The Painting

The Painting is the tenth episode of The Amazing World of Gumball.

Synopsis
Principal Brown believes that the Wattersons are a dysfunctional family and orders them all to change.

Plot
Anais's family is sent to the Principal's office due to Principal Brown's concern for the Wattersons. A painting by Anais showed that Nicole is too busy, Richard is too lazy, and Gumball and Darwin are too undisciplined. To fix this, Nicole stays home and tries to relax, while Richard goes to work, and Gumball and Darwin have to have Mr. Small teach them how to use their energy in a more constructive way. Anais tries two separate times to tell them her opinion, but is shushed by the adults both times.

Mr. Small introduces a five-step plan to fix Gumball and Darwin. Step One, called "primal scream" by Mr. Small, is for the boys to yell in order to release their anger. Gumball says he doesn't have any anger, but Mr. Small says everyone does and that he just needs to look inside himself. Gumball decides to open his mouth and let Darwin "look inside" for the rage. Gumball then tries screaming twice, only being able to produce a small squeak each time. Then Darwin tries. His scream comes out as a huge bubble, taking up a large portion of the room. Mr. Small pops this bubble, and the picture suddenly transitions to a black and white house violently exploding. When we get back to Gumball, Darwin, and Mr. Small, there's a ringing sound, indicating that they have gone deaf for a while.

The scene cuts to Nicole, who is taking Richard's place at home. She finds it hard to relax and do nothing.

The scene then switches to Richard, who is having a daydream about being promoted and receiving the key to the executive washroom. However, when he wakes up and tries to get through the automatic door to the building, he fails and runs into it.

Back at school, Mr. Small starts step two, which has to do with them using their destructive energy into something creative. He shows the boys a portrait of someone who resembles Mr. Robinson and asks them if this is what they consider a painting. After Gumball and Darwin agree that it's a painting, Mr. Small snaps and throws the portrait on the floor and proceeds to smash it to pieces with a baseball bat while repeatedly screaming "THIS IS NOT PAINTING!". He then drops a lit match onto the smashed pieces, saying "Burn you relic of convention!" and quickly stomps out the resulting fire. After this, he holds up a bucket of paint and asks them who wants to go first. Gumball enthusiastically says he wants to, and Mr. Small throws paint all over him, encouraging him to be the brush. Gumball opens his eyes, which begin to burn from the paint. He runs in a frenzy and smashes into walls, splashing them with the paint, before collapsing in agony. Mr. Small takes no notice to the pain it causes, and does the same thing to Darwin after Gumball collapses, resulting in the same effect.

At home, we see the house is spotless. Nicole washed the entire house (including the car) thoroughly, and still has five hours before anyone would be home. She decides to create her own messes for the sake of cleaning them up.

Back to Richard, he tries running through the door again, but fails yet again. He notices that the door keeps closing every time he gets near it. He starts walking behind an employee and finally gets into the building.

Mr. Small begins step three: interpretive dance, by explaining that it involves expressing emotion through body moves. Gumball tells him that it sounds silly, Mr. Small is offended and demonstrates an interpretive dance about Anais's plight. Gumball still thought it was silly, but Darwin thought it was beautiful. Mr. Small then asks Gumball to try it. He does it so amateurishly, yet Darwin is amazed by it. Then Mr. Small tells him to be a "hungry crab", Gumball begins to motion like a crab, then he yells at him to be "HUNGRIER!". He then tells him to be "the color orange". Gumball does a move, and Mr. Small yells at him for being the colour yellow. Gumball then does another move, nearly identical to the first move, and this turns out to be the correct pose.

Back at the office building, Richard struggles to the floor where he is to go to apply for a job. He introduces himself to the secretary, while half of his body is still stuck in the elevator doors. However, upon signing the company contract, he immediately receives a pink slip indicating he is fired, being seven hours and fifty-nine minutes late. He is slung back into the elevator just as the doors are closing, his mouth gets caught in the doors somehow and he thanks the secretary for her "kindness" while the elevator descends with his mouth still caught in the doors, painfully stretching them.

