Follow TV Tropes

Following

Recap / Big City Greens S 3 E 2

Go To

Boss Life

Gloria struggles to maintain a perfect rating for the Greens' new café, while Cricket is left in charge and constantly hires more people to avoid doing all the work.

"Boss Life" contains examples of:

  • The B Grade: Gloria is at first happy that her restaurant is getting straight A's, until she gets one negative review from Community Sue. She becomes obsessed with getting a good review from her to keep her average up.
  • Brutal Honesty: Community Sue always tells it like it is, calling it constructive criticism. Her telling Gloria that her crepes are too spongy meant that she should work harder to improve her cooking skills.
  • Clueless Boss: Cricket thinks being boss means you just sit around while everyone else does the work. He soon finds out that there is more to it than that; after hiring Remy, he finds that he needs to be trained for even the simplest tasks. Finding this to be insufficient, he tries hiring other kids to pick up the slack, but none of them take it seriously, nor do they get any training. The result, predictably, is utter chaos.
  • Delegation Relay: Cricket sets up a circular system for his employees, wherein they consult the next person in the circle so they don't go to him with their problems. Unfortunately, this just means each kid just passes the chores to the next person and nothing gets done.
  • Double-Meaning Title: The episode title refers to Gloria's new status as a café boss and Cricket experiencing what it's like to be boss when left in charge.
  • Evolving Credits: Gloria + Green Cafe can now be seen in the background in the scene where Cricket balances on a tower of farm animals.
  • Laser-Guided Karma: Cricket gets a proper comeuppance for his improper boss attitude when Gloria forces him to clean up all the damage he caused.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Cricket's reckless methods when left in charge of the café cause Gloria's rating to drop to a D+.
  • No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Cricket is left in charge of the café, but he doesn't take his job well, mainly he thought his role as boss is to just sit around while the others do the work, not realizing until too late he has to train them. His poor duties end up destroying the café and causing Gloria's score to drop as well, and he is punished into cleaning up the entire mess caused from everyone he hired.
  • Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "TRUST. THE. CIRCLE."
  • Running Gag: A woman keeps asking for coffee, only for Cricket to ignore her. By the end of the episode she's crawling on the floor begging for her coffee.
  • Screw This, I'm Outta Here: After Community Sue says that the Crepes still taste spongy Grandma's next course of action is to skip town.
  • Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Upon getting a "bad rating" (a B as opposed to the A's she's usually been getting) from Community Sue, Gloria freaks out and claims the shop's reputation is on the line, putting Cricket in charge of it while she sorts things out with Sue. By the time she has, operation in the shop has spiraled out of control under Cricket's management, causing it to actually be poorly reviewed.
  • Special Edition Title: The end credits for both episode segments use the song Tilly performed in place of "Do It All Again".
  • True Art Is Incomprehensible: Invoked. With Cricket as boss, Tilly changes her singer persona and becomes a folk singer. She tells the audience that her next song has a message hidden in it, but it consists of nothing but Word Salad Lyrics. Poor Alexander drives himself crazy trying to decipher the message.
  • Under New Management: Cricket assumes that Gloria putting him in charge of the café means he's the new boss. Naturally, he ends up messing things up greatly.

Papaganda

In an attempt to stop his family's struggles with farming, Bill forces them to embrace a "Live, Laugh, Love" attitude.

"Papaganda" contains examples of:

  • Broken Smile: When Bill begins to suspect Cricket and Gramma are disobeying him, his face does not waver away from that plastered smile.
  • Cacophony Cover Up: Cricket turns on the bean grinder so he and Gramma can complain behind the counter without Tilly hearing them.
  • Call-Back: In the beginning during the farm's success at the Farmer's market, Tilly brings up Gloria's advice to improve the stand.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: Seeing his son and mother are against the propaganda, Bill is forced to tie the two up and use a tape to convert them, causing them to lose all their dignity and are forced to smile and feel nothing else.
  • Face-Revealing Turn: Cricket and Gramma do this to Tilly and Bill when they reveal they have been brainwashed of all their will and spirit.
  • Fingore: Cricket and Alice get thorns in their hands while picking blackberries.
  • Freudian Slip: This bit:
    Bill: Don't mean to interrupt, but can you do me a favor and deliver Gloria's order of berries?
    (Both gasp)
    Gramma: We'd love to get away from here! ...I mean, to do this favor. For you!
  • Getting Smilies Painted on Your Soul: Through relentless badgering and torturing them with upbeat music, Bill gets Cricket and Alice to stop complaining and smile. However, he quickly realizes that he'd just broken their spirits and are smiling only because they have to.
  • Happiness Is Mandatory: According to Bill's propaganda, either you smile or otherwise, he'll bring out the big guns.
  • Lame Rhyme Dodge: This conversation:
    Cricket: How can anyone think this is fun?
    Bill: What was that?
    Cricket: AUGH! I said, "So great! To work in the sun!"
    Bill: Mm-hmm...
    Gramma: He's listenin' in on us!
    Cricket: If he hugs me again, I'm gonna lose it!
    Bill: You say somethin'?
    Cricket: Oh, uh... Gramma's gonna... teach me how to knit!
    Bill: Mmm, that's nice...
  • My God, What Have I Done?: After trying to force positivity on his own son and mother, Bill realizes he broke their will and are just as miserable as before. The horror and guilt over his actions is what makes him finally break out of his positivity obsession. He then admits that harvesting blackberries is not fun for him either, and finds that complaining about it actually makes him feel better. He then realizes that forcing his will on people, even if he has the best intentions, is bad.
  • Offscreen Teleportation: Tilly somehow teleports from a café booth to the counter cabinet around the time Cricket and Gramma were complaining and destroy their signs.
  • Only One Finds It Fun: Tilly was the only one to immediately catch on to Bill's propaganda, and the only one who sides with him until he discovers the consequences of such.
    Tilly: Oh, I get it! "Live, Laugh, Love"! Can't argue with that!
  • The Scream: Cricket and Gramma have a really long and horrified one as they are about to be on the receiving ends of Bill's propaganda tape.
  • Staggered Zoom: When Tilly sees Bill break his own propaganda by expressing negativity, the camera does three quick jump zooms in on one of the "Live, Laugh, Love" posters on the garage wall.
  • Stepford Smiler: Cricket and Gramma after being converted by the propaganda, which show the results of Bill breaking their spirits and they're only smiling because they have to.
  • Swapped Roles: This episode is basically "Urban Legend" but with the family's roles swapped. In the former, Gramma was a swamp witch who scared the townsfolk, and while Bill and Tilly chose against it, Cricket chose to side with her. In this episode, It's Bill who enforces the propaganda, Cricket and Gramma rebel against it, and Tilly sides with him.
  • Tranquil Fury: Bill barely raises his voice and doesn't even crack a mouth muscle when he suspects his son and mother rebelling against the propaganda.
  • The Un-Smile: Seen on Cricket and Gramma when they have been brainwashed by the propaganda and had lost all their will.

Top