Recap / Corner Gas Animated S 1 E 04 Bait And Click

A Plot: Wanda is frustrated that smartphones have replaced her as the town’s wellspring of knowledge, so she sends clickbait texts to the citizens of Dog River. Intrigued by the response to Wanda's texts, Lacey tries to use similar methods to move menu items in the diner.

B Plot: Davis and Karen involve Hank in a police training exercise, and things get chaotic when he falls too deep into character and can’t get out.

C Plot: Frustrated that Brent doesn’t sell live bait at Corner Gas, Oscar sets up a Bait Shack outside to teach his son a lesson.

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Tropes referenced:

• Appeal to Tradition: Oscar berates Brent for not selling live bait because buying live bait at the gas station is a time-honoured tradition. Brent counters that some traditions are gross, citing an anecdote Wanda told him in an earlier flashback about how barbarians would tie an enemy's head to a pole to play tetherball.
• Bait-and-Switch: Wanda sees the contents of the green file stolen from the police station and says "This is huge!" Hank asks "You wanna see huge?", a zipper is heard offscreen, and Hank pulls out... the Scrooge McDuck comic he was reading earlier to show Wanda Scrooge's swimming pool.
• Blatant Lies: Davis spits out his coffee when Wanda threatens to expose what's on the file that Hank stole from the police station. Karen asks what's wrong, so Davis says he choked on a noodle, leading Karen to ask about coffee noodles.
• Brick Joke: Wanda mentions that Bachelor #5 on her list of most eligible bachelors is tricky because he's technically married, but Lacey cuts her off because that's not what she wants to talk about. After a short conversation, Mavis comes up to ask Wanda what are the signs that your husband is cheating, so Wanda whispers "Bachelor #5" to Lacey.
• Can't Take Criticism: After the potato cooking competition, Zeke confesses to Lacey that he only voted for Emma's dish because Emma viciously cut him off when he tried to criticize it and he voted for her out of fear. When Lacey does the same thing after Zeke tries to say something negative about her pie, she notes how effective that is.
• Clickbait Gag: Wanda's texts to the townspeople follow the template, such as "Five Hottest Bachelors in Dog River", or one that ends with "What Wanda Knows Will SHOCK You!!!"
• Comically Missing the Point:
  • Karen wonders where Hank would hide out while on the run. Davis doesn't think that Hank has a hideout, though he does think that Hank would hide out in his and Brent's old treehouse until he managed to find a hideout.
    Karen: So you're saying he'd hide out at their hideout until he found a hideout?
    Davis: Don't make this complicated, Karen.
  • Karen and Davis lure Hank out of hiding by announcing that if they can't find him, they can't pay him for his help in the training exercise. Hank excitedly pops out in a Paper-Thin Disguise, only to be tasered by Davis. While lying on the floor, Hank asks how much he gets paid.
• Cooking Duel: Lacey's attempt at clickbait marketing doesn't work, so she sets up a competition to see what customers like more, her potato latkes or Emma's potato gratin, in order to get rid of her excess potatoes. Emma wins by a landslide, with Lacey only getting two votes (one of which is her own). Lacey tries to say that she's happy because she sold a lot of potatoes, but she can't hide her disappointment.
• Door Dumb: Wanda impresses Won with her investigative skills, telling him to leave the problem solving to her. She then tries to exit through a pull door by pushing on it. She tries to save face by claiming she was checking the hinges, but then she gives up and leaves.
• Felony Misdemeanour: Karen calls Hank a sick bastard for messing with Davis' pens and adjusting the height on her office chair.
• Flashback Cut: Karen laments using Hank for the police training exercise, wondering why they didn't get Helen like last year. A flashback shows Davis tasering Helen during a staged car theft. Back in the present, Davis says she claimed to be busy.
• Guys are Slobs: Karen and Davis go to Hank's house in search of him.
  Karen: Dents in the wall, furniture askew. Must've been a struggle.
  Davis: Nope. This is how Hank lives. His struggle is hygiene.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Brent takes advantage of Oscar's stupidity in order to make more money off of Oscar's bait shack than Oscar does. First, Brent sells Oscar snacks and pop at full retail price because Oscar wants to resell them at his bait shack at a discounted price to drive business away from Brent. Second, Brent has Oscar pay rent to set up his shack inside the gas station because Emma doesn't want him outside all day. Third, Brent offers to sell Oscar's product for him in exchange for a fee so that Oscar doesn't have to be there, leaving Brent to run the gas station in peace. The third point comes back to bite Brent when Fitzy comes to charge Oscar a fine for selling without a license and failing the "live" part of "live bait". Brent ends up having to pay the fine instead because he's now the one in charge of Oscar's faulty product.
