The Burden

"The Burden" is the twenty-first episode of Season 3 of The Amazing World of Gumball. It is the ninety-seventh episode overall.

Synopsis
While in charge of watching the school hamster, Gumball and Darwin leave it at school for the weekend.

Plot
In his office, Principal Brown is waxing his body for Miss Simian. He shaves some of his hair, and then he regrows his hair again, and ends up throwing his waxed hair into the garbage can (with some bits missing). The whole time he was shaving, Gumball and Darwin were in his office, and are visibly disturbed by what they just witnessed.

Principal Brown assigns them to watch the school hamster, Chris Morris for the weekend. He also tells them that the hamster is 6 years old, being caged since he was born. Gumball and Darwin protest, with Gumball saying "it looks so old that it can be classified as a mineral". Principal Brown says it's an order, and (picking up Chris Morris from the cage) asks the boys to take good care of it (although he accidentally drops him on the floor). Then he picks him up again, and places him back in the cage. Before Gumball and Darwin can protest again, he tells them to wait for the clock to reach four o'clock. After that, he doesn't care anymore since he's not anymore the principal, and the boys have to do what was assigned to them.

Miss Simian enters Brown's office with weird make-up on her face. She asks Principal Brown to have romance time with her, and they start making weird sounds that disturb Gumball and Darwin (who walk out from the scene after "hearing enough"). Brown and Simian also leave the Scene shortly. Later, it shows that it is an actually a clump of Principal Brown's hair in the cage (Principal brown mistaking a clump of his hair for Chris Morris when he placed him back), and that Chris Morris is on the floor, planning to escape.

At home (the next day), Gumball becomes excited and says he's going out on a date with Penny. As he fixes his hair style, Darwin asks what he's doing and Gumball says he's doing his hair for the date. Darwin asks about what he should wear to the date thinking he is coming too, but Gumball refuses and asks him to take care of the "hamster". Darwin also refuses to take care of "Chris Morris" (still a lump of Brown's hair), so Gumball takes the "hamster" with him on his date with Penny. Darwin complains that he will have nothing to do and that he will be bored.

During Gumball's date with Penny, Penny thinks that "Chris Morris" is cute, and that it is cool that Gumball is looking after him. Gumball says that he is a "marriage material" kind of guy. He proves this to Penny by using the school "hamster". Penny is impressed by him and is convinced anyways.

Back home, Darwin, angered, sitting on the chair, mocks Gumball, until Gumball comes back. Gumball is so happy that his date was successful, and told Darwin how awesome the "hamster" is as a wing-man. Darwin gets annoyed and says he is trying to give Gumball the "silent treatment" but Gumball doesn't notice this. Gumball gives the "hamster" to him, and asks Darwin to try how awesome Chris Morris is.

Darwin brings "Chris Morris" at the park, and spends some time with the "hamster". He starts talking to it and has flashbacks about the old times when he was young and the time he spent with Gumball. Later on (with a crazy face) Darwin starts chatting wildly, hysterically speaking with the "hamster" about how he doesn't like it that he feels left out with Gumball and Penny together, and talks about his possible fear of being abandoned. After disturbing some nearby people with his enraged wild chatting. Darwin starts crying, but it's interrupted by Leslie, greeting him, as he greets him back, and he continues crying. Darwin eventually feels lighter and calms down.

Back home with Gumball, Darwin says that "Chris Morris" is the best, being a good listener. They start hanging out with "Chris Morris, and a montage shows them hugging, cuddling and kissing the lump of hair they still think is the school hamster, while there are flashes of random pictures of hair in the montage. While Gumball and Darwin hang out with the "hamster" and look out of a window, the hair suddenly falls out of the window and makes the boys panic.

Gumball and Darwin try to save the "hamster", in the process making it go through random obstacles (like going on the frying pan, dropping on the floor, and being smashed like it was a rat). Gumball picks it up but it was still hot from being fried by the frying pan. Because of this, he throws the "hamster" to the Evil turtle. Darwin takes "Chris Morris" from the turtle, and throws him to Gumball. Gumball fails to catch it, and the "hamster" ends up in the dishwasher while Gumball accidentally closes and operates it. After that, they try to do CPR with macaroni on "Chris Morris" but make "him" explode. They finally realize the truth (that they had been hanging out with a piece of hair, and had kissed it lots of times) making them disgusted and worried. They also realize that the hamster could still be at school and that there is no food or water for Chris Morris (and that he is probably starving).

