Costume Competition is the fourth episode of Superstore's fourth season.
Amy's doctor tells her to stay home from work, but because Cloud Nine's corporate office won't allow it, she's forced to work throughout the remainder of her pregnancy. When Glenn and Dina announce a store costume contest with the prize of one paid day off, Amy and Mateo get overly competitive, and attempt to convince Cheyenne, who's wearing a hula girl costume with a coconut bra, that her costume is offensive. When that doesn't work, they convince Sandra (who is Hawaiian) to call Cheyenne out on it. However, after Sandra starts having second thoughts about her complaint and mentions other employees being OK with costumes that could be considered cultural appropriation, they start going through the store and convincing every employee that another employee's costume would be offensive to them. However, Mateo takes it too far by making a complaint against Amy's mario costume as being offensive to Italians. When trying to defend herself, Amy starts a discussion on cultural appropriation that leads to the costume contest also being used to "honor" the culture surrounding a costume. When the contest ends, Amy is declared the winner. Later, Jonah, who tallied the votes, reveals to her that Cheyenne won, but he changed the results so that Amy won.
Meanwhile, Jonah accidentally makes Garrett realize that the same song is playing over and over again on the loudspeakers, and is driven crazy trying to stop the music. At first he calls corporate, which controls the playlist, but when they don't offer any help, he attempts to cover up the speakers with thick sweaters. And when that doesn't work, he keeps the store's announcement system going for the rest of the day, because the music won't play as long as it's on.
In addition, the store gets a new wireless electric cart collector, that uses a key fob to operate. When Glenn confiscates the key fob from employees who are playing around with it, he puts it in is bag, causing the cart collector to follow him around for the rest of the day. After trying all day to avoid it, he eventually attempts to flee from it in his car (which it follows).
This episode provides examples of:
- Jerkass: Mateo. He was more than willing to take down Amy, despite knowing that she needed the paid day off far more than he did.
- Landslide Election: Jonah states that it was a landslide... for Cheyenne. However, he changed the results.
- Mood Whiplash: During the costume party, the employees go from goofy impressions of their costumes to serious discussions of the prejudice faced by the ethnicity their costume represents.Marcus: [playfully, as Bob Marley] One love! Everything irie. But I'll tell you what isn't Irie. [normal voice] Nearly 700,000 Africans brought to Jamaica as slaves.
- Political Overcorrectness: Amy and Mateo convince Sandra that Cheyenne's hula costume is offensive to Native Hawaiian (reasonable), which quickly devolves into a jalapeno pepper being offensive to Latinos and a hockey costume being offensive to Canadians. This culminates in everybody taking their time during the contest to preach about bigotry.Mateo: If Amy can be allowed to wear that costume, then I don't see why Marcus can't wear blackface.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Amy and Mateo's effort to gaslight the entire staff into being offended by the other costumes; while they aren't wrong that some of it could be considered racist, they're clearly only doing it to eliminate the rest of the competition.
- Sexy Whatever Outfit: Besides the return of Dina's sexy cop outfit and Cheyenne's skimpy hula girl costume, in a throwaway line Glenn directs a customer to a sexy nurse outfit in Aisle 9, "between the sexy Minions and the sexy sandwiches."
- Vote Early, Vote Often: Jonah (who ironically, as he points out, is dressed up as a gerrymandered district), who counted the votes, rigged the costume contest for Amy so she could get a paid day off that she desperately needed due to her pregnancy.
