Recap / Lab Rats S 1 EP 1 Crush Chop And Burn Part 1

13-year-old Leo Dooley and his mother Tasha have just moved into the ritzy, high-tech household of Leo's new stepfather, renomed inventor and tech mogul Donald Davenport, and as he becomes acquaintanced with his new home, Leo stumbles upon a secret elevator, which takes him to a secret lab in the house's basement. There, he finds three teenage siblings bickering over a misplaced music player. The catch? Said siblings have superpowers.

Leo and Tasha soon discover the three teens are bionic superhumans, deemed by Donald to be "the greatest combination of biology and technology ever developed". Each has a specific set of abilities, controlled by microchips implanted in their necks. Primarily, older brother Adam is endowed with Super-Strength, middle sister Bree has Super-Speed, and younger brother Chase has super-intelligence and heightened senses. As it turns out, their existence has been kept top-secret, and Donald has been training them to go on missions in order to handle any crisis they're thrown into.

Seeing how sheltered the siblings have been, to the point that they consider themselves to be like "human lab rats", Leo decides to bring them to school with him, giving them their first taste of the outside world. Although they're delighted to be going to school for the first time, their entrance into Mission Creek High culminates in chaos, and word of their escape soon reaches Donald, who forbids Leo from going into the lab and the bionic siblings from making any contact with the outside world... Not that it stops Leo from throwing a house party while Donald and Tasha are away. Needless to say, Donald punishes the bionic siblings by having them sent to a remote research facility, much to Leo's disappointment.

Tropes:

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking
  Chase: I want to go to the pyramids.
  Bree: I want to go to Paris.
  Adam: I want to go upstairs.
• Curse Cut Short: When Donald and Tasha come home and happen upon the party thrown by Leo, Donald seems to briefly forget that he's in a kids' show.
  Donald: WHAT THE F—
  [Leo arrives driving a cart and loudly honking its horn]
• Early-Bird Cameo: While Principal Perry doesn't appear onscreen until "Commando App", her voice can be heard announcing the pep rally through the school intercom.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Both here and in "Commando App", Mission Creek High's cheer squad are shown with different uniforms than the ones established later on, mainly seen in "Air Leo"; cheer captain Stephanie is also nowhere to be found.
• Establishing Character Moment
  • The Lab Rats' first day at Mission Creek High is a pretty big one for each of them. Bree is ecstatic to live out her teen movie fantasies to the point of hugging a lunch lady, while Adam cluelessly tears off a girl's locker door when helping her open it, and Chase scolds them for drawing too much attention, only to have a meltdown over the bell ringing, due to his ultra-sensitive bionic hearing.
• Foreshadowing: Adam at one point mentions wanting to try out for the cheer squad, which he eventually does in "Air Leo".
• Major Injury Underreaction: Justified. Adam turns Eddy off by yanking off his wires, and due to his bionics and enhanced genes, is unaffected and amused by it.
  Adam: Sweet! I barely got electrocuted!
• Noodle Incident
  Tasha: Oh, come on, Donald, they're just kids. When I was their age, me and Fiona Micklejohn, we snuck out and we crashed–- You know what? I'm not helping.
• Reactive Continuous Scream: When the Lab Rats first encounter Leo.
• Real Men Wear Pink: One of the first things we learn about Adam is that he listens to Taylor Swift, who at the time was still known to mainstream audiences as a wholesome country singer. ^note The episode first aired on February 27, 2012. Taylor's Red era, which marked the start of her Genre Shift from country to pop, wouldn't start until August of that same year, with the album itself being released in October.
  Bree: "Taylor Swift Megamix"? Really?
  Adam: I find her soothing!
• Samus Is a Girl: During the pep rally, the school mascot, Dewey Dingo, latches onto Adam and refuses to let go, prompting Adam to glitch and burn them with his heat vision. When Donald and Tasha arrive, the costume's mask has come off, revealing the person inside to be a girl.
  Adam: So, do all fuzzy animals have girls inside them, or just the dingoes?
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: The first thing we see is Donald bridal carrying Tasha into his house, the two of them sweet-talking each other, before an unamused Leo walks in after them.
  Leo: We get it. You got married. It's getting old.
• This Is No Time to Panic: Attempted by Chase when the pep rally goes awry.
  [Students panicking]
  Chase: People. People. Statistics show that if we don't panic, at least 70% of us will make it out alive.
  [Beat]
  [Students start panicking again]
• Title Drop: Done brilliantly alongside a Visual Pun.
  Chase: All we do is eat, sleep, and train for missions. We're like human lab rats.
  Leo: Come on, it can't be that bad.
  [Chase and Bree Aside Glance to Adam, who's happily riding a giant hamster wheel like it's a treadmill]
• Unfazed Everyman: Tasha. Despite her initial confusion over the bionic siblings, she quickly embraces the idea of being a mother figure to them.
  Tasha: So we have kids living in the basement, and we walk on the furniture. Got it.