Lois discovers the joys of decluttering but eventually goes too far and ends up throwing her entire family out of the house.
This episode contains examples of:
- And I Must Scream: Lois at the climax, while thinking on the bridge.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- After Lois gets everyone to declutter their rooms, she has an epiphany that Peter doesn't kindle joy for her and kicks him out. However, rather than the rest of the episode being about their ailing marriage, Lois just goes off the deep end with decluttering by kicking out the rest of the family and making the house into a featureless white void.
- At the end of the episode, Peter compares the living room to the living room in the video for John Lennon's "Imagine"; we then cut to Peter and Lois dressed as John Lennon and Yoko Ono playing "Imagine" to the tune of "Camptown Races", because they can't afford the real song.
- Continuity Porn: Short, but it's there. Among the things Peter gets rid of (and later hides in a warehouse lot) are the broken vinyl of Surfin' Bird and the cardboard cutout of Kathy. It's like the things he threw away are the things used for his gags and cutaways.
- Driven to Suicide: Subverted. Lois wasn't going to jump off the bridge; she just wanted to get away from the empty house to think. Peter's weight and running on the flimsy bridge is what caused Lois to fall off.
- "Friends" Rent Control: Averted. Peter explains via an Overly Long Gag that Lois's parents pay for their house.
- Frustrated Overhead Scribble: Chris becomes so frustrated by Lois's newfound obsession with removing anything she considers "clutter" from the house that a scribble appears over his head in the shape of a thought bubble. Lois is not only aware of the scribble, but accuses Chris of further cluttering up the house with it. Chris then gets so angry that his head turns into a 1930's work whistle.
- Get Out!: At the peak of her decluttering spree Lois kicks the family out of the house.
- Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Downplayed; Tricia Takanawa as a stand-in for Marie Kondo is Japanese as well, but she says she conceived her "Throw it Away" philosophy after climbing "Asia mountain".
- It's All About Me: Lois displays this during her Sanity Slippage, throwing away other people's things because they don't bring her joy.
- Manchild: When Peter can't sleep, he pesters Quagmire into reading him a Clifford story, and insists on lying in bed with him while doing so. To compound Quagmire's problem, reading the story puts the two women he was with to sleep as well.
- Overly Long Gag: The "my house that I paid for" scene.
- Please Keep Your Hat On: As part of her decluttering spree, Lois takes of Chris and Meg's hats. They come off like Lego headpieces, to Lois' shock.
- Sanity Slippage: Lois becomes more and more unstable as the episode goes on, eventually throwing everything out of the house, including her family.
- Shout-Out:
- When Stewie's time machine transports everyone to the future, Chris is replaced with Bender.
- While chasing after Lois, Peter is reminded of Rocky and Cliffhanger.
- Brian parodies Shaft with an ode to former President William Howard Taft. Doubles as a Shout Out to Hamilton.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The family gets mad at Lois for her decluttering phase; Lois gets mad at the family because they got mad at her. It's later turned into a supportive thing when the Griffins realize that Lois is in serious, emotional distress.
- White Void Room: The end result of Lois' obsessive decluttering is the interior of the house being rendered featureless, hollow and white.
