After spending a credit card he applied for behind her back, Lois decides to punish Peter like the irresponsible child he is by grounding him.
Examples:
- Actor Allusion: Joe says he gets residual checks for Seinfeld. Patrick Warburton played Elaine's recurring boyfriend, David Puddy.
- Aesop Amnesia: Lois has apparently forgotten the events of the episode ‘The Most Interesting Man in the World’ where Peter’s mature behavior caused her as much stress as it did when he wasn’t mature.
- Both Sides Have a Point:
- Lois does have the right to be upset with Peter for getting a secret credit card and buying a whole bunch of ridiculous things and therefore burn through cash, but she loses some credibility by thinking that it’s worth grounding her husband over. Had it been Meg or Chris that did this or even Brian, it would’ve been more fitting, but it doesn’t work for her husband because, since it was his card, he had the right to buy whatever he wants. Not to mention, those money legally doesn’t belong to her, since she doesn’t even have a job to support her family unlike Peter, making her treatment to him more akin to Financial Abuse, going as far as checking all his payments without his consent.
- As for Peter, while using the credit card irresponsibly does warrant some complaints from Lois, it certainly isn’t worth keeping him in the house as a punishment since Peter is an adult (albeit not a mature one but still an adult regardless) and again, he had the privilege to use the credit card how he wished. As far as digging an escape tunnel under the house to escape it instead of using his own authority to overrule Lois goes, it has been shown at that Lois gets furious when she doesn’t get her way, so it is somewhat justified.
- Break Them by Talking: Peter manages to keep Brian from telling Lois that he’s escaped the house by calling him a ‘bad boy’. Though soon, Brian caves in when Stewie gets suspicious.
- Brick Joke:
- When the guys are trapped underground, they start admitting to the worst things they ever did - Peter’s is that Lois once killed a woman of his choosing. After the main plot is resolved, there’s a flashback to twenty years earlier which reveals how it happened.
- To fool Lois, Peter replaces himself with a life-sized balloon. When Peter and the guys try to talk to Jerome later on, he did the same thing to get out of the conversation.
- Evil Is Petty: Peter once had Lois kill a waitress because she told him that the chef couldn’t make an off-menu item.
- Hypocrite:
- Sorry Lois, but you can’t really lay into Peter’s immaturity if you cannot curb your own, especially since you indulged in the Tom Brady hysteria at one point in the episode.
- You can also argue that punishing Peter for having a credit card is this when he is generally the family's sole breadwinner.note
- Insane Troll Logic: According to Peter, husbands are not really adults, they are people who pay for things yet are still burdens.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Quagmire calling out Peter for getting him and the rest of their friends trapped underground is justifiable in of itself, but he also makes a good point of how Peter should stand up to Lois (though given how nasty Lois could be if she doesn’t have her way, this could be considered moot.)
- Manchild: Part of the reason Lois grounds Peter is that he does not behave like an adult. Peter even lampshades that husbands are not adults. They have all the 'responsibilities' of adults, but none of the 'rights'.
- Shout-Out: Peter comes home wearing a costume from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Lois even says she'll get General Chang to enforce Peter's grounding.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Brian tells Peter that he can leave the house if he wants since he is an adult. An immature adult maybe, but still an adult nevertheless and this possibly hints that even though Peter doesn’t usually act like a man, he still has authority over the Griffin household, which he could use to overrule Lois. Why doesn’t Peter listen to Brian? See Insane Troll Logic up above.
- Take That!:
- Hearing all the fun everyone's having without him, Peter pleads with Lois to go outside. Then he finds out they're going to an Anne Hathaway movie, so he prefers to stay home.
- The worst thing that Joe ever did is willingly attend a Coldplay concert by himself.
- The Unfair Sex: When Brian states that Peter can just leave the house since he is the adult and man of the house, even when grounded, Peter remarks that only wives can be true adults and that husbands can’t be adults. The episode has Lois ground Peter for being immature but it gives Lois a free pass on her childishness in regards to Tom Brady.
- What Were You Thinking?: Lois yells this at Peter after discovering he tried to escape the house and needed to be rescued from the hole he (literally) dug himself into.
- Would Hurt a Child: In a cutaway gag, Peter relates an experience where he once won a karate tournament, where it actually consisted of him beating up a little girl (apparently because he was jealous of her trophy). He initially shows no remorse, even as the audience boos him, though then he realizes how bad he may have hurt her.
- You Are Grounded!: Basically the entire episode’s premise.