They rush to the school, and enter through the back window by using Gumball's claw as a glass cutter and Darwin's mouth to open the window (although this resulted in the whole wall falling down instead). They find Chris Morris, and try to get him. Chris Morris activates the school alarm and "runs" off, making Gumball and Darwin chase after him. But the hamster is so slow that they always run ahead of him. So they chase Chris Morris with the speed of an old 90's computer.

The alarm triggers the Doughnut Sheriff, Miss Simian, and Principal Brown to go look around the school. Gumball and Darwin avoid them, and go to the Lab to search for the hamster. There Chris Morris releases gas and a broken light bulb and causes an explosion. Gumball and Darwin run away from the explosion, and jump down too early resulting in them getting burned. Gumball gets enraged and moves quickly to catch the hamster. He moves so fast that he ends up flying through the hallway, and goes straight through the Doughnut Sheriff's mouth (while he was yawning).

Gumball and Chris Morris end up in the Principal's office. Gumball catches the hamster, but it bites him resulting him to scream so loud. His scream alarms Miss Simian, Principal Brown and the Doughnut Sheriff, and they go to Principal Brown's office to check out the scream. While they are searching for the source of the sound, Gumball and Darwin discuss that there is no way out, and they will be imprisoned. The hamster suddenly saves them by "telling" them to hide with him in the closet. After Principal Brown, Miss Simian and the Doughnut Sheriff see the office empty, Miss Simian demands romance time again and they all leave. Gumball asks why Chris Morris helped them, and the hamster tells them that he knows how it feels to be in a cage and doesn't want the same thing to happen to them. Gumball didn't understand this though, so Darwin (understanding it) tells him. Gumball makes a decoy in the hamster cage (another lump of hair from Principal Brown).

Gumball and Darwin take Chris Morris to the wild for him to see the sunlight. In the grass, Chris Morris dies, but then suddenly becomes alive again (insisting on dying another day). Gumball and Darwin dramatically watch him go to the wild, but since Chris Morris was too slow in leaving, they just leave and go home.

Main Characters

 * Gumball
 * Darwin
 * Chris Morris

Minor Characters

 * Miss Simian
 * Principal Brown
 * Penny
 * Cowboy
 * Pantsbully
 * Gary
 * Felicity
 * Billy
 * Pigeons (cameo)
 * Eggheads
 * Leslie
 * Richard
 * Evil Turtle
 * Rocky (mentioned)
 * Doughnut Sheriff
 * Cyclops Dog

Trivia

 * Chris Morris resembles Barney, Hector's pet hamster from "The Colossus."

Continuity

 * Gumball's Elmore Plus post from "The Procrastinators" can be seen on the computer screen when Darwin is mocking Penny.
 * Gumball again demonstrates his lack of catching ability. This was first mentioned in "The Quest."
 * This is the fifth time that Gumball shows characteristics of a real cat.
 * The Daisy the Donkey on Ice flyer from "The Car" can be seen in Gumball's room.
 * Darwin mentions Chris Morris not being "one of his dads", implying that he was a part of previous families before the Wattersons. This may explain the long name he introduced in "The Party."
 * A Window on the Soul by Mic Graves makes a third appearance, this time revealed as a series of books, as shown in the scene with Gumball, Darwin and Chris Morris hiding. The first appearance of one of the books was in "The Flower" and another in "The Photo."

Cultural References

 * The time fast-forwarding scene to Gumball waking up is a reference to the hit AMC series, Breaking Bad.
 * The hairdo Gumball uses for his date with Penny resembles Leon S. Kennedy's from the "Resident Evil" franchise.
 * One of his previous hairstyles resembled Marge Simpson's.
 * Another one of his hairstyles he considered using resembles Rayman's hairtstyle from the hit video game series of the same name.
 * Gumball tries the "Flock of Seagulls" haircut, attributed to the 80s band of the same name.
 * The flute tune that was playing throughout the episode is a remixed version of "The Lonely Shepard" from Quentin Tarantino's film Kill Bill.
 * The name Chris Morris could be a parody of the name Chuck Norris.

Goofs/Errors

 * The clock in Principal Brown's office skips ahead 4 minutes after Gumball says "I shouldn't take care of this!"
 * The digital clock on Darwin's desktop disappears after Gumball's date with Penny.
 * Clearly, there isn't an upper hatch on Chris Morris's cage when Gumball and Darwin take the fur ball out of the cage.
 * In the infiltration, Gumball and Darwin suddenly switch to the classroom window after looking in Chris Morris's point of view.
 * The fire alarm changes from a "pull down to trigger" to a "break glass to trigger" after switching scenes.
 * Elmore Junior High is completely abandoned on the weekend, despite being shown to host numerous weekend events unrelated to school in "The Club."