For Chinese New Year, the Huangs play a game in which they can only speak in Mandarin. Emery's excited to end his year of bad luck and ask his crush to the spring fling. Eddie doesn't receive a red envelope from Big Auntie.
- Berserk Button: Jessica tries to press Evan's and make him lose the Mandarin game by bringing Marvin over to watch Jeopardy, as Marvin keeps bragging that his wrong answers are actually the right ones and Evan can't correct him without speaking English.
- Game of Chicken: The Mandarin game devolves into this, with Jessica and Evan going for days without speaking English while waiting for the other to give up first.
- Hypocritical Humor: During the above-mentioned Berserk Button pushing while watching Jeopardy, Evan does get an opportunity to answer without losing the Mandarin game when a question involves a given name...but Marvin, who has been constantly claiming that his wrong answers are "close enough", claims that Evan's answer is wrong just because he didn't phrase it as a question (at least, not a question Marvin could understand).
- Motivational Lie: Louis is excited to help Emery woo his crush, even giving him his lucky jacket from when he won a dance contest. After Louis' meddling freaks out the crush and upsets Emery, Grandma admits to Emery that she actually bribed the contest judges because Louis needed the confidence boost. Emery, recognizing that Louis needs another confidence boost, then asks out his crush all on his own and lies to Louis that he had worn the lucky jacket when doing so.
- Serious Business: While the rest of the family quit the Mandarin game by the night's end, Evan and Jessica end up continuing it over the following days, and it nearly costs Jessica an interview to promote her book on television in the process.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: In the end, Eddie finds out that the reason his aunt is upset at him is because he forgot to relay an important message to Grandma Huang. When the misunderstanding is cleared up, he gets his New Year's red envelope from her...and then immediately, Grandma Huang takes hers back for not telling her the message earlier, leaving Eddie in the same position he started in.
- Unsportsmanlike Gloating: When Evan has to choose between winning their Game of Chicken or watching Jessica ruin her own dream for the sake of starting their year with a "win", Evan concedes and says the true winner is love. Jessica then replies that the true loser is Evan while pushing him off-set to get interviewed about her book on daytime television.
