When Twitch gets Dot an actual bear cub for Mother's Day (due to a misunderstanding), her and Robbie are drafted to ensure the cub's safe return. Unfortunately, once Dot, Robbie and Twitch are gone, the cub's mother shows up at the Malto-farm.
Tropes:
- An Aesop:
- Don't kidnap a wild animal, especially not a baby, just because you think it's cute. It's not fair to the animal and if it's a baby, their parents will be very displeased.
- Don't just dump your toxic waste into the woods. It will have disastrous results for the eco-system.
- Do not change an amputee's prosthesis without their explicit permission. Even if you mean well, a prosthesis is a deeply personal thing to the person who needs it. And no matter how well you may know them in the end it's for them to decide what works for them and what doesn't.
- Bears Are Bad News: True to the episode's title, the whole plot is about a bear cub getting taken away from its mother, which goes on a rampage to find her cub, all while mutating in the process.
- Body Horror: The mama bear mutates into a horrifying tentacled slime beast at the episode's climax, a result of coming into contact with the toxic waste G.H.O.S.T. dumped into the woods. The waste in question is also heavily implied to be energon or something similar.
- Call-Back: Twitch compares the cub being alone and scared in the woods to the time her and Thrash were captured by Mandroid and separated from their new family.
- Foreshadowing: The modifications Nightshade made to Dot's prosthetic leg are hinted at earlier in the episode:
- When Dot first puts on the leg for the day, she notices that it feels different.
- While the kids and Terrans give Dot her Mother's Day presents, Nightshade hugs Dot and says that they're already enjoying their present.
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: The first sign that something is terribly wrong with the mama bear comes when her eyes suddenly start to glow a light pink when examining Jawbreaker.
- Literal-Minded: When Twitch feels bad for not having a gift for Dot, Robbie tells her to just go with the classics, like a teddy bear. Twitch ends up bringing an actual bear cub to the barn.
- Mama Bear: Both Dot and the actual mama bear appearing in the episode are this to their respective children. The bear fights through a barn of giant robots and toxic waste poisoning to get her cub back, while Dot herself does everything in her power to protect Robbie, Mo and the Terrans from the rampaging animal.
- Piss-Take Rap: Thrash's, Hashtag's and Jawbreaker's Mother's Day song is this. Dot doesn't mind.
- Playing Possum: Mo, Hashtag, Nightshade and Jawbreaker try to do this to get rid of the mama bear. Just before Hashtag realizes that's on the list of things not to do when dealing with a bear and Jawbreaker freaks out and breaks cover anyway because the bear won't stop sniffing him.
- Shout-Out: One of Hashtag's internet-recommended methods to fend off bears is to give them a pic-a-nic basket.
- Tentacled Terror: The bear starts to grow a myriad of tentacles. She then proceeds to attack the Maltos with said tentacles. After her mutated self separates from her normal self, it starts to grow several additional ones.