Back at school, Mr. Small begins step four: the conquering of inhibitions, "the greatest enemy to a warrior's happiness". Gumball is told to destroy the negative feeling in the form of a wooden board, but he is unable to damage it at all. Darwin runs up to them with a baseball bat to completely obliterate the board, but not before Mr. Small drops it out of fear and hides in a nearby closet. With this done, the teacher dubs them black belts in "Small-kwon-do" and dismisses them with a saying: When the monkey is looking at the mountain, he's looking for bananas. Gumball soon realizes that they never got to learn step five, but Mr. Small tells them both that the fifth step was "within them all along", and that they should just be themselves. Gumball is disappointed, and replies with a gruff "Weak" while Mr. Small looks at them blankly.

The family finally meets together back home. Nicole feels "relaxed" breaking whatever she could find and cleaning it up. Richard is crying that he never wants to work again, as he rips his shirt off and falls asleep on the couch. As Gumball and Darwin return home and tell them all about their day of dancing, painting, and smashing stuff, the last part interests their mother.

When Anais and Principal Brown come home, they find that the family is just as chaotic as ever. Richard is still being lazy, the kids are still causing trouble, and Nicole is even joining in. Brown is upset that nothing had changed, and after a short argument, Anais finally speaks up. She shows them her painting again, but also points out the writing below: " I ♥ my family ", stating that despite their flaws, she loves them all the same. She then joins in smashing things while Principal Brown leaves, sad that he failed in fixing their family, but at least happy that they are closer together. He reminds the kids that they would have to return to their regular classes tomorrow, but not before getting covered in paint by Darwin, who tells him to "be the brush!". After a few seconds, his eyes get red and he states the last line of the episode, "it burns".

Transcript
The transcript from this episode can be viewed here.

Quotes
Gumball and Darwin: [pop out behind him and mimic him] Principal Brown: I see a family that... [turns around] Gumball and Darwin: [hide just in time to avoid Principal Brown] Principal Brown: [continuing] ...a family that has problems. Anais: Principal Brown, if I may interrupt- Principal Brown: [interrupting] Oh, don't worry, sweetie. [pats Anais on her forehead] It's not your fault. IT'S YOUR FAULT! [accusingly points to Richard as he's sleeping] Richard: [Talking in his sleep, not reacting to Principal Brown] ...I'm sorry Princess Cheesecake, the Sausage Fairy made me do it... [snore]
 * Principal Brown: When I look at this painting...

Gumball: [does incorrect pose] Mr. Small: [drill sergeant voice] THAT'S YELLOW, I SAID ORANGE. Gumball: [does correct pose] Mr. Small: [calm again] That's it.
 * Mr. Small: [calm] Now, be the color orange!

Characters

 * Gumball
 * Darwin
 * Richard
 * Nicole
 * Principal Brown
 * Anais
 * Mr. Small

Minor Characters

 * Newspaper Employee
 * 3D cube employee
 * Charlie

Trivia/Goofs
2. Anais tries to say that she doesn't want her family to change, but she gets interupted.
 * The office building Richard tried to get a job in looks a lot like the cosmetics building Gumball and Darwin went to in "The DVD".
 * At the beginning of the episode, when Nicole is twitching nervously, her whiskers disappear, but when she tells Gumball and Darwin to calm down, they reappear.
 * When Nicole checks her watch to see when the others come home, she isn't wearing one.
 * It is impossible to not see the big letters on Anias' painting unless Principal Brown's glasses were dirty or he gave the painting a quick look without really looking at it. (Although Anais expression on the paper could imply she was being sarcastic, which is what Brown probably thought.)
 * When Gumball asks Darwin to look in his mouth, when he stretches it, his eyes are gray instead of the usual black, leading to suggest that his eye color is actually gray. His eye are gray several times in the episode also.
 * Intrestingly enough, the strokes on the line are light and have a certain scheme to them. Resembles markers and pencils, not really paint, because it would probably cover over the pencil and bleed through the paper.
 * Gumball breaks the fourth wall when after Mr. Small explains step 5, he (Gumball) says, "Weak."
 * Running gags: 1. Someone complaining 'it burns' when he/she gets splatted in the face with paint.