After a huge fight the night before, nearly every member of the immediate Bat family is injured. Alfred wants to do his duties like normal (especially in a house full of injured people) but he's gotten a bad cold. He tries to tell everyone not to worry about him... but the Bats won't take no for an answer. Operation: Chicken Soup is a GO!
Tropes:
- The Cameo: Jason and Tim only appear at the end of the episode, not speaking but enjoying the food with everyone else. It's not stated whether Bruce thought they were too injured to help with the soup, they hadn't woken up yet, or they were some of the few who escaped injury and were out on patrol.
- Funny Background Event: As Alfred is taking a look at the finished product, Duke and Damien are visible in the background, wrestling with a stack of dishes (and losing).
- Hired Help as Family: The episode again confirms that the Bat-Family sees their butler as one of them rather than the household help. When Bruce sees Alfred, he almost immediately figures out that he's not feeling well, and he insists on letting the rest of the family take care of him for once.
- Illness Blanket: When Bruce gets confirmation Alfred is under the weather, he sits him at the table with a box of tissues and wraps a blanket around his shoulders.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Alfred tries to deny that he's sick...and is immediately interrupted by a sneeze.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Bruce takes making Alfred chicken soup as seriously as he'd take a sting operation, and gives everyone jobs that match their skill set and their current state of health (Alfred will be supervising everything and giving directions, Bruce is good with knives and can't move too much due to his broken ribs, so he'll prepare the ingredients; Dick broke an arm but can still walk, so he'll be carrying the ingredients from one spot to another; Cass broke a leg and can't walk, so she's in charge of watching the stove; and Duke and Damian are the least injured, so they'll be preparing the table and doing anything that requires the most movement). This might've been necessary, as earlier episodes showed that, when left to their own devices, most of the family members are Lethal Chefs.
- Now, Let Me Carry You: For once, the other Bat-Family members take care of Alfred. When Alfred says he could have managed, Bruce tells him that he takes care of them all the time and it's nice to take care of him in turn.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Batman and company were in a massive fight the night before that left most of them with semi-serious injuries (Bruce has busted ribs; Cass has a broken leg; Dick has a broken arm, etc). We never learn who they were fighting, but clearly it was an epic fight.
- Sick Episode: Every member of the Bat family is injured in some degree here (even Duke and Damian, the least injured members, have bruises and band-aids on their faces), and Alfred has a bad cold.
- Sickness Equals Redness: Alfred has to blow his nose almost constantly, leaving his nose red.
- Soup Is Medicine: The entire episode is based around the family pitching in to make soup for Alfred.
- Working Through the Cold: For once, Alfred is the one insisting that his problem is nothing serious and that he can do his duties like normal. Bruce is the one who has to force him to get some rest.
