"We're gonna stick together."
Louise befriends a house spider and hides it in her room after Linda and Bob tell her to remove it from the apartment. Meanwhile, Bob tries to make a friend outside of the people that come to the restaurant.
The Spider House Tropes:
- Amusingly Short List: Tina's list of Bob's friends includes Teddy and nobody else. Strangely, Mort isn't even mentioned, not even just to get dismissed as an option.
- Big Brother Instinct: Jimmy Jr. isn't too keen on Louise's dangerous ideas of fun because her last one got Andy and Ollie hurt (only Andy was directly hurt, though; Ollie hurt himself to share his pain).
- Brutal Honesty: Bob admits that he likes to hang out with his family, but Teddy not as much. He then warns his family not to tell Teddy he said that.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: As expected, Teddy flips his lid upon realizing Bob is trying to make non-customer friends, assuming that Bob doesn't think of him as a friend (even when Bob reassures him). He gets even more mad when he realizes that Bob and Cliff are actually hitting it off, and even decides to stop coming to the restaurant so that he can "count" as Bob's friend. He cools off near the end and decides he's fine with just hanging out at the restaurant, which coincides with Bob coming to the same conclusion.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: In-universe; Louise's insistence that Phoebe isn't harming anyone quickly becomes clear that she's actually talking about herself and her sometimes off-kilter ideas of fun, which all of the Belchers realize.
- Do Not Do This Cool Thing: In-universe; Linda admits that smashing mirrors is fun, but (after some chiding from Bob) warns Louise not to do it.
- Friend to Bugs: While not technically a bug, Louise finds that she can relate well to the little spider that’s taken up residence in her room and befriends it.
- The Ghost: Cliff never appears in-person, with his only presence in the episode being text messages.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: After her friends refuse to break a mirror with her and make her feel like her interests are weird, Louise walks into the restaurant and asks for a beer.
- Minimalist Cast: With Cliff and the other dads never actually appearing, the episode's voice cast is limited to the core Belchers, Teddy, and an appearance by the Pesto children, one of whom has the same voice actor as Bob.
- Noodle Incident: Teddy tried to make a sandwich after vowing not to return to Bob's. Later he texts Bob to say that it didn't turn out that well; he lost a lot of blood.
- No Social Skills: Poor Bob gets dragged through the mud by his family for not having any friends outside the restaurant, even though Bob himself doesn't seem to mind (and in fact his introverted nature makes such more comfortable for him). When he tries to change this, Bob keeps second-guessing himself on whether it's too late to become friends with Cliff, to the point that he has to hand Linda the phone after accidentally texting "I" and nothing else. Then he wonders if he actually wants to hang out with Cliff. He ultimately doesn't, and decides that he's content with the relationships he already has.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title of the episode is a play on the novel title The Cider House Rules by John Irving.
- Shout-Out:
- When Tina talks about getting seven years bad luck for breaking a mirror, Gene adds "That's the amount of time Brad Pitt spent in Tibet."
- Louise's first (quickly scrapped) nickname for Phoebe is Winona Spider.
- When Bob mentions Cliff, Gene asks if he's referring to "the big red dog".
- The first Burger of the Day is the "Rib Long and Prosper Burger".
- The second Burger of the Day is the "What We Dill in the Shadows Burger".
- When Louise talks about a "secret bug friend agreement", Gene thinks she meant a "secret alien robot agreement", referring specifically to The Iron Giant.
- When Linda overhears Louise call for Phoebe, Louise tries to cover it up by saying she meant Phoebe from Friends.
- When Bob and Linda find Phoebe, Louise begs her to spin a message out of webs to appease them, like in Charlotte's Web.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Happens twice in this episode
- Tina wonders if Louise accidentally fell in the dumpster while taking out the trash…which definitely has never happened to her.
- Bob assures Gene that he didn’t agree to go talk to him in his room so fast just because he doesn’t want to go out with other dads.
- The Talk: Gene's plan to divert Bob involves this... a talk about ingrown toenails.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Louise finds out the hard way that nobody except Linda (who isn't quite a good role model for this kind of stuff) considers smashing glass a fun childhood pastime, and instead think it's weird.
- What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: Louise is told to put the spider outside, but she feels sorry for it and tries to argue that spiders deserve to be in the house as much as the others do. She admits that she was projecting her own feelings about being different on the spider. In the end, Bob lets the spider live in the basement.
