The fifteenth episode of the first season of Hey Arnold!.
Olga Comes Home
When Olga, Helga's older sister, visits the Patakis, she gets all of her parents' attention. Helga plots to sabotage her older sister's visit by making her think she got a B on her report card.
Sally's Comet
After Arnold and Gerald save up enough cereal box tops to get a telescope before the arrival of Sally's Comet, which only appears once every 70 years. They also have to convince the neighborhood to turn out their lights so everyone can see it.
"Olga Comes Home" provides examples of:
- The B Grade: This episode plays with this plot by having Helga forge her titular big sister's report card, so that she thinks she got a B+. Which causes Olga to go catatonic and stay in her room crying until Helga breaks down and tells her she did get an A. Also deconstructed with the implication that Olga's reaction is due to their parents, especially their father, going overboard on playing the Education Parent when Olga was growing up, despite their reassurance during the episode proper.
- Broken Ace: Towards the end, Olga reveals to Helga that even before she faked her grade to a "B+", she's not nearly as confident as she comes across. She secretly resents all the doting and attention she receives from their parents because it puts unnecessary pressure on her, and makes her feel like a glorified wind-up doll to fawn over.
- Heroic BSoD: At learning she apparently got a "B+" on her report card, Olga spends days on end lying in bed crying over the possibility she has academically peaked.
- Irony: Helga makes it clear she's jealous how her older sister receives all the attention for being so darn accomplished. Towards the end, Olga admits to Helga she envies her younger sister for how she's ignored, because she's free from having to meet up to their parents' high expectations.
- Kick the Dog: Downplayed. When Olga is bed-ridden with devastation that she only got a "B+", Helga comes by to gaslight that perhaps her older sister really mentally piqued.
- Morality Chain: Arnold's the only person who can convince Helga to come clean to Olga about how she changed her report card. Maybe not initially, but his words do plant guilt in Helga that she should be nicer to Olga.
- Secret-Keeper: When Helga comes clean to Olga that she changed her report card to spite her, the former expects the latter to tell on their parents. Although tempting, Olga chooses to keep it between them, on the principle that she doesn't really like the attention all that much.
- Trophy Child: Deconstructed. Olga reveals to Helga that being the golden child isn't all it's cracked up to be. All it's done for her is made her feel less like a person and more like a trophy in their eyes.
"Sally's Comet" provides examples of:
- Big Eater: Harold is all in on helping Arnold and Gerald with Competition Coupon Madness. He's not even waiting for a bowl to be filled, though he suffers for that.Harold: I just swallowed a prize.
- Book Ends: Phil saw Sally's Comet with his father as a boy. The next and last time he sees it, it's with his grandson and family friend.
- Competition Coupon Madness: Arnold and Gerald need to collect 50 cereal box coupons to earn a children's telescope so they can see an upcoming passing comet. Since they collected half of the coupons, they invite their friends and neighbors for the remaining cereal.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: It was a close shave at the last minute, but after eating 50 cereal box coupons and a race against time to convince the city to turn off all their lights, Arnold and Gerald are treated to the sight of Sally's Comet, content to know they could see it in their youth while it was still possible.
- First-Name Basis: Gerald keeps addressing Phil this way. Phil tells him to knock it off at the very end of the episode.
- Flashback: Phil recalls when he saw the comet as a child. He was unable to see it from the roof of the boarding house because of a nearby light, so his father put it out.
- Meaningful Echo: When the boys finally get to see the comet, Phil echoes what his father said to him all those years ago when he saw it: "You're gonna remember this for the rest of your life!"
- Noodle Incident: Phil at least claims to be very familiar with Hawk Mountain.Phil: I flew my first kite there. I got my first kiss there. Why, I fell off that mountain once and broke every bone in my body. [Arnold and Gerald worriedly stare at each other] I love Hawk Mountain.
- Produce Pelting: When Gerald first yells at the people to turn off the lights, someone on the street throws a tomato at him.
