Linda needs the kids' help in fighting for a fun, dumb, local tradition; Bob is captivated by an online cucumber.
Tell Me Trope Thing Good:
- AstroTurf: Louise pulls this at the council meeting by baiting a number of locals with free moving boxes, then claiming that they were all out in support of the trash can decorations.
- Brick Joke:
- Early in the episode, Linda uses Tina's third-favorite pen to help decorate the trashcan. After the Belchers' first attempt to appeal to the council fails, Tina is given a consolation pen that she quickly dubs her fourth-favorite.
- When the kids visit his office, Tom Bush says Cynthia wouldn't let him get a 311 tattoo. When he becomes conflicted over voting as his wife says or how Louise convinces him the electorate wants, he starts speaking in lyrics from "All Mixed Up" and screaming that he wants the tattoo.
- The Bus Came Back: Tom Bush, Cynthia's husband and Logan's father, hasn't appeared since the Bush family debuted in "Ear-sy Rider", all the way back in Season 3.
- Chekhov's Gun: Early on, it's pointed out that most of the posts in the community website are requests for moving boxes. This later gives Louise the idea to invite those who posted positively about the trashcan to the council meeting with the promise of boxes.
- Decided by One Vote: The trashcan decoration vote, naturally, with Cynthia Bush's husband Tom as the tiebreaker to add to the tension.
- Disproportionate Retribution: According to Bob, the family once ran out of mac and cheese. Gene's response? Call the police.
- Et Tu, Brute?: Cynthia revealing that Pretzel Kingdom plans on renting a space in the neighborhood immediately causes the Belcher kids to consider taking her proposal on not decorating the trash can, much to Linda's dismay.
- Henpecked Husband: Cynthia's husband Tom does everything she tells him to, which is how she plans to secure his vote against decorating the trashcan. At the last minute, however, he decides to grow a backbone and vote against her proposal.
- Holiday Episode: Downplayed. It's mentioned that Mother's Day is a few days away, and the kids are worried they won't be able to get Linda presents or even a card, but aside from motivating the kids to help Linda fight for the trashcan, this has little bearing on the plot.
- Inner Thoughts, Outsider Puzzlement: Bob tunes out the outside world while internally singing about a cucumber, much to Louise's confusion.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Everything about the online cucumber. Bob even sings a ballad about it.
- Opportunistic Bastard: Played for laughs; after the vote passes, one of the dissenting voters attempts to act as if he was always in support of it, and it's pretty clear he's just trying to secure votes for his upcoming election.
- Out of Focus: Unlike other episodes featuring the Bush family, Logan only makes a very brief appearance and doesn't even directly interact with Louise or her siblings like usual.
- Parental Favoritism: Inverted and discussed; Bob apparently believes the kids favor Linda, though no clear reason is given. It's worth noting that his belief has consistently been proven wrong throughout the series; while he's almost certainly correct about Gene favoring Linda, Tina has consistently been shown to love both her parents equally—in fact, when Tina does show hints of favoritism, it's towards Bob. And that's saying nothing about Louise, whose favoritism of Bob has been a major plot point on more than one occasion.
- The easiest explanation for Bob's belief is poor self-esteem—it wouldn't be out-of-character for him to believe he's the less-favored parent even in the face of his own kids saying otherwise.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: It's a Shout-Out to "Tell Me Something Good", a Stevie Wonder song that was a 1974 hit for Rufus, Chaka Khan's early band.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Logan only sabotages the trash can because his mother paid him ten bucks.
- Serious Business: Both plotlines revolve around the Belchers taking a seemingly-inconsequential thing rather seriously.
- Linda gets serious about decorating the trashcan after Cynthia keeps taking them down; Cynthia, in turn, is serious about selling the property next to the trashcan, and thinks the perceived vandalism will ruin the sale.
- Bob and Teddy get attached to a posting about a guy growing a cucumber in his basement, and get worried for the cucumber when the man stops posting. They meet him in person during the council meeting and he says the reason he hasn't been posting as often is because he's been busy with moving things, which explains all the people talking about free cardboard boxes commenting on his cucumber posts.
- Gene and macaroni and cheese. According to Bob, the last time they ran out he called the police on them.
- A Simple Plan: Not seen but alluded to through the Store Next Door, "A Pimple Plan".
- This Means War!: Linda says "This is war!" after Cynthia gets Logan and his friends to sabotage her attempts to redecorate the trashcan.
- The Unreveal: Cynthia wants the trashcan decorating to stop because she wants to sell the vacant store nearby to a nationwide pretzel chain. We never learn if she succeeds or not, or if the company would even have cared about Linda's trashcan decorations. Knowing Cynthia, she was just looking for an excuse to antagonize Linda.
