"Ok, pencils down"
"Alright, ok, one of them can go. I don't care which one, they're all equally terrible."
—Linda
To get out of a grounding from a miffed Linda, the kids hold a writing contest to escape with Gayle to a night out.
Gene produces The Ballad of Gayle and Jo-Gene. A tale of country singers and snakes.
Tina gives us Lady Chatter-teeth's Lover. A Victorian romantic epic...kind of.
And Louise produces Gayle Of Thrones. An adventure through the dangerous lands of Catsteros.
The Trope Tales:
- Abhorrent Admirer: After Gayle's date cancels on her, Gayle arrives at the restaurant intending to take Bob. Bob understandably turns her down.
- Actually Pretty Funny: Bob finds the prank the kids got grounded for hilarious.
- Adaptational Heroism: To earn her interest, each of the kids write Gayle in a more flattering way. Depicting her as humble, caring, responsible and all-around wonderful, a far cry from the selfish, emotionally unstable, lazy and borderline insane mess of a woman she actually is.
- Adaptational Villainy: Conversely to Gayle's portrayal, Linda's the bad guy in all three stories because the kids are mad at her. Even Gene, who loves his mother, portrays her extremely unflatteringly.
- It's worth noting that all the kids all play up some of her traits to make her look even worse. Gene takes Linda's love of singing and twists it into making her a vain rising star. Tina takes Linda's love of wine to make her look like an obnoxious alcoholic. Louise takes her love of porcelain babies and uses it to make her a psychopath who uses her porcelain babies to murder people.
- In Gene's story she's "Lindette," Jo-Gene's ex-partner who dumped him and tried to sabotage his performance with Gayle. She ends up losing to them and is forced to marry a drunken barfly (Bob).
- In Tina's story she's Lord Bob's horribly obnoxious American fiancee whom he's marrying for money and is very clearly uncomfortable with. Tina mentions at the end they're also cousins and had a kid with a tail.
- In Louise's story she's the evil hag "Lindaryen" (her personality is a mix of Cersei Lannister and Lysa Arryn, with her name based on Danaerys Targaryen), and eventually gets thrown into her pit of ravenous porcelain babies after mistreating her servant Bobdor too many times.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: The family dynamics are changed up for each story.
- In Gene's story, none of the Belchers (including Gayle) are related to each other. Bob and Linda hook up at the end, but that's the closest it gets.
- In Tina's story, Gayle (normally the Belcher kids' maternal aunt) becomes the kids' older sister. None of them are related to Bob or Linda, though. Bob and Linda are also cousins in the story, and they get married at the end.
- In Louise's story, none of the core Belchers are related to each other (although Gayle remains Linda's sister). And unlike the other two stories, Bob and Linda don't end up together.
- The Bore: The White Talkers in Louise's story, capable of talking you to death because of how boring they are. They're clearly based on the real Teddy's tendency to ramble on about boring stories.
- The Bus Came Back: Boyz 4 Now make a voiceless cameo during Tina's story. Due to the old-timey setting, they're called Boys Fore the Present Time.
- Cain and Abel: Gayle and Lindaryen in Louise's story; Lindaryen being Cain and Gayle being Abel.
- Call-Back: In "An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal", Gene listed "season premiere of Game of Thrones" as a holiday the kids like more than Thanksgiving, then Louise interrupts Bob as he tries to point out that they've never seen it. Louise's story here is a blatant parody of Game of Thrones, but she claims she's never even heard of it when Bob asks if she's watched it.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Linda immediately protests when Tina's story features Ship Tease between Bob and Gayle.
- Disproportionate Retribution: The reason for Linda grounding the kids was because of a prank at a supermarket, which caused her to fall over several boxes of maxipads & fart on them...While everyone laughed at her humiliation.
- Entertainment Above Their Age: Bob is understandably concerned that Louise saw Game of Thrones, with Louise playing dumb.
- Extreme Omnivore: Eugenia (Gene in Tina's story) eats the leeches used for Gayle's medical treatment.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: During the flashback to the grocery store, Gene isn't there when Tina and Louise ask Linda to get ice cream from the frozen food aisle. Guess where Gene is hiding.
- Gender Bender: In Tina's story, Gene is a woman named Eugenia.
- Gender-Blender Name: Gayle's date is a male named Stacy.Gene: Wait, men can be named Stacy? I love America!
- Harmful to Minors: Bob notes that Game of Thrones is not a show Louise should be watching.
- Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": All three stories feature Gayle as a perfect protagonist that everyone loves. Gayle actually invoked it—she outright stipulated the stories do so if they wanted her to pick them.
- Kissing Cousins: In Tina's story, Bob and Linda are cousins. They end up having a kid with a tail. The real Bob and Linda quickly clarify that they're not actually cousins... at least, not that they know of.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: In Louise's story, Bobdor turns on Lindaryen after she insults his weight.
- Mythology Gag: During Tina's story, her glasses lack the thick black frames. During the original concept of the show, Tina's predecessor Daniel had similar-looking glasses.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: In Gene's story, Lindette has Tina place a snake in Gayle's guitar to sabotage her and Jo-Gene. Gayle and Jo-Gene use the snake's hissing and rattling to their benefit, netting them the win in the competition.
- Out of Focus: Each kid's story places that respective kid in the limelight while relegating the other kids to minor roles. Special mention to Louise's story, where Gene and Tina basically show up in one scene for five seconds.
- Overly Narrow Superlative: Gene decides to tell his story first because he has the biggest penis. Considering the other essay-writers are his sisters, he's the only one with a penis.
- The Reveal: Near the end of the episode, we find out what the kids did to get grounded. They pulled a small prank on Linda at the supermarket that ended with her tumbling into a display of maxipads and farting in front of several people.
- Running Gag: Gayle demands Scott Bakula. And the kids find ways to insert him into their stories. Although in Louise's case she just shoehorns him into the end with no explanation why.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: None of the kids end up leaving with Gayle, as her date is able to un-cancel at the last minute and she goes with him instead.
- Vignette Episode: The episode is shared between three tales of the kids trying to impress their Aunt Gayle.
- Villain Ball: Lindaryen opening the pit of porcelain babies just gave Louise the opportunity to defeat the Mort-ain, who she otherwise would've lost to. Lindaryen lampshades it after the fact, noting she shouldn't have done that.
- Vomit Discretion Shot: In Gene's story, Bob vomits just offscreen in the bar twice.
- Whole-Plot Reference:
- Tina's story is titled after Lady Chatterley's Lover, and riffs on the works of Jane Austen.
- Louise's story is a parody of Game of Thrones. It's lampshaded in-universe when Bob expresses worry that she's actually seen the show.
- Write Who You Know: In-universe; while Linda is portrayed as a villain by all the kids, Bob is portrayed based on how each kid sees him. Gene portrays him rather unflatteringly but also shows that he was once a lot like Gene, Tina portrays him as an upstanding Nice Guy, and Louise portrays him as an unattractive but sympathetic guy.
