- Student #1: All right...Student #2: Blackout!Student #3: School's out...Student #4: Party time!Teacher: Get out the candles.
After a girl is raped and battered by a group of high school students, Hanson, Penhall and Hoffs go undercover at a high school. While they're there, electricity goes out because of a thunder storm. The high school students take this opportunity to go savage—they band together to physically attack their teachers. Hanson and Hoffs realize they have to maintain their covers at all costs or their physical safety might be endangered, so they play along as best as they can while trying to do damage control.
This episode provides examples of:
- Actually Pretty Funny: To get back at some student who put him under a cold shower, Hanson pulls a prank on them faking having cut off his fingers. These students, when they realize they've been pranked, laugh about it and even say to the teacher barging in that it's funny.
- Dude, Not Funny!: Hanson, while undercover at a high school, plays a prank on two other students where he briefly fakes having cut off his fingers. The students being pranked find it Actually Pretty Funny, but the onlooking teacher absolutely doesn't:Teacher: [Annoyed] Do you think that's funny?!Other students: [Laughing, and nodding their heads] Yeah.Teacher: Maybe it'll be funnier in detention hall.
- Fingore: Subverted / downplayed. Hanson seemingly cuts off three of his fingers while he's operating machinery; but then it's revealed this is a prank he plays on some other students, and he still got all of his fingers attached. His fingers are bleeding though, so he did at least cut his fingers.
- Stanford Prison Experiment: In one class the students are grouped into "prisoners" and "guards" and have to act out a prison situation. It quickly spirals out of control and into one student being targeted as a victim by the rest of the group. This is indicative of the overall theme of the episode: that peer pressure can lead to groups banding together to harm individuals.
- Title Drop:
- The title of the episode, "Blackout", is spoken In Universe when the lights go out.
- The alternative title of the episode, "Business As Usual", is even spoken as well; when the lights go out and the teachers discuss with the principal how to handle the situation, the principal says they must act like "business as usual".
