Sick of his saintly behavior, Gumball tests the limits of Alan's forgiveness and positivity, but when every terrible thing he does to Alan fails to bring him down, Darwin and Gumball decide to be more positive.
Tropes:
- All of Them: Gumball insists that Alan has been cheating on Carmen with "everyone... and I mean everyone... and everything" while showing fake photos of Alan kissing girls, boys, and a toilet.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Both from Gumball.
- "The librarian is gonna hang me, quarter me, roast me, feed me to the dogs, pick up the pieces, rebuild me and... and... say really mean things to me."
- "I made you lose all your friends, your girlfriend. Sold your parents. And worse—I ate your last meatball."
- Art Shift: As in "The Photo", Alan's face is drawn differently than normal any time he's being especially saintly, this time having a very heavily inked and detailed human face. It looks amazingly similar to a
very infamous series of faces from the bara manga Kuso Miso Technique. - Bait-and-Switch Comment:Gumball: Am I going too far?
Darwin: No, no, no. You went too far about seven hours ago. Now you're going to prison. - Being Good Sucks: Zigzagged. Alan suffers through a bunch of Gumball's horrible mistreatments, but remains satisfied that he's doing the right thing and everything eventually works out for him. Darwin and Gumball try to do the same and, while they initially just seems to suffer for it the same, both eventually end up very prosperous and happy—but they aren't satisfied with that, because they liked having a crummy life they could complain about better.
- Be Yourself: Gumball admits that he doesn't want to be as good as Alan even when it does make him happy. Alan doesn't begrudge Gumball for it because "the important thing is to be true to yourself". That's probably why Alan pretended Gumball upset him right after: so Gumball could be happy in his own, spiteful way.
- Black Comedy: Gumball sells Alan's parents to a Monster Clown and show him video footage of his parents being twisted into balloon animals, with the two of them screaming in agony and begging the clown to let them go. Alan is not disturbed by it.
- Body Horror: Gumball and Darwin take Alan's advise to "say yes to the world" and volunteer for a medical experiment of testing a serum a clearly untrustworthy doctor found "at the back of the fridge". Gumball ends up with a swollen eye, warts covering his body, and a tongue so elongated and swollen that it fills his throat and wraps around his neck. Darwin's entire body seems to have combined with a horrific sort of fungus like the mutant cordyceps in The Last of Us, resulting in his body swelling to several times its size while growing numerous boils, mushrooms, and vine-like growths that extend up to the ceiling while his desiccated lips occasionally cough out spores.Doctor: Thanks, guys! I'll file those under "Never try this again".
- Bowdlerize: As Carmen is going through the fake photos of Alan cheating on her, there's a sudden jump between the one with Banana Joe and the one with the toilet. Frame-precise pausing will let you see why—there was another photo of Darwin-as-Alan, kissing Leslie, who is happy about it, unlike everyone else. The cut (which has been done on all versions, including the UK version, though the Turkish and Arabic dubs edited the entire part where Carmen looks through the pictures) was apparently so last-minute that they couldn't even remove every frame of it (or it was the best they could do without affecting the other scenes), making it obvious that something's missing.
- Brick Joke: Gumball and Darwin volunteer for highly experimental and dangerous testing of random medicine found by a twitchy doctor that causes them to mutate. When someone is calling for a doctor later on, the twitchy doctor appears and says the he WAS a doctor.
- Chair Reveal: Gumball sits on Principal Brown's chair and rotates it to reveal he was the one who called Carmen and Alan to the principal's office. The chair keeps rotating past the point where he faces them, causing Gumball to knock several objects around to stop it.
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Played with when Gumball sells Alan's parents to a clown: the clown twists them into balloon animal shapes, which is definitely strange and harmless-seeming, but from their perspective probably borders on surreal Body Horror.He's made me into a hat!
- CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: In a flashback, Alan deflated himself to revive a near-drowned Tobias, who immediately recovers then calls out Alan's name with the same Helium Speech Alan talks with.
- Easy Impersonation: Gumball disguises Darwin as Alan by taking off his face and sticking it on a balloon the same color as Alan. Carmen is fooled despite Darwin having completely different facial features (including white sclerae instead of Alan's Skintone Sclerae).
- Enemy Eats Your Lunch: Alan was saving the meatballs in his spaghetti for last, but Gumball takes it and messily eats it while wiping it over his own face ("The secret ingredient is your despair! Aaaah--heh, ha!").
- Eye Scream:
- Gumball tries to rub his eyes in disbelief, but forgets to close them first and hurts himself.Darwin: Dude, what did you expect? You just rubbed your bare eyeballs with your fists.
- Attempting to raise awareness for a "Save the Pigeons" charity, Gumball and Darwin jump out of a plane with undersized parachutes, and Gumball slammed into the ground so hard that one of his eyes deformed and bulged halfway out.
- Gumball tries to rub his eyes in disbelief, but forgets to close them first and hurts himself.
- Fantastic Racism: Gumball uses Alan's ElmorePlus profile to make a post about how "drawn people" are ruining the economy, destroying Alan's reputation.Nobody likes a 2D-ist.
- Furry Reminder: Alan's parents, who are balloons like he is, are twisted by a clown into shapes at a party. Alan doesn't seem upset, reasoning that they are balloons after all and they're bringing joy to the kids at the party, despite their audibly horrified reactions.
- Heel Realization:
- Subverted when Gumball has one midway through the episode. Darwin derides him for even asking.
