Recap / The Amazing World Of Gumball S 6 E 10 The Candidate

In this satire of American politics, Gumball, Darwin, Anais, and a collection of students are forced to stay in the art room while their parents have a charity party in school. As the art room temperature gets dangerously high and the TV commits suicide over having to broadcast lousy entertainment, Gumball decides to make himself leader to fight back against the adults, but Anais steps in as a candidate and the students have to vote for who they want as their leader (while Darwin desperately pleas for someone to care about the rising temperature in the art room).

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Tropes:

• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The children blame their parents for ruining the economy, the environment, and the education system as well as following them on Chatsnap.
• Chekhov's Skill: It's shown that Clare lets out a long, exasperated groan when Anais does an Expospeak Gag. Later, when they escape from the room, Clare has Anais do it again to use said groan to blow away smoke in their path.
• Designated Girl Fight: Sarah, Clare, Anais and Carmen are the only girls in the room. Clare and Sarah fight each other, while Carmen and Anais don't fight at all (at least onscreen, in Carmen's case).
• Deus Exit Machina: Tina, Masami, Clayton, Carrie, Penny, and Ocho are not among the students trapped in the class, since they have powers that would help them to break out of it. Penny's parents were at the party, though.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: As the title implies, the plot and characterizations of the episode is a satire of the United States election climate (specifically around 2016), but slightly more vague.
  • The adults are the older generation whose neglect and obliviousness to the consequences of their own actions as they force the younger generation to comply set the backdrop for the problems that need to be resolved.
  • Anais has a role as someone competent being dismissed as an intellectual in favor of someone incompetent like Gumball because he's more superficially charismatic to the masses.
  • Tobias represents both a rich donor and the establishment candidates that instate self-serving policies that lose to newcomers with similar predilections that haven't squandered public trust yet.
  • Idaho objects to Anais' plan to share food equally but proposes the same plan phrased differently. He doesn't trust her sound plans because he perceives her as too smart to be trusted to care about him.
  • Clare acts like a stereotypical 'disaffected young adult' voter that votes on singular, largely impertinent issues out of a perceived sense of social awareness that she believes the candidate doesn't share.
  • Banana Joe is a contrarian that doesn't trust "mainstream" reliable sources of information and instead seeks fringe sources out of a desire for his ignorance to be validated.
  • Naturally they all end up supporting Gumball one way or the other, who is mostly in it to advance his own standing and stroke his ego. They'd rather have incompetent people doing something than competent people doing nothing.
  • The increasing temperature is a stand-in for global warming, and Darwin acts as the ignored climate scientists.
  • Darwin also acts as a third party candidate as he’s the only one actually trying to do something about the boiler but is ignored as he doesn’t fit the two party system.
• Dramatically Missing the Point: Although there are some issues that are directly addressed among the children that are important, everyone except Darwin seems to neglect the rising temperature, which leads to a disaster.
• Fake Charity: The parents have a vague child-oriented charity, but it's really just an excuse to throw a party while locking their kids in an A/V room (mortally endangering them).
  Gumball: (in response to being told the charity is for kids' futures) Yeah, one chocolate fountain at a time!
• Forgot About His Powers: Nobody seems to realize that Bobert could have just broken the door down.
• Gilligan Cut: Nicole states that the charity event will be a "civilized and formal evening", cut to a room full of adults sleeping due to what seems to be an extravagant party.
• Hollywood Mirage: The rising heat in the room causes Darwin to hallucinate that he's on a tropical island.
• How We Got Here: The episode opens in media res after all the kids have started fighting in the halls. Gumball them appears after it freezes and begins explaining how that point was reached.
• Idiot Ball: Bobert, Carmen, Colin and Felix would normally not support Gumball, but they got dumber so Anais could be the Only Sane Woman (also, because of Rule of Funny), possibly Justified as the heat is likely clouding their judgement.
• Implausible Deniability: Gumball, even after the overwhelmingly amount of evidence that the temperature is rising, still denies it.
• Money Is Not Power: After spending the episode talking about his family's money, Tobias thinks he can get everyone past a hole blocking the floor by throwing cash at it.
  Anais: Money isn't the solution to every problem.
  (Camera pulls back to reveal the money filled the pit and formed a way across)
  Tobias: It is if you've got enough!
• Moral Luck: After the kids escape the burning building, Gumball tries to claim his incompetence saved everyone by forcing them to confront their problems themselves. The other kids are understandably furious, and Anais hits him in the face with Idaho.
• Never My Fault: After the story catches up to the point the episode started at, Gumball shifts the blame to everyone else for putting him in a position to screw them over in the first place.
• No OSHA Compliance:
  • While the adults are partying, they lock their kids in a school room. This isn't just horribly neglectful, it should be physically impossible: the modern, hook-handled door shown should open from the inside even when it's locked.
  • The school's heating system is so poorly-designed that setting the thermostat too high will set everything on fire and cause a massive boiler explosion.
• Non Sequitur, *Thud*:
  Bobert: Give up. You have a 2% chance of defeating me. (Tobias bashes him) You have a 4% chalice of repeating me. (Tobias bashes him again) You have a squirrel chocolate geography hairbrush.
• Not Now, Kiddo: On the car ride to the gala, Gumball tries to explain to Richard how the economy, environment, and school system are far worse than they were in his day. He's just met with his dad telling him that he "had it hard" too because he only had three dollars leaving school and after spending one setting his life up with a house and car he put the rest in savings.
  Gumball: You guys just don't realize do you?
  Richard: I realize that in spite of how self-entitled my kids are, I still have space in my heart to think about their future.
• Ridiculous Future Inflation: Inverted; Richard claims back in "his day" he bought the house and got married for one dollar.
• Running Gag: Someone throwing Idaho before a fight ends. And then when it stops, Idaho is stuck spinning mid-air unable to move. He clearly gets annoyed the 2nd time it happens. Anais even manages to change Idaho's position the third time it happens to hit Gumball.
• Tempting Fate: "But it's just one guy, what's the worst that could ha-" (Smash Cut to everyone attacking each other)
• What Happened to the Mouse?: After escaping the school, the school gets blown up due to the heat temperature increasing and the boiler pressure getting worse. In the next episode, the school goes back to normal fast like it never happened.

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