After getting in trouble in school, Bobby, Connie and Joseph run away.
Tropes in the episode:
- Animals Hate Him: While cleaning the gutters as his punishment, Bobby finds a nest of baby birds, which promptly gets him attacked by the mother.
- A Birthday, Not a Break: Connie and the other kids just happened to run away on Kahn's 41st birthday, which he tells Hank when they get lost in the caves.
- Culture Clash: Hank is appalled by Kahn's punishment for Connie: making her mow the lawn, which Hank thinks is a privilege. Kahn does this to put fear of God into her, making her afraid of being like Hank, to which he retaliates by stating "permissive parenting" like that is why his country fell under Communist rule.
- Foreshadowing: When Dale lets the others know the kids are at the caves, they all naturally freak out, with Peggy pointing out that the caves are where half of Arlen's unplanned pregnancies begin, after which Nancy and John Redcorn exchange looks, foreshadowing the identity of Joseph's true biological father.
- Frame-Up: What Kahn initially thinks happens when he learns Connie got in trouble, which could be chalked up to his arrogant nature.
- Late to the Punchline: Joseph and Connie both laugh uproariously over a joke they read in Playboy, though Bobby gives something of a half-hearted laughter, implying this.
- Love Triangle: Seems to be one between Bobby, Connie and Joseph, with the latter seemingly enticing her, even shown holding hands when the fear of being lost gets to them. But Bobby seems to win her over by offering his body for food when he dies. On the ride home, Joseph accepts that Bobby won her heart.
- Make-Out Point: The caves the kids go into, AKA The Boneyard, where many an Arlen teenager has Their First Time, complete with a mattress, Playboys and a bra. Though despite the worries of the adults, they're too young to understand what's the purpose of the place.
- No Party Like a Donner Party: Lost in the caves, Bobby offers Connie and Joseph to eat him when he dies, an act that wins over Connie's heart.
- Not So Stoic: The normally emotionally distant Hank is relieved when he finds Bobby in the caves, even giving him a hug.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Bobby and Connie when the music teacher Mr. Grandy decides to have a talk with their parents.
- Hank and the others when they learn the kids are at the caves. Fortunately, the kids are too young for sexual desires.
- Pet the Dog: When Hank apologizes in advance just in case Bobby and Connie "got busy", Kahn says he's not worried about that because "Bobby's a good kid" (though he does not feel the same way about Joseph). Given his general antagonism of the Hills (and especially towards Bobby in later seasons), this is practically heart-warming.
- The Runaway: Bobby and Connie do so after feeling frustration over the punishments by their fathers. Joseph doesn't have the same problems they did, but joins them anyway.
- Sexual Euphemism: With Hank struggling to explain getting "second base", Kahn tells of his first time, which they call in Laos "Pa Son Pate", an euphemism Hank likes, as it sounds clean.
- Song Parody: In music class, Bobby does this with the song "My Bonnie" called "My Connie". And apparently the kids have done "Old Man Liver" (Old Man River) and "The Smellow Nose of Texas" (The Yellow Rose of Texas).
- Take That!:
- A few light-hearted jabs are made at "Weird Al" Yankovic's expense, from Hank telling Bobby that he "blew his brains out in the late 80s after people stopped buying his albums" and Bobby lamenting that he's going to die lonely friendly and alone like Yankovic. And just to add insult to injury, they both refer to him by the oft-mangled pronunciation of his name, Yankovitch.
- Kahn laments that he will die like the girlfriend in The English Patient: "Long, painful boring death!"
- Toxic Friend Influence: Both Hank and Kahn think Bobby and Connie are this to each other despite them both being good kids who like to goof around together.
