Peggy's estranged mother invites the Hills to their Montana ranch. And Peggy must find a way to save said ranch from a gentrifying community and Henry Winkler.
Tropes:
- Adam Westing: Henry Winkler as a flighty, spacey version of himself obsessed with fishing and jazz metaphors.
- Arranged Marriage: Maddy's main gripe with Peggy. She wanted her to marry the son of alfalfa farmers, Sven Grammersdorf, so the Platters could have access to their cattle trail, but Peggy didn't have feelings for him, and left home shortly after. The same might also go for Sven, who moved away to Seattle, and caused his family to sell their land to Henry Winkler.Maddy: He was a decent man from good stock!Peggy: Well, I did not have feelings for him, Mom!Maddy: No one asked you to; we were trying to run a ranch, not a "feelings" factory!
- Aggressive Categorism: As far as Peggy's brothers are concerned, Hank, New Yorkers and Henry Winkler are all the same "Hollywood" city folk. Ignorant of working the land and gentrifying their towns because they're taken in by the scenery.
- Blatant Lies: During The Stinger, Hank says that it was always Henry Winker's intention to let the Platter family use his trail, despite him being so stubborn.
- Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting: When Bobby turns out to have an interest in the Platter family horse, Tennessee, Peggy gently encourages him to partake, and even teaches him how to ride it correctly. This trope comes into effect when earlier in the episode, Peggy relays to Hank how Maddy forced Peggy to castrate her first gelding horse; while Maddy clouded Peggy's good memories of growing up on the ranch, Peggy helps nurture Bobby's talents.
- City Mouse: Despite growing up in Arlen, this trope is still in effect. Hank is at first thrilled to get to go to the ranch, until his inexperience and squeamishness get the better of him; compared to his father, Bobby takes to the ranching life like a duck to water, with Peggy's encouragement.
- Freudian Excuse: The episode's ending implies one reason Peggy has such an ego is it acted as a coping mechanism for dealing with her overly demanding mother.
- Hard Truth Aesop: As Peggy learns the hard way, horrible parents might never change, but that doesn't mean you can't try Breaking the Cycle of Bad Parenting, as she helped Bobby learn how to ride a horse, one of the few pleasures she had of growing up in Montana.
- Ice-Cream Koan: Peggy's father, Doc Platter, only responds with vaguely country non-sequiturs after a brief pause when asked anything. Bobby is confused while Hank finds his "cowboy talk" utterly profound, but Peggy is obviously exasperated with it from experience.
- Irony: Hank, the one who spent the whole episode enchanted by Montana and the rugged environment, actually turns out to be improperly suited for it due to his squeamishness, and it's Bobby of all people who adapts well.
- Jerkass to One: While Hank is proven right that Maddy has mellowed out, she is still bitter with Peggy, and nothing she does can get her to forgive her or admit she was wrong.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Seeing her mother for the first time in years causes Peggy to remark, "that's a different woman than the one I grew up with" referring to her being more tender, not the episode retconning Maddy from a traditional housewife to a rugged rancher woman.
- Loophole Abuse: Peggy forces Henry Winkler to let the Platter ranch use his cow trail that he's denying their use of by making nonsensical arguments about how cows have dirty feet and are responsible for spreading bacteria to fish by making use of an old law that states that if a dedicated cow trail isn't available, the main street may be used as one temporarily until the actual cow trail becomes available again: cue chaos as the Hills drive a herd of cows through the now-gentrified town, where they proceed to block traffic and trample everything, with one of them climbing inside a rich guy's convertible, tearing up the seats and leaving cow dung on them.
- Retcon: One of the more notorious examples in animation.
- Prior to this, Peggy's mother had been portrayed several times as a standard homemaker who had even visited the Hill house in a previous episode, and there was no sign of estrangement. Come this episode, she's suddenly portrayed as a rough hewn rancher who hasn't spoken to Peggy in 20 years.
- Her appearance is also retconned. Previously, she was portrayed as an older version of Peggy, even being the spitting image of her daughter in flashbacks. The resemblance is less notable this time around.
- Peggy's backstory is retconned as well. Until this episode, Peggy had been born in Montana but had grown up in West Arlen all her life. Now, she suddenly lived in Montana, only moving to Texas in high school to escape her mother.
- Prior to this, Peggy's mother had been portrayed several times as a standard homemaker who had even visited the Hill house in a previous episode, and there was no sign of estrangement. Come this episode, she's suddenly portrayed as a rough hewn rancher who hasn't spoken to Peggy in 20 years.
- Never My Fault: Maddy doesn't accept Peggy getting the trail open, and even criticizes her for not checking to be sure if the steer were vaccinated or branded... even if that's her job as a rancher.
- Shout-Out: One of the shops on the main street is called Klatch's Coffee.
- Theme Naming: The Platters seem to name their horses after Southern locations: Peggy's gelding horse was named Missoula, after the city in Montana, while the horse Bobby rides is named Tennessee.
