The Trouble with Triples

The Trouble with Triples
	Season 3, Episode 6
Air date	November 4, 2012
Written by	Adam Modiano
	Episode guide
Previous; Special Needs	Next; Nightshift

The Trouble with Triples is the sixth episode of Season Three. It is the twenty-seventh episode of Superjail overall.

Synopsis[]

The Warden's new plans for Superjail are interrupted by visitors for The Twins.

Plot (overview)[]

The episode begins inside of an arcade where Jacknife steals quarters from the arcade machines to hide them into a bag and kick away any nearby children. While Jacknife walks off with his bag full of quarters, two little girls use a crane machine to try and grab any stuffed animals but fail until Jailbot’s arm comes out and grabs Jacknife’s head, making him scream. Jailbot electrocutes Jacknife on an arcade machine and a cup of soda falls down to electrocute the both of them into the machine. Jacknife finds himself in an arcade game with Jailbot and goes through a few other arcade games to escape from him before he is stumped by Jailbot and comes out of an arcade machine to be grabbed by Jailbot’s arm in the crane machine. Jailbot transforms into himself and releases a bunch of stuffed animals from the machine, making the little girls to be very happy about the stuffed animals. Jailbot, after releasing and giving the stuffed animals to the little girls, flies out of the arcade with Jacknife and takes him over to Superjail, beginning the intro.

In Superjail, the inmates are grabbed out of their cells to be placed in cages, released out, and stripped naked for The Warden’s brand new Superjail body scanner for all of the inmates to be scanned to detect any kind of contraband. When Jailbot finds an alcoholic bottle inside the body of an inmate, through an X-Ray, he grabs it out and The Warden jokes about this until the body scanner stops. The Warden asks on why the line of his body scanner has stopped. Jared points out that an inmate named Jimbo is too distracted by playing on a video game handheld. The Warden knows that he is spoiling it for the inmates so he’ll can have his own playtime and orders the gaming handheld to thrown right into Superjail’s furnace room. When Jimbo’s video game handheld is taken away, Jimbo gets angry and fights until he successfully gets back his handheld to play. The Warden is told by Jared that the video game quiets all of the anger in Jimbo’s temperament and decides to make Superjail into a gaming experience for all of the inmates.

Meanwhile, The Twins appear in line for the Superjail body scanner and have to hide their contraband, which is actually a cheese grater. They hide it inside Fatty’s own body and rectum, which is taken out by Jailbot, while The Twins teleport over to their control room. They agreed with it being an fantastic journey and sip on an alien drink together. However, their immediately interrupted by their older brothers, The Triplets, making The Twins very nervous. The Triplets inform the two about them returning from another successful penetration of an alien planet called Cerebrosphere in a brand-new vessel that their father bought them. The Twins are told by them that they find themselves near the lesser world of Superjail on Earth while claiming that The Twins are amble in such a lame fashion. The Twins claimed that they’re not lame at all and have conquered the whole sector of Superjail in the name of their father while people say that they’re actually cool, and are known by the name as "Bad-a Mo-f-ers." The Triplets know that they’re spare no effort of any kind and shall arrive in Superjail in over three lunar oscillations, making The Twins become worried about their older brothers heading over to Superjail.

The Warden creates a Virtual Reality video game system called Cyberjail 64 where VR goggles are used to acquired to simulate a video game-like world to calm and quiet all of the anger and violence in any of the inmates. All of the staff and inmates try on these goggles. Meanwhile, The Twins transform the entirely of Superjail into a landscape of an alien planet full of various alien creatures. After Superjail is transformed, The Warden turns on all of the machines of the Cyberjail 64 system for the inmates, but the machine causes accidents for them. Nicky and a few of the inmates lost interest into the project. The Warden sees Nicky go over to the door to exit. When he opens the door and goes out, he sees that the landscape of Superjail becoming an alien planet. The Warden introduces everyone from Superjail to Cyberjail, letting all of the inmates to run wild and use their own imaginations around Cyberjail.

The Twins teleport into Cyberjail’s alien world. Twin 1 tells Twin 2 to straighten his headpiece as The Triplets arrive over to Cyberjail and reunite with them, but The Triplets abuse and beat up The Twins. After being beaten up and splashed with green liquid, The Triplets laugh at them. The Twins know that they’ve been schooled by them. The Triplets tell them to not just sit there in the liquid and escort them through their home planet. Meanwhile, the staff and inmates encounter the first ever make-believe enemies to face off, which are killer alien drone robots, who serve as guards for The Triplets ship, that kill the inmates. The inmates also find out about the pain of virtual violence being actually real for them. As Jared asks about this, Warden knows the little bit of virtual violence wouldn’t actually hurt anyone. The Twins and Triplets ride on a dragon alien through the alien planet. As The Triplets are impress by their work on their home planet, The Twins continue to be nervous and tell them that the planet is the one thing that they can’t have all at. Their brothers know that this is actually a challenge to rebuke the elder brood wars and request the presence of their father, Ozzal. The Twins are nervous about their father being present for this. As the inmates continue to work together and not kill any of each together, Alice knowledges this to Jared before The Warden shows up and tells them that they’re almost near the final arena of Cyberjail.

