The Worst

"The Worst" is is the thirty-third episode of Season 5 of The Amazing World of Gumball. It is the 189th episode overall.

Synopsis
The Wattersons compete over who has the worst life.

Plot
The episode starts with Anais, Gumball, and Darwin storming home in anger. Anais plows through Banana Joe, Melted Cheese Guy, and a school bus; Gumball and Darwin cause Idaho to rot by staring at him menacingly and spoil Milk Guy; and Nicole, driving home angrily from work, pulverizes her steering wheel and the car itself. They eventually storm inside their house and to the dinner table, where Richard angrily prepares dinner, smashing several plates and covering their faces with food in the process.

Gumball then broods over how difficult it is to be a guy, but Nicole quickly refutes their claim, saying that being a woman is worse. Meanwhile, Anais complains about being a kid and how she is constantly talked to with condescension, and Richard complains about the difficulties of avoiding his adult responsibilities.

Gumball and Darwin go on to recall events earlier in the school showering stalls. When they walk in, Tobias smells their shower gel, "Roses of the Meadow," and declares them weak for not conforming to conventional masculinity, with Ocho and Banana Joe joining in to mock them. Meanwhile, at the Rainbow Factory, Nicole is frustrated that Mr. Yoshida has never chosen a female "Employee of the Month," but he fails to take her cue, instead promoting a plant on her desk, getting Nicole's male co-worker his own office (despite her doing his work), and telling her she should smile more. Anais interjects and complains about how adults have set up future generations to fail, though she is met with condescension once more. Richard then tells an account of his own day: at the grocery store, Larry refuses to entertain him with the usual routine - using a fish as a puppet for Richard's amusement - and tells him he needs to grow up. They then decide, fed up with others thinking that they have it worse, to swap lives for a day: Nicole will be a man, Gumball and Darwin will be women, Anais will be a grown up, and Richard will be a kid.

Anais wakes up the next day in Nicole and Richard's bed, immediately messing up her back. Richard, on the other hand, happily cartwheels into the car, but being unable to technically drive as a kid, immediately crashes it. In the bathroom, Gumball is waxing himself while Darwin applies make-up to conform to the unrealistic beauty expectations placed on women. Nicole, however, does not put any make-up on at all, recognizing how little care men put into their appearence disdainfully.

On a bus ride to work, Anais eats a donut, but swells up with body fat from her middle-aged metabolism, even to the point of air causing her to pick up weight. Gumball and Darwin walk to work dressed as women, but quickly find themselves fought over and underestimated in their ability to perform basic human functions. Meanwhile, Nicole takes a jog with her appearance terrifies everybody in the park, and Richard endures the cycle of endless schoolwork at Elmore Junior High.

Anais, sitting at an office cubicle, laments the dullness of adult life and tries to use her imagination to make the situation more exciting, but the best she can conjure up is a hat, causing her to throw her dreams in the trash. Gumball and Darwin enter an elevator to get to the top floor of their work building - where all the executives hang out - but the glass ceiling preventing anyone but old, rich men from getting to the top crushes them through the elevator floor. Nicole likewise tries to perform her job, working in construction, though she quickly gets injured and trapped under a metal bar, but as a man, she is physically unable to ask for help, nor instructions to get to the hospital.

All the Wattersons return home after the day's activities none the happier, though glad to be back to their old selves. Gumball concludes that everybody has it equally bad, but Nicole cuts him off again, though her tirade about how women hardly get ample time to talk is ironically cut short by the episode ending.

Main Characters

 * Gumball
 * Darwin
 * Anais
 * Nicole
 * Richard

Minor Characters

 * Banana Joe
 * Melted Cheese Guy
 * Idaho
 * Milk Guy
 * Rocky
 * Clare
 * Molly
 * Carrie
 * Sarah
 * Carmen
 * Tobias
 * Ocho
 * James O'Brien
 * Orange Guard
 * Jeff
 * 3D Cube Employee
 * Cupcake Man
 * George Cooper
 * Leonard
 * Mr. Yoshida
 * Newspaper Employee
 * Goblin
 * Larry
 * Manly Warrior
 * Cowboy
 * Mr. Pepperoni
 * Marvin
 * Mr. Small
 * Blue Elephant
 * Shooting Star
 * Harold
 * Crocodile Woman
 * Jackie
 * Gary
 * Carmen's father
 * Mrs. Fitzgerald
 * Martin
 * George
 * Hexagon Lady
 * Pantsbully
 * Soulless Office Worker
 * Patrick
 * Red Guard
 * Green Security Guard
 * Karen
 * Colin and Felix
 * Felicity
 * Billy
 * Juke
 * Miss Simian
 * Leslie
 * Alan
 * Carmen
 * Masami
 * Hank

Trivia

 * It is revealed Nicole has worked at the Rainbow Factory for 5 years.
 * Nicole does end up becoming employee of the month and getting a pay raise in "The Deal."

Cultural References

 * The way Tobias points and screams at Gumball references a similar scene in the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
 * Nicole saying she is paid 22% less than the men is a reference to the "gender pay gap," a statistic that claims that for every dollar a man is paid, a woman gets paid 78 cents. (It is important to note that this claim has been debunked in real life.)
 * Mr. Yoshida and the other employees in the Rainbow Factory thumping their chests rhythmically while humming is a reference to a scene from the film The Wolf of Wall Street.

Goofs/Errors

 * Richard tells Anais that after one turns 40, random parts of their body hurt horribly and there is no cure. This implies that he is in his 40s, despite Ben Bocquelet confirming Nicole and Richard are 38.