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Hamster & Gretel S1E03 "Recipe for Disaster"
(aka: Hamster And Gretel S 1 E 3 Recipe For Disaster)

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Kevin and Gretel's mother Carolina informs that tonight is family dinner night, and is preparing a dish of ropa vieja for it. Unfortunately, Gretel accidentally burns the dish with heat vision while intending to only help it along. In order to save family dinner night, Gretel and Hamster visit the various Mexican restaurants in town to find a suitable replacement, while Kevin joins Carolina to stall for time.


Tropes:

  • Butt-Monkey: Kevin keeps finding himself in embarrassing situations (twice in front of his crush Hiromi) in order to slow down his mom.
  • Diegetic Visual Effects: When El Luchador is introduced, a scrolling disclaimer with voice-over appears... in front of Gretel, who looks bored while waiting for the disclaimer to finish, as the scene cuts to Kevin. And it's still not done after cutting back to Gretel!
  • Escort Distraction: While Carolina already planned to go grocery shopping, Kevin joins her to keep her from home as long as possible until Gretel finds a ropa vieja dish that taste just like mom's.
  • Reactive Continuous Scream: Subverted. When Gretel burns their mother's ropa vieja, first she screams, then Kevin screams, and then Hamster... just sits there eating a leaf. The gag is then repeated when Carolina comes early to pick up her grocery list.
  • Rule of Three: The Running Gag of Hamster creating a diamond out of a lump of coal to use for payment of the damages done by him and Gretel (and the person they're giving it to promptly quitting their job afterwards).
  • "Shaggy Dog" Story:
    • Gretel goes to every restaurant in town looking for a ropa vieja that tastes just like Carolina's, and she finally finds it on a place named House of Ropa Vieja; she concedes that she should have started there in the first place.
    • Just as Gretel is fighting El Luchador for the last order of ropa vieja, Kevin calls to tell her that she didn't have to, because Carolina had told him that just being together was the whole point of family dinner night. Gretel leaves in the middle of battle, leaving Veronica to point out how anticlimactic the whole battle was.
    • After having made a new ropa vieja from scratch, Kevin trips and drops it on the floor. Not only that, he also knocks the old burnt dish out of the garbage and back into the counter just as Carolina enters.
    • And to top it all off, the ropa vieja was never burnt to begin with. It was on the top oven the whole time, and the dish Gretel burned was a cake for dessert.
  • Storm in a Teacup: After all the trouble Kevin and Gretel went through to replace the ropa vieja, Kevin trips and not only drops it but also sends the burnt ropa vieja out of the garbage can and back on the table. Then it turns out that what they burned wasn't the real ropa vieja but a dirt cake (a cake that looks like dirt), and the real ropa vieja was on the top oven all along.

Alternative Title(s): Hamster And Gretel S 1 E 3 Recipe For Disaster

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