The Twins and The Triplets arrive in the large alien battle arena, using the dragon alien, which flies away. While The Tripets are excited about Ozzal arriving, The Twins continue their worries. Ozzal’s ship arrives with Ozzal coming out and landing near his sons, The Twins and The Triplets respectively. The latter of which are in the mood to greet their father. Ozzal asks his favorite hatchlings, The Triplets, about if their new conquest vessel has pleased them or not. The three Triplets are pleased by this. Ozzal asks The Twins, who don’t answer absolutely anything. The Triplets reveal their prized conquests, the Arthropiaks, an alien species. Ozzal announces that the opposing brood will now produce any of its warriors. The Twins are worried about not having any subjects to fight the Arthropiaks. Suddenly, the Superjail staff and the inmates arrive into the battle arena, which is actually the final stage for them. The inmates and staff of Superjail fight all of the Arthropiaks in a final battle, with their confusion being a solution for The Twins.

During the battle, The Triplets uphoad their family motto by cheating, which makes the Arthropiaks bigger and stronger. The Twins do the exact same cheating trick and summon sprites of 8-bit characters from the gaming handheld of an injured Jimbo. Jared states that this takes him back and stands on top of a large yellow gorilla smashing hammers at the aliens. As the battle continues, Ozzal remarks that he can’t remember the last time he and his sons have ever cheated together. The Warden sees most of the inmates being eaten alive by the Arthropiaks, along with all of the 8-bit sprites running around in the battle arena. He eventually sees Ozzal and mistakes him for a video game boss, which he yells at. The Warden is immediately confronted by a giant worm-like Arthropiak alien and goes onto the creature to reach a flying alien creature so he can be carried by it before landing near the area of Ozzal and stabs him in the belly with a pointy spike. The inmates and aliens see Ozzal’s defeat, with the latter being kicked off by The Warden to fall down to the ground, in front of several inmates. Jared tells everyone that whoever can get a high-score will be off work duty for only a week. Everyone continues to fight in the battle to fight more of the Arthropiaks before it ends. The Warden soon drops off to the ground using an umbrella before the inmates carry him out for a celebration.

The Twins teleport to the injured Ozzal and ask if he does taste angry. The Triplets teleport to them and tell that their victory is invalid due to Ozzal being injured from The Warden. Ozzal wakes up and tells his sons that he hasn’t had so much fun since over ten thousand metacycles and honors The Twins in their own merriment, confusing The Triplets, including their younger brothers as well. Ozzal tells The Twins that they have won their domain and crowns them as overloads of his own home world. All of Ozzal’s sons are confused by this and one of The Triplets tells that they’re supposed to be their own hatchlings, but Ozzal tells them that they’re too timid to bisect their own patriarch before telling The Twins to come to him as an eternity of administrative servitude awaits for the both of them. The Twins are confused as they its work. Suddenly, The Twins and soon Ozzal leave through an alien beam of the ship, leaving The Triplets behind in the alien arena.

The inmates of Superjail are cheering from the Cyberjail VR while Alice tells The Warden that his ideas are usually dumb but this one actually turned out to be kinda cool for her. The Warden agrees that once in a rare while that everyone wins and he sneaks towards Alice before getting hit by her. Outside of Superjail, The Twins watch from a window inside Ozzal’s ship, seeing the island of Superjail. They let the sadness command and change the alien planet landscape back into Superjail. The Triplets, while being left behind, watch the alien objects transform back into regular objects and Rats. They stake their domain on Superjail and compound their own shame on The Twins by glowing red all over Superjail and Planet Earth. Meanwhile, inside Ozzal’s ship, The Twins are being studied and experimented on being overloads. Ozzal tells them that overloading requires discipline for them. The Twins end up not liking the study experiment, finding it to be very lame and not fun while wanting it to stop and end now.

