Summary: LUCHA! After a failed kids club fundraiser, the gang runs into William Bradford, the pilgrims, and Karl Marx as they wrestle with socialism and its consequences.
This episode contains the following tropes:
- An Aesop: "When incentives are lost, we all bear the cost."
- Call-Back:
- We finally get to meet Grandma Beth, the other time traveling grandma that Henry Haslet knows. She and Gabby are none too fond of one another.
- Gabby dumps Marx on Flamingo Island rather than take him back to the time traveler's lounge where he joined her and the kids.
- Chekhov's Gunman: Gabby keeps berating Derek for using tranquilizer blow darts on everyone. But in the climax, he comes through by darting the communist guard holding Gabby and the twins at gunpoint. Gabby lets him keep his darts after that.
- Didn't Think This Through: The twins propose that everyone in the kids club work to raise funds for a luchador event coming to town, and they'll all split the profits equally. This results in several kids either being unable or unwilling to put in their share of the work, leaving the kids club several hundred dollars short and Emily feeling like she alone has to carry the whole club. Grandma Gabby explains that this line of thinking is why socialism never works, yet people keep trying it anyway.
- Flanderization: The Pilgrims' Puritan/Separatist aversion to anything they consider remotely sinful is taken to a hilariously absurd extreme. They destroy a row of corn because Grandma Gabby accidentally cut some of it in the shape of "exposed ankles."
- Gratuitous Spanish: The cold open takes place in Mexico at a wrestling match. The in-universe audience translates every occurrence of Spanish for the viewer.
- Historical Domain Character: The twins visit Plymouth and meet William Bradford, the governor of the Pilgrim colony. They later pick up an unwelcome hitchhiker in Karl Marx.
- Hypocritical Humor: An elderly Pilgrim woman who calls just about everything a sin decides that a luchador match that involves watching half-naked men destroy each other isn't sinful because she wants to see it.
- Ignored Epiphany: Marx has a time machine and can see for himself that his ideals are trash. Even when Gabby and the twins personally show him how wrong he got it, he continues to insist that communism works, and they just have to "do it right."
- It's a Small Ride: Marx convinces Gabby and the twins to go on a ride espousing the wonders of socialism while animatronics sing, "It's a Socialist World After All."
- Karl Marx Hates Your Guts: When Marx himself sees this happening, he seems to be utterly dumbfounded by it.
- Not So Above It All: Grandma Gabby understandably loses her patience with Marx and calls him a "dingus" before smacking him upside the head.
Ethan: I thought you taught us to attack ideas, not people.
Gabby: I'm working on it!
- No, You: When Marx tells Gabby that her machine is broken, Gabby retorts with, "No, Karl, your ideas are broken!"
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Marx admits that it's weird for him to compliment Emily's thinking considering he usually hates women.
- Running Gag: Nicola Tesla uses the same time traveler lounge that Gabby does.
- Shout-Out:
- Copernicus breaks Rules 1 and 2.
- Karinne's reaction to accusations of eating the kids club's inventory evokes images of Gollum.
- The twins and Gabby stop by a lounge for time travelers. The Tardis and Bill and Ted's phone booth can be seen in the background.
- Ethan calls Karl by the name of the wrong Marx.
Ethan: Okay, we just need to fill up the knowledge juice before Groucho here gets us killed. - Take That!: Gabby takes every possible opportunity to insult Marx and his ideas to his face.
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Karl Marx seems to genuinely believe that his idea of utopia is worth any suffering it takes to get there.
