Miss Simian pretends to make friends with the Wattersons after Rocky (the orange muppet who mostly works as the school janitor) tells her that no one likes her enough to give her a recommendation for a prestigious award.
Tropes
- Apologetic Attacker: Nicole orders the kids to throw stuff at Ms. Simian's car and Gumball apologizes as he does it.
- Bond One-Liner: Richard gives three at the end of the episode, each time followed by a short laugh from the family and Nicole admonishing him because Ms. Simian could be seriously hurt.
- Bullet Seed: Darwin machine-guns hard candy at Ms. Simian's car.
- Characterization Marches On: Miss Simian actually caring about winning a teaching award will feel confusing for viewers who are used to seeing Miss Simian as either an insanely strict teacher or an apathetic teacher who has all but given up on trying to do her job.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Miss Simian.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Ms. Simian scammed an award recommendation from the Watterson family and Nicole engages her in a violent car chase—which she brought her whole family to— just to take it back.
- Dramatic Drop: Nicole hears that Ms. Simian was tricking her family and called them losers, then drops the cake she brought for her. Richard eats it in seconds.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Richard calls Nicole's sanity into question when she tells him to stick his body out of a moving car to take Ms. Simian's recommendation from her.
- Eat the Camera: Miss Simian does this when she falls off the edge of the broken bridge with her car.
- Everyone Has Standards: Despite her hostility towards Miss Simian for her insults and for tricking her and the rest of the family, Nicole still shows concern for her when she falls off the unfinished bridge.
- Last-Second Chance: As Ms. Simian is teetering over the edge of an unfinished road, trying to grab her recommendation, Gumball tells her they can still be friends.... Nah!
- Running Gag: Ms. Simian "high-fiving" people in the face.
- Tastes Like Friendship: Darwin and Gumball teach Ms. Simian about how friends share food. They use imaginary ice cream cones as an example, which leads to Gumball and Ms. Simian's tongues almost touching.
- Taxonomic Term Confusion: The title refers to Ms. Simian, but she's a monkey, not an ape (she has a tail).
- Worth It: At the end of the episode, Ms. Simian got her award, but it cost her her first actual friends and led to grievous personal injury. She is still entirely satisfied with herself.