Characters[]

The Warden
Jared
Alice
Jailbot
Jacknife
Superjail Inmates
The Twins
The Triplets
Ozzal
Ash
Nicky
Jean
Paul
Gary
Bird
Fatty
Turban
Guns (cameo)
Jimbo
Alien Creatures
Drone Aliens
The Arthropiaks
8-bit Sprites
Rats
The Warden’s Winged Centaur (cameo)

Trivia[]

The title of this episode is very infamous for having at least three alternative titles on Adult Swim episode listings. The intended title for this episode is "The Trouble with Triples", but it has two other alternative titles, "Troubles with Triples'' and "Troubles with Triplets." The former title has been used for Adult Swim’s official episode listings (including the latter title sometimes), iTunes, Adult Swim’s website, and on DVD (along with the original intended title). The website IMDB even uses the intended episode title.
- The word "Triplets" (which refers to The Triplets) is only said on one of these titles while the word "Triples" is used instead on both the intended episode title and the alternate one.
This episode currently marks the last appearance of The Twin's Control Room.
The recurring Bored Inmates from "Combaticus" were the very first inmates that were grabbed for The Warden’s body scanner.
The monitor screens from "Best Friends Forever" can be seen behind The Warden in the background at one point.
Oddly, the inmates, including Jimbo, were naked when in line for The Warden’s body scanner. However, when Jimbo is shown on playing a video game console in front of a few other inmates, they’re dressed in their standard inmate outfits.
On The Twin’s large monitor screen, you can see the alien language from "Bunny Love" on it.
The vocal tone of Twin 2 has the same voice as Twin 1 when he talks to The Triplets after the latter appear on their monitor screen. A similar thing happened at one point in "Dream Machine."
The Warden’s rail car from "Ladies Night" is shown being transformed into an alien creature by one of The Twins.
The ship that Ozzal comes out of is actually the same ship from "Hot Chick."
Paul and Jean’s Rainbow-Python attack against the Arthropiak aliens is a reference to the Season 2 episode "Gay Wedding" where Paul and Jean were previously the leaders of the gangs, the Double Rainbows and Purple Pythons respectively.
Guns, one of the Special Needs Inmates from "Sticky Discharge" and "Special Needs", makes a cameo in this episode. He is shown among the inmates that fight the Arthropiak aliens in the alien arena.
After The Twins and Ozzal leave through an alien beam of the alien ship, Jacknife can be seen swimming up the beam, making him escape.
According to one of the series’ co-creators, Christy Karacas, the ending of this episode where The Twins are experimented on Ozzal to be overloads was never meant to be continued at all, most likely due to the show’s continuity.
This episode doesn’t use the standard credits theme as it instead uses a much different ending theme.

Cultural References[]

This episode has various video game references.
- A kid at the beginning of the episode can be seen playing Asteroids on an arcade machine.
- The arcade games that Jailbot and Jacknife travel through are Pac-Man, Snake and Q*bert respectively. A Pac-Man power pellet sound effect is even heard when Alice takes a bite of a mushroom.
- The video game handheld that Jimbo plays on is similar to an Nintendo Gameboy. A Gameboy can even be seen inside Jailbot on an X-Ray.
- The Warden is shown transforming into an 8-bit alien sprite resembling one of the Invader aliens from Space Invaders.
- Cyberjail 64 is presumably a reference to the Nintendo 64.
- During the alien arena battle, Gary is shown throwing a ball with the number 13 on it that opens up for Bird to come out and peck the head of an Arthropiak. This is most likely a reference to Pokéballs from the Pokémon series.
- Alice is shown defeating an enemy and earning a mushroom to take a bite out of it and jump around on the Arthropiak enemies. She even uses the body of one of the aliens to kick it and make it hit more aliens. This is a reference to Super Mario Bros on the NES. The Warden is even shown transforming into an 8-bit sprite of himself, jumping in a similar manner to Mario's sprite from that game.
- Some of the 8-bit sprites resemble sprites from games such as Berzerk and Galaga. The bike that Guns rides on could even be a reference to Excitebike.
- The giant, yellow gorilla with hammers that Jared rides on while smashing aliens is a reference to Donkey Kong.
- Alice blasts the Arthropiak aliens with a weapon that resembles the SNES Super Scope.
The intended title for this episode is a reference to the StarTrek episode, "The Trouble with Tribbles."
After teleporting into their Control Room from Fatty’s rectum, one of The Twins mentions "Fantastic Journey." This is most likely a reference to the 1996 Science Fiction movie, Fantastic Voyage.
One of the Outer Worlds features Regan from the horror movie, The Exorcist, vomiting.
The alien creatures that are killed by The Triplets resemble some of the mutant aliens from the film, Gandahar. The Triplets drone aliens are even similar to the Machine Men from the same film, with a similar color scheme and robotic-like behavior from them.
The false alien planet-like world illusion used in this episode is similar to the movie Fantastic Planet and the art of Moebius. The episode’s ending theme is even a rearrangement of a background track from Fantastic Planet, titled Deshominisation.
The Ohm, an alien creature from the manga, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, can be seen on the alien planet landscape for a few times. Before the alien planet disappears and turns back into Superjail, the creature itself can be shown moving in the background.