The Hills are forced to live with the Gribbles after Dale digs a tunnel underneath the Hills' kitchen, and the inspector declares the Hill house uninhabitable until the necessary repairs are done. Things get worse when Hank is sentenced to take anger management classes after accidentally cutting one of Dale's fingers off with a circular saw.
Tropes:
- Adam Westing: Chuck Mangione appears as one of the people attending the anger management classes and knocks out the instructor with his flugelhorn.
- Anger Born of Worry: After Hank graduates from anger management and thus nullifies the restriction order Dale filed against him, the guys are digging tunnels to connect their houses. When a garbage truck rumbles down the street, Hank tries to calmly explain that they could get crushed because the tunnels are only supported by a thin layer of dirt, but when patiently reasoning only leads to being rudely ignored (by both his buddies and the truck driver), Hank snaps and yells angry threats of committing violence if they don't get out. The guys barely manage to jump out right before the tunnel's collapse under the garbage truck.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Big Jim posthumously fails anger management, much to the instructor's reluctance, since he did practically die of anger.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Hank is right in that he has to put up with a lot with the antics of his bumbling neighbors, and that he has plenty of justified reasons to get angry about it, but after seeing Big Jim die in front of his eyes from a stroke brought on by intense rage, Hank concedes that he could handle his reactions better after going through his memories of all the other times he got angry.
- Butt-Monkey: Dale sets up a tape measure in the alley to enforce the restraining order, which Hank kicks out of frustration. The tape measure rolls up and for no reason bounces up and hits Bill in the groin, causing Dale and Boomhauer to jump in terror and yell that he's on a rampage again.
- Captain Obvious: After Hank climbs out of the tunnel and ends up in Dale's basement, Dale comments: "So... you found the tunnel."
- Continuity Nod: Hank flashes back to all of the times throughout the show where he got angry. The bit where he pushes the archaeologist into the pit from "The Arrowhead" is played more than once.
- Delayed Reaction: After Hank accidentally cuts off Dale's finger, it takes a total of nine seconds after the digit is severed (and actually seeing it curled around his cigarette) for Dale to scream.
- Eat the Camera: Dale's loud scream from the sight of his cut off finger does this for the act break.
- Fingore: Dale's inattention causes Hank to accidentally cut Dale's finger off with an electric saw. It gets reconnected, though. When Hank gets the guys to evacuate the crude tunnel under the street at the end, he does so by threatening to cut off all their fingers and toes if they refuse.
- Foreshadowing: At the very beginning, Hank discovers the tunnel Dale was digging when he fell through his kitchen floor because Dale only scooped out the dirt but did not reinforce the "roof" of the tunnel. At the end, the tunnel connecting Dale's, Bill's, and Boomhauer's houses collapsed under the garbage truck because the tunnel's roof only consisted of a thin layer of earth and the pavement of the alleyway.
- Hair-Trigger Temper: The episode addresses Hank's anger problems, though he insists he has a idiot problem.
- And then there's Big Jim, a man who clearly has little control of his own anger. His last moments in life consist of him barking like a dog at Dale until he suffers a stroke and dies. It's at this point that Hank realizes that anger problems are a real issue and if he doesn't do anything about it, he could end up like Big Jim.
- Hanging Judge: Zig-zagged with Both Sides Have a Point above, which implies that the judge's intent was to show Hank how his anger issues were Not Helping Your Case if he really is innocent.
- Hard Truth Aesop: Sometimes, managing your anger can be unhelpful to certain situations, like trying to get your friends out of a hole and being squished by a truck.
- Hollywood Restraining Order: Of the "if Hank showed the judge evidence of how Dale is using it as a tool for bullying things would end badly for Dale" type.
- Karma Houdini: Zig-Zagged. While Dale does get some forms of comeuppance for his own poor decision-making, most of the consequences fall on Hank's head. He illegally digs a tunnel under Hank's house, causing the floor to collapse and his home being deemed unfit for habitation. He's a bad host who takes advantage of the Hill family, sues Hank when his own carelessness gets his finger cut off and sending him to anger management. He rubs the restraining order in Hank's face every chance he gets, all out of spite for not being invited to fix the kitchen floor. While he nearly gets crushed by a garbage truck due to his own poorly thought-out alleyway tunnel, he never suffers any consequences for all of the trouble he puts Hank through. Not that he doesn't apologize to him afterwards and was simply trying to express his gratitude.
- Manchild: Dale was never exactly mature to begin with, but this episode shows how childish he can be. The plot is set in motion when he tried to dig a tunnel under his and the Hill's house because he thought it was cool, and this caused the Hills' kitchen floor to collapse and the house to be deemed uninhabitable. When the Hills stay with the Gribbles until Hank can finish repairing the house, Dale walks around in his underwear late at night and watches TV in the room where Hank and Peggy are sleeping without regard to the fact that it bothers them. When Hank is trying to repair his house, Dale's too busy annoying him to notice he placed his hand in the way of a power saw, and then has Hank arrested and charged with assault with a deadly weapon, despite the fact that it was his own fault for placing his hand in a dangerous area. When the court slams Hank with a restraining order, Dale flings the occasional childish taunt at Hank, and encourages Bill and Boomhauer to actively exclude him from their lives. After Hank passes anger management, Dale still encourages Bill and Boomhauer to exclude him from their clique, and they only start talking to him when he saves them from being crushed by a garbage truck. At the very end, Dale apologizes for everything, and to show he's sorry, he shoots an arrow with a rope tied to it to create a zip line that would connect both their houses.
- Never My Fault: Dale accuses Hank of dismembering him intentionally when it was his own fault for putting his finger in harm's way to start.
- Secret Test of Character: Parodied with the anger management instructor, who apparently attempts this by mispelling the names on the certificates to check the graduates' progress by how they react. This pretty much backfires on him with "Chick" Mangione's response.
- Special Guest: Phil Hendrie as Big Jim.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Hank refuses to admit he has an anger problem by saying he has "an idiot problem". For what is worth, he's right.
- Visual Pun: Right before Hank breaks into Dale's basement through a poster, Dale is shown waxing his the shell of his pet tortoise with Turtle Wax
. - With Friends Like These...: Bill and Boomhauer side with Dale during the whole debacle, much to Hank's consternation. Peggy even believes Hank cut off Dale's finger due to anger problems.
