"Look away, Santa, this is not for your delicate eyes."
"You suck at this! You'll be knitting the same scarf until you die!"
—Knitcracker, to Linda
The battle is on when some angsty teenagers take over Louise, Gene and Tina's usual sledding territory, inciting an epic turf war. Meanwhile, Bob steps in to help Linda, who's in a time crunch to get three scarves knitted before Christmas.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Louise got Teddy to clear the hill of snow to stop Logan, only for an overnight snowstorm to cover the hill over again.
- Big Damn Heroes: Mandy returns with multiple varsity athletes just as Logan and his friends are about to clobber the Belcher kids with snowballs, instantly turning the tides.
- Big Brother/Sister Instinct: When Logan and his friends are about to pelt Louise with painful snowballs, Tina quickly goes down there to shield her. While not as willing as Tina, Gene still comes down to shield Louise from the snowballs.
- Crappy Homemade Gift: Linda finds knitting more difficult than anticipated when she tries to make scarves for the kids' Christmas gifts. While Bob knits two nice scarves, Linda can only produce one that is lumpy and lopsided. To her surprise, the kids prefer the ugly scarf over the normal-looking ones that look like they came from "a boring scarf store".
- Crowd Chant: “POOP ICE! POOP ICE! POOP ICE!”
- Dirty Coward: Logan grabs Louise and tries to use her as a human shield when the athletes show up.
- Similarly, when Logan and his friends get a surprise attack from Mandy defending the smaller kids, they resort to getting their larger, basketball playing classmate to fight against Mandy.
- Lastly, it's worth noting that Logan and his friends have no problem picking on and hitting smaller, younger kids with snowballs but then they cower and run away with their tails between their legs when other kids their age and size show up to fight back.
- Embarrassing Nickname: Logan used to tease Mandy when they were younger by calling her "Man-itary Napkin". She eventually takes the name as an Appropriated Appellation.
- Green-Eyed Monster: After it turns out Bob is a better knitter and manages to make two scarves, Linda grows increasingly envious, to the point where she tries to throw Bob's scarves out. When it turns out the kids actually like her scarf better because it seems weirder and has more personality, Linda's so overjoyed she openly gloats to Bob's face about it.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Legions of female varsity athletes come out of their schedules when Mandy informed them about the snowball fight against Logan. They all immediately stopped doing whatever they were doing just to get a chance at tossing snowballs at him, because he bullied all of them in the past.
- Hidden Depths: Bob turns out to be a surprisingly decent knitter, despite having next-to-no experience.
- Huddle Shot: Seen when the kids are formulating their plan to use Rudy’s cousin Mandy and her powerful arm to attack Logan and his friends.
- Human Shield: Logan grabs Louise and uses her to shield himself as a group of his female classmates get ready to hurl snowballs at him.
- If I Can't Have You…: Louise gets Teddy to plow the hill to get back at Logan, even though it means the kids also won’t be able to use it to sled.Louise: If she can’t be mine, then no one can have her!
- Imagine Spot: Linda has daydreams/regular dreams about being a ballerina visited by The Knitcracker (a giant nutcracker that looks like a knitted doll).
- Judgment of Solomon: Discussed when Teddy and Linda are fighting over a tote bag.Teddy: Bob! Bob! Who should have the tote? And don’t say "split it in half"!
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: In this episode, Linda acts like she's a master knitter and claims she knits all the time. It takes forever for her to finish a single scarf and she gets jealous that Bob's a more adept knitter than she is. By the end, she lucks out when the kids like her scarf better because it looks weirder than Bob's two at which point she immediately brags about being better at it than him.
- Malicious Misnaming: Logan calls Louise “Louise Smell-cher”.
- Mercy Lead: Louise gives one to Logan, but only because it's Christmastime.
- Mundane Object Amazement: When Linda brings up her bag of knitting supplies from the basement, Teddy thinks the reason for the excitement is the tote bag they’re in.Linda: You’re not gonna believe what I found in the basement!Teddy: A tote bag? You just found that? Look at the handles on that thing!
- Negative Continuity: We find out in The Movie that not only has Linda always been able to knit, she's the one who made Louise's hat.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Not only did Louise's plan to plow the hill fail, it also provided Logan and his crew with harder snow for more painful snowballs.
- No, You: Louise and Logan have an argument in which they go back and forth yelling at each other “Your face is crap!”.
- Noodle Incident: Logan claims that his mom once stole a muffin tin from a cooking supply store.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Discussed; Teddy claims Ebenezer Scrooge wasn't a medical doctor, ignoring how he wasn't the other kind either.
- Passionate Sports Girl: Mandy, in sharp contrast to her cousin, Regular-Sized Rudy. She's a high school softball pitcher who throws a mean snowball and spends her free time at the gym.
- Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure: After Bob makes a comment about the crappiness of Linda's scarf, Teddy calls him "Dr. Scrooge". Bob points out a flaw in what he just said:Bob: Scrooge was not a doctor.Teddy: Not a medical doctor.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title is a reference to the 1985 movie, Better Off Dead.
- Revenge Before Reason: Louise resorts to having Teddy plow over the hill to stop Logan once and for all, despite the fact that it would also deprive her and the other kids of the only place in town where they could sled, which was the reason they were fighting Logan in the first place.
- Sanity Slippage: From the perspective of Bob and the customers, Linda dips into this when she loses herself in her Imagine Spot and openly thanks "Knitcracker."Bob: Lin you're scaring me.
- Save the Villain: Louise saves Logan from the girls' first Coup de Grâce attempt, getting him enough distance via her sled to give him a Mercy Lead from their pursuit.
- Shout-Out:
- Olsen Benner references the Billy Idol song "White Wedding" while reporting saying "It's a nice day for a white sledding."
- As seen in X Called; They Want Their Y Back below, Gene compares the teenagers' assault to the opening scene of Saving Private Ryan.
- Gene calls Rudy’s cousin Brienne of Tarth.
- Sisterhood Eliminates Creep: Mandy brings all the varsity girl athletes Logan has made fun of to even the score.
- Small Name, Big Ego: Linda. She brags about knitting all the time, but in practice she's not really that good at it. In fact, she gets bested by Bob, who had even less experience than her.
- Snowball Fight: Logan and his friends have taken over the sledding hill for snowball fighting, setting up the main conflict.
- Surpassed the Teacher: Linda teaches Bob how to knit, and not only does he catch on quickly, he manages to make two perfect scarfs in just a couple of days. Downplayed in that Linda is not that good to begin with.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: Logan's friends often just stood by his side but never really got involved in his conflicts with the Belchers, even leaving him be when he got into it with them because they wanted to do something else, but here they gladly join him in terrorizing the Belcher kids and other younger kids by pelting them with snowballs, including iceballs (which thankfully went unused).
- Trauma Button: Louise abuses Teddy's past trauma of being pelted with snowballs by a bully as a kid to get him to plow the snow on the hill she and Logan are fighting over as a form of revenge by proxy on his past bullies.
- X Called; They Want Their Y Back: After Logan and the other teens attack the kids.Gene: Saving Private Ryan called, they want their opening scene back!"
- Yellow Snow: When Tina suggests building a snowman instead of sledding, Gene says they can use dog pee snow to give him blond hair, a gold chain, and a pee stain on his pants.
