...and Clay remembers when he first held Ol' Gunny. Clay's father Arthur tells him not to tell his mother about it, and Clay has massive reservations about holding it, even though it's not loaded. The two of them are called to dinner, but not before Clay notices the bullets for it.
Clay's mother Angela is revealed to dote on Clay to the point of spoiling, calling him 'her precious only ever', and is indifferent to her husband, even giving him the leftovers of what Clay didn't eat. Arthur is saddened by this, as revealed when he toasts to a picture of the two of them before Clay's birth before covering his food in ketchup.
Clay and Angela look through a photo album when Clay demands to see the parts he's never seen before. He finds out he's actually the youngest of eleven siblings...and the only one that survived childbirth. Angela's previous pregnancies ended in miscarriage or stillbirth, and it's strongly suggested that it's because of the disregard she showed for her body, as she noted during her pregnancy with Clay that she was so busy praying that she didn't have time to smoke, drink highballs, ride on horseback, jump on a trampoline or ride roller coasters. Clay doesn't take it well at all that he's not really his mother's 'precious only ever' and runs away.
A gunshot is heard.
Arthur runs in to find that Clay shot himself. As Angela freaks out and prays to God to take her instead, Arthur notices the bottle of ketchup he left and realizes that Clay is pranking them. However, Angela is so elated that Clay isn't dead that she suffers a heart attack from sheer emotion and dies.
Arthur blames Clay for Angela's death, and when Clay tells him he's going to hell for saying there's no heaven, Arthur reaches to hit Clay, only to decide that he's not worth hitting. This ends up shaping Clay's entire life, as he acts out to get his father to hit him, the only form of worth, attention and affection he's ever shown. Once Arthur realizes this, he gives Ol' Gunny to Clay, saying he doesn't want it anymore because it's tainted with blood. Clay resolves to pass it down to his child someday...
(and then Clay quickly takes it away before giving Orel another one).
The episode ends with Clay staring in his drink.
Tropes present:
- Deadly Prank: Clay pretends to shoot himself after learning that he wasn't actually his mother's firstborn child. When she realizes that Clay is still alive, she gets so excited that she suffers a heart attack.
- Downer Ending: Clay's prank accidentally gets his mom killed and Arthur is so disgusted by this that he ignores Clay, to the point where the only attention he gives Clay is hitting him for acting bratty, which becomes the only way Clay is able to feel love.
- Double-Meaning Title: This episode deals with two versions of the word "Passing". The first is "passing away", which is what happened to Angela's previous pregnancies before having Clay. The second is the Puppington tradition of the head of the household "passing down" Ol' Gunny to his firstborn son, but in this case, Arthur is doing it not out of tradition, but because Clay tainted it by unintentionally killing Angela with it. Clay declares that he will continue the tradition when he has a son of his own...but he doesn't.
- Hollywood Heart Attack: Angela's joy at realizing Clay didn't actually shoot himself is so strong that it causes her heart to stop.
- It's All About Me: This is a normal thing little kids would do, but Clay took it to the next level. Everything had to be about him, he had all the best food while Arthur was forced to eat leftovers and the pictures had to have him in them. Definitely not a considerate kid.
- Maternal Death? Blame the Child!: A variation. Angela died not from childbirth, but from having a heart attack in response to Clay playing a cruel prank on her. As such, Arthur definitely blamed Clay for her death.
- Never My Fault: Even as a child, Clay refused to take responsibility for anything that goes on in his life. When Arthur says to Clay it's his fault for killing Angela, Clay tries to pass the blame onto Arthur saying it was his fault since he left a gun where an innocent child could find it.
- Not Worth Killing: Or rather, not worth hitting. Arthur decided this about Clay at first. Unfortunately, this resulted in Clay associating any kind of attention (even negative) with affection, and from then on he would deliberately goad his own dad into striking him.
- Pushover Parents: Angela is extremely permissive when it comes to raising Clay, due to the fact that he was her first successful pregnancy.
- Sexless Marriage: Angela showers Clay with attention while ignoring Arthur. It didn't used to be this way, but after years of miscarriages and religious fanaticism, Angela grew more distant from Arthur and focused all her attention on Clay.
- Silent Treatment: Clay ends up on the receiving end of this following his mother's death. Unfortunately, it backfires in that he starts acting out to get Arthur to hit him, the only form of attention he received from him. This is the moment where he comes to associate abuse with worth and affection. Arthur realizes this and stops, making it worse.
- Spoiled Brat: Because of his mother's lax parenting style, young Clay is very impatient and selfish. In fact, he's 12-years-old in this episode but acts like a 6-year-old due to his mother stunting his mental growth. His pretend suicide comes from a fit of pique over learning that he wasn't her firstborn.
- Start of Darkness: Shows us how Clay ended up how he is in the present.
- Too Dumb to Live: Or rather, too dumb to give birth. Angela had ten stillbirths due to years of drinking, smoking, horseback riding, going on roller coasters, and jumping on a trampoline. And with each death, she became more and more distant from Arthur and became a religious fanatic. In fact, the only reason Clay even survived was because she was too busy praying to engage in the reckless behavior that doomed her previous pregnancies. Played straighter in that her joy from Clay being born alive is the reason why the latter became a little snot because she spoiled him so much, thus leading to her demise.
