Original air date: 4/15/2009
Randy steals a superconducting magnet and slips it into the back of Stan's pinewood derby car to ensure his son will win the annual state derby. Somehow, this causes the car not only to zoom right past the competition, but to reach escape velocity and blast off into space at warp speed, attracting the attention of aliens...
Tropes:
- Alien Blood: Baby-Fark bleeds lime-green blood when he gets stabbed in the neck.
- Anachronism Stew: The Prime Minister of Australia is clearly meant to be John Howard, who was voted out two years before this episode aired.
- Bad "Bad Acting": The Earthling's performance of shock over Finland's destruction leaves something to be desired...
- Blatant Lies: It's painfully obvious the people of Earth had something to do with Finland's destruction.
- Doomed Moral Victor: No matter how you look at Finland's decision to confess to taking the space cash, they were the only country to agree to that, and the only one to get nuked for it.
- Downer Ending: The entirety of planet Earth is cut off from the rest of the universe, with only its moon trapped with it.
- Driven to Suicide: Mr. Hollis kills himself when his son loses to Stan in the pinewood derby.
- Epic Fail: Earth's failure to own up to the theft of the space cash (and the obscene lengths they go to keep up the ruse) at Randy Marsh's urging not only costs them the chance to join the Federation of Planets, but also led to Earth being permanently cut off from the universe as punishment.
- "Fawlty Towers" Plot: The episode starts with Randy cheating at a simple competition, then by the end the entire planet is lying to intergalactic authorities.
- Good All Along: Baby-Fark McGee-zax, real name Kevern Zaksor, turns out to the ambassador for new world testing, and only played the part of a space criminal as part of a test to see if Earth was worthy of joining the intergalactic community.
- Good Is Not Nice: Even if Kevern Zaksor was only pretending to be evil, he still (non-fatally) shot people with his ray gun and destroyed Italy's government building to uphold the act.
- Humans Are Bastards: Kevern Zaksor comes to this conclusion after the people of Earth refuse to return the space cash. That they stabbed him in the neck and nuked Finland to keep their secret intact probably didn't help their case.
- Humans Are Morons: As detailed below on Idiot Ball.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The aliens are portrayed more intelligent and reasonable than the idiotic humans where after witnessing them commit appalling actions out of sheer stupidity and greed, such as nuking Finland, they decide to have Earth cut off from the rest of the universe just to protect the planets in their intergalactic community from their destructive influence.
- Hypocrite: Randy teaches Stan to not give tells of lying before they submitted their illegal pinewood derby car but he shows the same tells whenever he lies throughout the episode.
- Ignored Epiphany: Stan confesses to cheating in the derby race in an attempt to get Randy and the world leaders to admit to secretly keeping the space cash. They consider it...only to decide not to tell the truth.
- Improbable Aiming Skills: McGee-zax is somehow able to hit both one specific person in a crowd that's only being shown to him via a news broadcast (seemingly non-lethally) and blow up a government building in Italy by pointing his ray gun straight up and firing a single shot.
- Idiot Ball: The entire planet is firmly holding onto it for most of the episode: as pointed out by the alien testers at the end of the episode, the "space cash" is worthless to the people of Earth with nobody on the planet officially backing it and any value it might have was entirely arbitrary, especially since nobody on the planet would have access to any planet or civilization where it might be used if it was legitimate legal tender. Finland is the only country who either realizes this or just wants to do the right thing and return it to the space cops, and as detailed below, it gets nuked off the face of the Earth for it.
- Impromptu Tracheotomy: Stan, at Randy's urging, seemingly kills McGee-zax by stabbing him in the neck with a shank.
- Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: The world leaders wipe out Finland in a nuclear attack when they attempt to tell the space cops about their theft of the space cash.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Randy Marsh is hit with this HARD, and to call him a "hero" here is really being generous; aside from triggering the entire crisis with his petty thievery, he continuously lies to the alien visitors, and it was he who prompted the rest of the world to nuke Finland to conceal the theft of the space cash, as they intended to confess to the Space Cops. Randy worsens matters when he and the rest of the world leaders again deny any involvement in this or in Finland's annihilation, only to realize the Space Cops (and Baby-Fark McGee-zax) were not in the least bit fooled by their antics. In the end, Randy's failure to take any responsibility in the incident prompts the Federation of Planets to permanently isolate Earth from the rest of the universe.
- Not Quite Dead: Kevern Zaksor, aka Baby-Fark McGee-zax, reveals himself to have survived Stan stabbing him in the neck.
- Nuke 'em: How the world leaders respond to Finland's attempt to divulge the truth to the "space cops".
- Only Sane Man: Stan, as per usual. Too bad his appeals for honesty fell on deaf ears when it came time for Earth to confess to its actions.
- The Space Cops and Kevern Zaksor are definitely this in the end, having shown genuine concern for how far Earth was willing to go for its shortsighted ends and clearly being alarmed that they nuked one of their own countries purely out of self-preservation. While cutting off Earth from the rest of the universe may be rather extreme, they genuinely wanted to give Earth a chance to be a part of their Federation, only to see that they were not worthy of it.
- Finland is the only country that decides to come clean and confess that they took the space cash, fearing that the Space Cops will find out eventually. Unfortunately, this gets them nuked.
- Out of Focus: The rest of the boys get no lines and only make sporadic cameos throughout the episode.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: When Randy steals the superconducting magnet from Large Hadron Collider, he disguises himself as Princess Leia without even trying to obscure his face. Almost everyone else still attributes the theft to the fictional character regardless. Stan certainly wasn't fooled, and it could be that other characters who weren't shown on-screen weren't either.
- Secret Test of Character: What the whole alien ordeal turns out to be, to which the entirety of Earth fails miserably at.
- Serious Business: Both Randy and Mr. Hollis take the Pinewood Derby contest far more seriously than their sons (the actual participants) do. Randy resorts to stealing a superconducting magnet and putting it into Stan's car, while the aftermath of Emmett's winning streak being broken leads to Mr. Hollis shooting himself.
- The rest of Earth also take the contest seriously, as they're all horrified when Stan confesses to cheating.
- Skewed Priorities: When McGee-zax holds the world hostage in order to force Randy and Stan to rebuild his spaceship's broken warp drive, Randy refuses to admit to not knowing how out of fear of embarrassing himself in front of the town.
- Snap Back: The force field that surrounds earth at the end of this episode never comes up again, even in episodes like "A History Channel Thanksgiving" where it logically would.
- Space Police: Subverted. The "space cops" turn out to be merely actors for the space cash test.
- Too Dumb to Live: Everyone on Earth (minus Stan) for hoarding the space cash instead of handing it back to the Space Cops, and for believing Baby-Fark's obvious ruse from the start without a second thought. Baby-Fark, or rather Kevern Zaksor is quick to rip them a new one on their stupidity when he drops the charade, and destroying Finland was almost certainly the tipping point for them in testing the humans. And that's to say nothing of them thoughtlessly wasting the space cash on Earth when it had no value to a planet not already in the Federation of Planets.
- Worthless Yellow Rocks: The space cash that McGee-zax left behind turns out to be fake money after the world's governments imposed some arbitrary value on it.
