The Candidate

"The Candidate" is the tenth episode of Season 6 of The Amazing World of Gumball. It is the 206th episode overall.

Synopsis
A group of kids get locked in the school after their parents have a charity gala. They appoint Gumball as leader to get them out but it leads to chaos.

Plot
The episode begins with a group of kids attacking one another in an apocalyptic corridor at school. The scene pauses and Gumball appears. He begins to explain how this chaotic scene came about, and the scene changes to the Wattersons driving to school to attend a charity gala the previous evening. The kids are annoyed because not only are they returning to school after the end of the day, they will spend the charity gala locked in a room, watching low-quality TV shows while their parents party wildly. Nicole asserts that it will be a formal meeting. The scene changes to the aftermath of the gala— the room is dark and all the parents are lying unconscious while a song plays on loop.

Next, a group of kids are shown sitting in the art classroom watching a cartoon featuring poorly-drawn versions of Santa and some donkeys on a sled while a parody of the song "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" plays. The kids seem very bored, but Gumball acknowledges that it is at least a distraction. Unfortunately, the signal runs out, causing the television to turn itself off with the remote. With no distractions left, Gumball tries anything he can to open the door. Darwin, however, is more worried by the increasing temperature— all the kids are sweating and when Gumball walks he burns the floor beneath his feet. The cause of the rising heat is shown to be Nicole. She is asleep and inadvertently presses the thermostat up repeatedly with a noisemaker while snoring.

Gumball decides to eat some of the cookies left for them, but Tobias snatches it from him and eats 90% of it due to his parents funding half of the gala. Anais says that they should work together due to the fact that none of them know how long they could be stuck in this room for. Idaho and Clare dismiss her, Banana Joe and Sarah join the argument, and the seven squabble until Darwin stops them, telling them to focus on the heat problem. At this moment, Felix boils, cracks, and collapses. Bobert tells them they have three hours until the room sets on fire. Anais reminds them all about the food, and asks them what they should do about it, to which Gumball suggests they fight, and thus they do. They are interrupted by Anais who suggests that they instead elect a leader. The kids agree, and the scene changes to Anais and Tobias running against one another. Both are rejected angrily by their fellow students, who then proceed to argue. Darwin overheats to the point of hallucinating, and he is starting to ripple with heat, but still nobody cares about the heat problem.

Eventually, Gumball runs for leader, and the kids (except for Anais, Darwin and Tobias) root for him delightedly. Darwin wants to know what Gumball will do about the temperature problem, but Gumball claims there is no temperature problem, despite his head setting on fire and activating the sprinklers. Darwin tries to drink the pool of water, but the heat evaporates both it and the tears of disappointment he sheds when it disappears. Anais tries to convince the students to vote for her, but they ignore her and elect Gumball instead. Darwin, though disapproving of Gumball's misbehaviour, does not believe he can do much harm on his own.

The scene changes to the group of kids kicking down the door and attacking one another, and the scene from the beginning of the episode repeats. Gumball pauses the scene once again, and claims to the viewer that although he will be blamed, it was technically the other kids' fault since they elected him in the first place. It is then shown that he did not actually pause anything when Anais asks him what he is doing. He claims he is dictating his memoirs, but Anais tells him that now is not the time and that he should reunite his people. He tells them they should fight a common enemy, not one another, and that that person is Anais. They ignore this and put him in the stocks to pelt him with rotten fruit. They then have to escape school because the heat is causing it to set on fire and crumble. They get past their various obstacles using everyone's skills, and then reach the boiler, which appears to be overheating. Most of them run past it, but Darwin stops and suggests they do something about it. Gumball tells him that it is boiling because it is a boiler, and they run on, reaching the front doors and escaping the crumbling building in the nick of time.

Gumball tries to take credit for the situation, claiming that if he had not embezzled all the food, lied to everyone, fueled their differences until they hated each other, and then seized power, they wouldn't be as good friends as they are now. This angers the rest of the group, provoking Tobias into throwing Idaho at him. Anais tells them that since they could all work together then, there is hope for the future, and that they can leave the school a better place than it was when they found it. She is interrupted in this motivational speech by the school exploding due to the boiler, and Darwin scolds his siblings for not attending to the issue sooner.

Main Characters

 * Gumball
 * Anais

Supporting Characters

 * Darwin
 * Clare
 * Idaho
 * Sarah
 * Bobert
 * Banana Joe
 * Hot Dog Guy
 * Alan
 * Carmen
 * Tobias
 * Leslie
 * Colin and Felix

Minor Characters

 * Nicole
 * Richard
 * Mrs. Jötunheim
 * Carmen's father
 * Carmen's mother
 * Harold
 * Jackie
 * Mr. Corneille
 * Principal Brown
 * Mr. Small
 * Patrick
 * Mrs. Fitzgerald
 * Donkeys
 * Santa Claus
 * Doctor
 * Television
 * Felicity
 * Banana Barbara
 * Banana Bob

Trivia

 * Running Gag: Idaho is thrown into the air whenever Anais tells everybody to stop, and starts spinning in midair.
 * The fourth wall is broken twice.
 * In the first scene, Gumball knows he is introducing the prologue to the viewers.
 * Anais interrupts Gumball's focus to the viewers with an inquiry on who he is talking to.

Continuity

 * A shorted and looped version of "Dad Rock" from "The Father" plays at the Children's Future Ball.
 * Gumball's middle name is mentioned for the first time since "The Club."
 * This is the second episode that Gumball mentions Chatsnap. The first episode was "The Vegging."

Cultural References

 * 32 Donkeys Playing on A Sled is a reference to poorly-animated "ElsaGate" kids videos on YouTube, particularly those that use the "5 Little Monkeys" song.
 * Banana Joe uses the term "Sheeple," a term generally used when talking about government conspiracies and the people of a nation or system being extremely gullible and manipulable.
 * The domain of the website Banana Joe visits (www.neckbeardfrogalternativetruth.ru) is the combination of all the things related to the alt-right and the alt-lite.
 * "Neckbeard" is a term used to refer to people (usually said to be overweight) with strong political views within right-wing forums. The term is associated with the growth of facial hair on one's neck.
 * The "frog" in the domain name is a reference to the famous internet meme and Boy's Club character Pepe the Frog, which became commonly used by the alt-right in 2016 as a mascot, and was labeled as a hate symbol by Hillary Clinton's campaign.
 * Alternative Truth is based on the phrase "Alternative Facts" by Kellyanne Conway, member of the Trump administration.
 * Banana Joe mentions that this website helps to prevent him from listening to the "lamestream media"; as in the mainstream media, which includes news outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC. A common belief within both the alt-lite and the alt-right is that traditional media outlets are politically biased and try to control the public's opinion.
 * Sarah later mentioned that men never find true love and ends up being married to an anime body pillow. The anime body pillow is a direct allusion to Dakimakura, a large pillow that portrays a life-size image of an anime character.
 * Chatsnap, as mentioned by Gumball and Clare, is an obvious reference to the Snapchat app.
 * When Bobert says "...this room will be lit", Gumball responds with positivity, given his initial thought of the slang definition of "lit," meaning exciting and turned up.

Goofs/Errors

 * The Fitzgerald parents, Mrs. Jötunheim, and Felicity are seen at the party, but Penny, Hector, and Billy are not included in this episode.
 * Darwin states that he has no reception on his phone. A couple of minutes later, Banana Joe holds his phone and there is a website opened where he gets all of his sources.