Original air date: 3/29/2023
While on spring break with Rick, Mr. Garrison slips into old habits. Meanwhile, Randy tries to liven up the household when Sharon and Shelly leave for Santa Fe.
Tropes:
- A Day in the Limelight: The episode mostly focuses on Mr. Garrison and Rick, and their trip to Myrtle Beach over spring break.
- Alcohol-Induced Idiocy: Randy spends the whole spring break getting drunk and partying to the point of breaking his bones and harassing an actual cop.
- An Aesop: Healthy relationships keep us grounded and prevent us from self-destructive habits.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- At the start, Rick is visibly uncomfortable with going on Spring Break because the city they're going to have "those places" and Garrison tries assuring him that he won't because he's "too old" to do it, implying that it has to do with gay culture. When they get there, it turns out that they were talking about merchandise stores from when Garrison was President.
- An alternative interpretation is that they seem to be talking about rave culture, considering the rally stores also play club music.
- When Rick enters the restaurant restroom and finds Garrison rallying with one of his supporters, the initial perspective gives the impression that Garrison is getting humped. While Garrison is bent over and his fan is hip-thrusting, they aren't actually touching each other at all.
- Bland-Name Product: Stan is shown painting a model for his Warhammer army with "Armory Paints", though the paint pots are clearly those of Games Workshop's Citadel paint line. Averted with their army rulebooks, which use actual 40K faction names (Raven Guard and Adepta Sororitas).
- Continuity Nod: Once again, Garrison fills in for Donald Trump.
- Crowd Chant: Garrison (in an attempt to get Rick to forgive him) shouts "I love Rick!" repeatedly. The crowd, interpreting it as a campaign chant, does the same.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Garrison sneaking out and going to rallies is treated like going to gay bars and having anonymous sex, to the dismay of Rick.
- Door-Closes Ending: Mr. Garrison ends the episode by entering his house and closing the door.
- Insane Troll Logic: To Randy, Stan and Tolkien playing Warhammer 40,000 is a sign that they feel unsure of their gender due to being "brainwashed" by the left.
- Irony: Randy seems to think that Stan and Tolkien aren't masculine enough when playing Warhammer 40,000, a tabletop game famous for being grimdark by board-game standards.
- Jock Dad, Nerd Son: Randy is ashamed of Stan for wanting to play Warhammer 40k during Spring Break and not getting drunk and assaulting women. The fact that Stan is prefectly happy doing so never enters his mind.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Alonzo Fineski (the Romanian sex trafficker) is modeled after Andrew Tate, who (along with his brother) was held in a Romanian prison for sex trafficking charges at the time this episode aired.
- Noodle Incident: After Sharon returns home on Randy's request, she notes that he actually lasted longer without her than he did the previous spring break.
- Out of Focus: Stan is the only one of the main four to appear.
- Positive Friend Influence:
- Garrison confesses that Rick is healthy for him and needs his influence to keep him functional and stable.
- After hearing Garrison's speech, Randy realizes that Sharon is this to him as she prevents his self-destructive tendencies from spiraling out of control. He calls Sharon and tells her that he needs her in his life.
- Reused Character Design: A number of the drunks at Randy's party are recycled models from the previous season finale.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Garrison's plot is directly based on Donald Trump's 2024 election campaign.
- Shout-Out: An announcer introduces Garrison as "the once and future president".
- Shown Their Work: The show is pretty accurate in its depiction of a game of Warhammer 40K, using the actual stats for the models mentioned and even depicting the phases of play correctly. There are a few things it gets wrong, but nothing too egregious.note This is probably because Trey Parker is a known fan of tabletop games.
- Stripper/Cop Confusion: Randy mistakes a police officer for a stripper and harasses her, getting tased and handcuffed as a result.
- Take That!:
- To spring break party culture, showing it as dangerous for minors and stupid for adults.
- At conservative overreactions to "toxic masculinity", as Randy thinks that Stan and Tolkien are playing with dolls and are thus brainwashed by the liberal left into feeling ashamed of being males, when in reality, they're merely playing Warhammer 40,000. He then proceeds to sexually harass women, get into dangerous situations, and refuse to get medical help because he's very insecure about his own masculinity.
- Garrison's plot jabs at Donald Trump and his attempt to run for president again; a major plot element is his struggle not to slip back into politics.
- Trump's supporters are also shown as southern rednecks who coax Garrison into running again (similar to one person coaxing another back into an old habit) and misinterpret his declaration of love for Rick as a campaign chant, to the point of starting a second Capitol riot (accompanied by real-life footage of the 2021 attack) while using that chant.
- Testosterone Poisoning: Randy acts like a frat bro, accuses his son of a being a pussy, sexually harasses women, commits many dangerous acts and refuses medical treatment when injured in the name of masculinity.
- Too Dumb to Live:
- Randy performs many dangerous acts, like swinging on a chandelier, giving him injuries like a broken arm. He also refuses to get medical help under the delusion that it would make him less manly if he did.
- Later (while inebriated), Randy thinks that harassing a female police officer is a good idea (though it's because he mistakes her for a stripper).
- Toxic Friend Influence: Rick points out to Garrison that his supporters are a bad influence who encourage Garrison's bigoted and self-destructive behavior. Sure enough, when he enters a MAGA store full of them and the longer he spends time with them, he regresses into his Trump-esque self.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: When Sharon returns to Tegridy Farms, she doesn't say a word about the destruction left behind by Randy's partying and only takes notice that Stan is playing Warhammer on the kitchen table after she asked him not to. Justified given who she's married to.