Gumball: ...After all I've done to you... I've made you lose all your friends, your girlfriend, sold your parents, even worse, I ate your last meatball! All of this to prove you can be just as bad as me? Could it be that... that... that I was wrong?
Darwin: IS THAT EVEN A QUESTION?!
Gumball: Oh thanks man, I almost doubted myself there.- Later played straight at the episode's end. Gumball sees that Alan is not as bad as he is, that he doesn't even want to be as good as Alan is, and that nothing he did was at all justified. So he apologizes to Alan, and admits as much.
Gumball: I'm sorry for trying to break you, Alan. I should have known it was impossible. But, I've learn a lot about myself—mostly that I'm a disgusting person and you're a better man than me. So yeah, thanks for that. - Ignored Epiphany: Gumball starts to have a Heel Realization about the way he'd been treating Alan halfway through the episode, but it doesn't last.Gumball: All of this to prove you could be just as bad as me. Could it be that... that... that I was wrong?
Darwin: Is that even a question?!
Gumball: Oh thanks, man, I almost doubted myself there. - I Have a Family: As the clown picks up Jessica and starts twisting her into an animal, she yells "No! Please, I have a son!"
- I'm Standing Right Here: Gumball and Darwin appear in one scene to be talking about Alan behind his back, peaking through a bookshelf in the distance. Then the camera backs up to show they are actually right next to Alan, with their heads on a desk next to him, flanked by books for no reason.
- Is There a Doctor in the House?: After Tony starts choking, Mr. Russo asks "Is there a doctor in the street?" Responses include Dr. Literature declaring "I am a doctor... of literature!", a person in a labcoat declaring "I'm a doctor... in a soap opera!", and the pig doctor from earlier screeching "I was a doctor!"
- Karmic Jackpot:
- Alan's positive attitude and generosity end up exactly reversing the misfortune Gumball visited upon him and then some: He overpays the homeless man for a discard popsicle, then trades it to Rosie for balloons that turn out to be his parents. Seconds later, the homeless man strikes it rich and pays back Alan one million fold. The money makes several girls suddenly find Alan attractive, which in turn makes Carmen want to get back together with Alan. He accepts and she gives him a bunch of meatballs to make up for the one Gumball stole.
- Darwin convinces Gumball to help a random choking man by asking what if he wins the lottery and would be able to indulge them in a ridiculously detailed fantasy about eating unobtainium while wearing white tiger pants and riding jetpacks around a house made of crystal. Gumball decides to try it and we Smash Cut to show that's exactly what happened.
- Literal-Minded: As Darwin is trying to draw a fake Alan's face, Gumball makes the face he should draw and says not to miss any details. Darwin draws Gumball's entire body, plus the immediate background, on the balloon.
- Medium-Shift Gag: As the clown ties Alan's parents into knots, they are shown as a live-action actor handling real balloons.
- Monster Clown: The terrifying clown from "The Procrastinators" returns. He bought Alan's parents from Gumball like they were regular balloons and hands them away at a party, twisting them into various shapes while responding to their shrieks of agony with nothing but a smug grin.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If Darwin hadn't snapped when he did, Gumball would have realized what he was doing was wrong, instead of having an Ignored Epiphany.
- Nightmare Face: The school librarian makes a terrifying face as she runs to investigate a broken computer.
- Readings Are Off the Scale: The "2D-ist" comment Gumball posts in Alan's name gets so many thumbs down they start flooding the screen, coming off, and bombarding Alan in the face.
- Sweet and Sour Grapes: Played with: Gumball spends the whole episode trying to prove Alan was Not So Above It All, only finding something that upsets him (dragging his feet) after admitting Alan was better than him. In fact, Alan had just lied about that to make Gumball feel better.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: Gumball at first justifies tormenting Alan until he breaks as being For Science! and because he had nothing better to do. The real reason eventually becomes clear: Alan really being as saintly as he seems makes Gumball feel bad about himself, so he wants to prove Alan is as bad as him.Gumball: No one's this nice. No one! Because if they were, I'd have to ask some very difficult questions about myself!
- Temporarily a Villain: Gumball is essentially a Villain Protagonist/Heroic Comedic Sociopath for most of this episode, as he does a number of terrible things all in the name of proving someone else is as bad as him (which he utterly fails at).
- Troll: When Gumball makes a blatantly offensive post using Alan's account.
- Ungrateful Bastard: After Alan takes the blame for Gumball destroying a computer, Gumball not only pays him back nothing, but begins actively tormenting him.
- Villainous Breakdown: Gumball has a different breakdown every time he fails to upset Alan:
- Making all of Alan's friend hate him for being a "2D-ist" fails because he looks forward to regaining their trust, causing Gumball to yell "I will break you, man!" as Alan walks off.
- After Carmen breaks up with Alan, he tries to explain to Gumball that "If you truly love someone--" and is interrupted by Gumball smashing his face into Principal Brown's desk until he passes out.
- Stealing Alan's food doesn't work because he likes sharing it, making Gumball get a Twitchy Eye then begin an ape-like rampage.
- Selling Alan's parents doesn't upset him too bad because they were bringing joy to children at a party. It shocks Gumball and Darwin both into a Jaw Drop and Stunned Silence.
- Who Is Driving?: Darwin and Gumball parachute out a plane that Mr. Small was also in. After he lands after them, Gumball asks who's flying the plane and it immediately flies by and crashes.
