Rob gets a universal remote control that works on reality itself, and tries to use it to tear apart Gumball's family and ruin his life.
Tropes:
- Adoption Diss: Rob gets Darwin to run away by putting subtitles in front of Gumball, which Darwin assumes are Gumball's actual thoughts, saying the family would have more money if they hadn't adopted him and calling him a "glorified pet".
- Angrish: Nicole is so enraged by Gumball's antics apparently wrecking their car that she can't finish her scolding, and outright states that she's going to just make sounds.
- Ballistic Discount: The Awesome Store owner tries to take the remote back from Rob when he finds out he'll use it for evil, but Rob uses it to send his car flying away. When the store owner tries to at least get Rob to pay for it ($12.99), Rob erases him.
- Batman Gambit: After the remote appears to stop working before Rob can send Gumball to the Void, Rob comes up with another way to get rid of Gumball.Rob: Well I guess you’re going to do what any hero would do to save the ones he loves: You’re going to follow the remote.
(Rob throws the remote into the void) - Big "WHAT?!": Gumball and Anais, when Richard announced that he and Nicole are getting a divorce thanks to Rob taking the Parental Filter off of them.
- Cardboard Prison: Rob was arrested at the end of "The Bus", and there's no explanation for why he's free now.
- Cliffhanger: The episode (and season proper) ends on a pretty bleak note.
- Correlation/Causation Gag: Gumball continues playing with the car window even though Nicole asked him to stop. When he asks what could possibly happen Rob turns on all the cars in the parking garage, causing them to crash and wreck their car. Nicole seems to blame Gumball in spite of him rightfully pointing out it wasn't his fault.
- Darker and Edgier: Easily one of the darkest episodes in the show, tone-wise.
- Darkest Hour: Rob precisely paused at the moment where Darwin is nowhere to be found, Anais is lost and crying, Nicole and Richard are divorced (with Nicole happily on the arm of Hank, and Richard drowning his sorrow in donuts), and Penny falling to her likely death... to rub it into Gumball before he attempts to push him into the Void.
- A Day in the Limelight: For Rob.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: During the car ride, the Wattersons sing the show's ending theme With Lyrics.
- Easily Condemned:
- Rob puts subtitles under Gumball that make it look like he wishes Darwin weren't his brother. Darwin doesn't question how the subtitles are magically appearing in front of Gumball and just assumes they are his actual thoughts.
- Subverted when Rob makes it look like Gumball is cheating on Penny. Penny knows that Gumball would never do that, but Rob forces them to speak Cantonese so it sounds like she's mad at him anyway.
- Fission Mailed: Rob closes the gateway to the void while Gumball is inside it, the camera hangs on the static wall the void-side of the portal was made on, and the credits start to roll... except they're backward and the music is muffled because we're seeing them from inside the screen. Then the camera shifts to the remote tumbling through the void and Gumball catches up to it, fixes the battery, and rewinds time to the beginning of the day. To Be Continued.
- Family-Unfriendly Death: Narrowly-averted with Penny, as time freezes before she can plummet to her death.
- Gave Up Too Soon: As soon as the remote malfunctions, Rob assumes it's broken. Since using it is Gumball's only hope of reversing Rob's actions, Rob throws it into the Void to force Gumball to follow in after it. Turns out the only thing wrong was one battery falling out of alignment, which Gumball easily corrects.
- Handy Remote Control: The Awesome Store in the red van has a remote that can control reality to do damn near anything, implicitly because Elmore is on TV.
- Hate Plague: Rob turns Richard and Nicole's parental filter off, causing them to have a fight and break up.
- Hostile Show Takeover: Rob blames Gumball's status as the protagonist of the show for forcing him to be the villain, and figures that he can become the hero if he can get rid of Gumball.
- Imagination-Based Superpower: The remote seems to be a series of Plot Sensitive Buttons which affect only what the wielder wants to affect and mostly in the way they want it affected.
- Insane Troll Logic:
- The Wattersons somehow conclude that Gumball flipping the car window up and down made the other cars run into them at the parking lot.
- Penny gets upset at Gumball because they're speaking in Cantonese and it sounds like they're arguing, even though she clearly understands what Gumball is saying.
- Intelligible Unintelligible: After Darwin storms off, Gumball is weeping so hard that he can only make whimpering noises, but the rest of his family can understand him anyway. Though Anais thinks "evil magic subtitles" must have been a mistranslation on her part.
- It's All About Me: Rob doesn't care who he hurts, as long as he gets revenge on Gumball.
- Mistaken from Behind: When looking for Darwin, Gumball thinks he's found him on an escalator, only to realize it's really the same person who resembles Hot Dog Guy from "The Awkwardness".note
- Motive Rant: Rob delivers this to Gumball after pausing everything and revealing this as the mastermind in order to ruin Gumball's life.
- Ninja Prop: During their struggle, Rob attacks Gumball by using the remote to change the aspect ratio, bludgeoning him with the screen border.
- Never My Fault: Rob blames Gumball for making him the villain even though he chose to be the bad guy.
- Noticing the Fourth Wall: Rob has realized that he, along with everyone else in the universe are trapped inside an actual TV show. He does not take this discovery well and wants to remove Gumball from the show.
- Poor Communication Kills: Invoked by Rob to ruin Gumball's life.
- Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Whoever's holding the remote when using it to rewind time retains their memory, though it may take a second.
- Semantic Superpower: The remote has a setting to control "parental filter". Setting it to "off" for Gumball's parents cause them to lose their mental filter, after which they immediately tear into each other so hard that they break up within a few minutes.
- Slasher Smile: Rob displayed this after he used the Universal Remote to delete the Van Shopkeeper!
- Soundtrack Dissonance:
- When Gumball physically confronts Rob, their struggling accidentally makes the remote switch from suspenseful action music to jazzy relaxing music. Gumball acknowledges that it really changes the tone of the scene, and they reverse a roll to switch it back.
- After Rob tosses Gumball into the Void and dramatically closes the portal behind him, the upbeat ending theme begins playing, slightly muffled as if heard through a wall, and becomes gradually quieter as the camera follows Gumball falling and dramatic music plays over it.
- Super Weapon, Average Joe: Rob, who's physically no stronger than Gumball, ends up with a remote that can do basically anything.
- Targeted to Hurt the Hero: Rob's vow to destroy "everything and everyone Gumball loves".
- Title Drop: In a roundabout way, as Rob shares his scorn for Gumball being the star of his "amazing world".
- Wham Episode: Rob accomplishes ruining Gumball's life, put him in the Void, and pointing out that the world they live in is not real. At the last moment when falling into the Void, Gumball presses the Reset Button in the form of a Rewind Button on the Universal Remote to undo what Rob did.
- Wham Line: Rob drops this to Gumball about Elmore.Rob: You really don't get it, do you? So happy to star in your amazing world. Can't you see that none of this is real!?