• I'm Standing Right Here: During the police training exercise at the bar, Hank and Karen both casually insult the bar while Phil the bartender is just off screen.
• Immediate Self-Contradiction:
  Davis: Hank took the green file?
  Wanda: Ah, ah, ah, I would never divulge my source. But yes.
• The Internet Is for Cats//The Internet Is for Porn: Wanda preferred the internet when it was just cat videos and graphic porn, rather than taking away her ability to show off her knowledge.
• Lampshaded Double Entendre: While discussing clickbait with Lacey, Wanda makes up a fake example that blueberries improve your libido, prompting a very excited reaction from Ravi. He then tries to cover up by saying he's asking for a friend, only to call said friend "Mr. Johnson" and point to his crotch. Lacey and Wanda cut him off right in the middle of him saying "If you know what I mean."
• Literal-Minded: Lacey tries to use clickbait style phrasing to sell her four potato specials, telling Zeke and Tina that "Number 3 will make your mouth water". This just makes Zeke and Tina think that the other three specials are dry. When Emma comes to The Ruby later, she tells Lacey that she heard that three of the lunch specials are poison.
• Lost in Character: To help with the police training exercise, Karen and Davis come up with a backstory for Hank's criminal character where he's really a good person who was framed by some bad guys and just needs to rob the bar for some quick cash before he can prove his name, like Jason Steel from the movie Renegade Patriot. Hank gets so into character that he takes out Karen and Davis by throwing pickled eggs in Karen's face and throwing a coaster into Davis' throat, then he robs the bar for real and escapes out the window to play out the rest of the movie's plot around town.
• Major Injury Underreaction: In a flashback to a game of tetherball as kids, Wanda gets hit in the face with the ball, but when Brent asks if she's okay, she instead shows off her knowledge about concussions.
• Mondegreen Gag: When Wanda comes to Hank's rescue as the cops are closing in:
  Wanda: Come with me if you want to leave!
  Hank: Karen and Davis are gonna kill me?
  Wanda: Not "live", leave, you knob!
• Never Mess with Granny: In The Tag, Brent tells Lacey that he's the one person (other than herself) who voted for her potato latkes over Emma's potato gratin. He initially brushes off her statement that he's brave for voting against Emma, then he very seriously emphasizes that Lacey can never, ever tell Emma about it.
• Old Shame: In-Universe example. Once Davis finds out that Hank stole the green file from the police station, Davis agrees to sell Wanda the story of how Hank outwitted him and Karen in order to get the file back. Karen is embarrassed when Wanda prints the story in The Howler, but Davis tells her it would be a lot worse if Wanda printed what was in the file: A Self-Insert Fic Davis wrote about him and Jar Jar Binks working as intergalactic detectives.
• Poke the Poodle: At one point, Hank taunts the cops by calling them from their office, gloating that he touched all of Davis' stuff and adjusted the height on Karen's chair.
• Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure:
  • Zeke asks Phil who played the dad in Nebraska!. Phil thinks it was Bob Hope, but Zeke thinks that Bob Hope was in Bad Santa.
  • Wanda tries to use a historical reference to convince Hank that she won't turn him over to the cops. Hank doesn't get it, but it convinces him anyway.
    Wanda: I'm your Woodward and Bernstein.
    Hank: I love those bear books.
• Pun-Based Title: The episode title is a play on the phrases Bait-and-Switch and Clickbait. Wanda also switches from the clickbait-based A plot to Karen and Davis' B plot partway through.
• Tempting Fate: Karen thinks that Hank is going to break into their office while following the plot of the movie Renegade Patriot. Davis says she's being ridiculous, then gets a phone call from the police station. Sure enough, it's Hank taunting them because he broke into their office to steal a file, repeating the exact line Jason Steel used in the movie.
• Verbal Backpedaling: Wanda calls Karen "piggy", earning Karen's ire, so Wanda corrects that she said "picky", as in "you're picky about what slang words I can use for the police."