensive the tattoo removal process will be, Teddy and Linda workshop ways of altering the tattoo into something else, coming up with a woman with long hair in a bathtub that is also a racecar. Naturally, Bob's suggestion to turn the fanned-out cards into an accordion, which would probably make the most sense with the tattoo's design, isn't commented on by Linda and mocked by Teddy.
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Gayle is not one to understand or follow social norms (she wore shrimp to church, for goodness' sake), but given her expression when bringing up the incident, even she knows not to wear white to someone else's wedding, especially if it's her mother's wedding.
- The flashback sequence to Gloria and Al's wedding showed her parents Burt and Claudia were both shocked when they saw Lorraine wearing white, but even they seemed to disapprove of how badly Gloria reacted against Lorraine.
- This may have been the only time Al's ever been shown doing anything to reign Gloria back. After she punched Lorraine's back, Al was shown trying to restrain his wife from attacking Lorraine any further.
- Feuding Families: The Volpintesta family's feud began when one of their members (Joey) bought a house his brother Tony had spent his entire life saving up for and, during a gathering to try and calm things down, Tony stabbed Joey with a fork. While other incidents helped contribute to the split (such as Lorraine wearing a white dress during Gloria's wedding), this was the primary factor. The entire family divided over who to support, with Claudia supporting Tony and Pauline supporting Joey. The feud has passed on to later generations of the family—while Pauline had no descendants and Tony's descendants are only mentioned on the family tree, Claudia's descendants (Gloria, Linda, and Gayle) still support Tony and Joey's descendants (Lorraine and Nico) still support Joey.
- Food Slap: During the wedding incident mentioned above, Gloria poured punch down Lorraine's back and punched her in the back.
- Glad I Thought of It: Played with, in then Linda repeatedly ignores Bob's reasonable belief that her family feud is stupid, even when she has the gall to say Teddy's mom should reconcile with her gin rummy group. When the kids come home and call Linda out on the ridiculousness of the fight, she comes to believe they're right. As soon as Bob points out he made this very same statement multiple times during the day, Linda shouts at him "IT'S. MOTHER'S. DAY."
- Grandma's Recipe: Linda misses her grandmother's Bolognese sauce, but according to her it was taken by Joey's side of the family. Louise gets the idea to go to Linda's cousin Lorraine's house and get the recipe as a Mother's Day present, but after they get there, they discover that each side of the family thought the other side took it, meaning it's most likely lost forever.
- Hypocritical Humor:
- Lorraine complains that all of the Genarros have the same distinctive voice. Lorraine herself has a somewhat similar voice to Gloria's, which is especially apparent when she yells.
- Linda tells Teddy that his mother should work to patch things up with her gin rummy group. Bob quickly points out that this is rich coming from a person whose family has been feuding for three generations.
- Ignored Aesop: Linda seems to realize that the family feud is stupid... but then she and Gayle make plans to repeat the fork incident under the pretenses of inviting Lorraine and Nico to dinner.
- Innocently Insensitive: The issue with Joey's side of the family is that they act without perspective. It was one thing for Joey to buy his brother's dream house, but it was another thing entirely to invite Tony over for dinner and not think he would be angry about the whole situation. Likewise, Joey's daughter Lorraine attended her cousin's wedding in a white dress. Even if Lorraine didn't have anything else to wear, she should've at least warned Gloria or made an effort to get another dress.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Linda's family essentially lost the sauce recipe because their pettiness left them assuming the other side stole it, when the truth is no one had it. Had they not spent so much time acting like idiot children (as Louise puts it) they would've probably noticed where the recipe was before Maria Volpintesta's furniture was sent to Goodwill.
- Mama Bear: Lorraine gets pissed when Gayle (accidentally) stabs her son Nico with a fork, a repeat of what caused the family feud to begin with.
- Only Sane Man: The flashback sequences of the infamous forking incident and Gloria's wedding showed Linda's grandfather Burt was the only one who didn't overreact in both moments. His wife Claudia was shown dragging him out of Joey's house, but Burt looked genuinely uncomfortable and apparently only sided with Claudia out of marital obligation. Likewise, while Burt was shocked at Lorraine wearing white to his daughter's wedding, he still didn't seem happy about Gloria's escalation.
- Out of Focus: Pauline Volpintesta is the only one of the original Volpintesta siblings not to have a major role in the plot (Claudia's sauce recipe is the episode's MacGuffin while Tony and Joey's feud split the family apart), with the only thing known about her being that she sided with Joey.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The episode title is a reference to West Side Story, fitting the episode's theme of a longstanding feud.
- Remember the New Guy?: Despite Linda and Gayle being very familiar with their family's multi-generational feud (and it apparently being so important), this is the first time any of their relatives (besides Linda and Gayle's grandfather Burt, who was mentioned in "The Quirk-ducers") have ever shown up. This may be a Justified Trope due to the fact that the last time both sides of the family tried to come together ended disastrously.
- The Reveal:
- After twelve seasons, Linda's maiden name—and by extension Gayle, Gloria, and Al's surnames—is finally revealed: Genarronote .
- It turns out nobody has the sauce recipe—Joey's side of the family thought Tony's side took it, and vice-versa.
- Riddle for the Ages:
- Did Tony deliberately stab his brother with a fork or was it an accident? All of the parties present at the incident have long since died, so we'll never know.
- What really happened to the Volpintesta sauce recipe? It disappeared after the grandmother's belongings were taken to Goodwill.
- Did Joey marry into a family that got rich because they invented the raincoat? Linda's not entirely sure but she keeps insisting it after making a random guess, to which Bob states that can't possibly be true.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: The kids don't find the sauce recipe because each side of the family assumes the other has it (meaning nobody actually knows where it is), and Linda's seeming realization that the feud is stupid is promptly followed by her making plans with Gayle to get back at Lorraine and Nico under the false pretenses of making peace.
- Shout-Out:
- The Store Next Door is "Saved by the Yell" Primal Therapy.
- The Exterminator Van is "A Fume Good Men".
- The Burger of the Day is "Burger She Goat".
- Nico is painting a Buckaroo Banzai figurine.
