Opposites Attack

Opposites Attack is the 77th episode of the series and the 23rd episode of the third season. It aired on Teletoon in Canada on April 6, 2008, and remains unaired in the United States.

Jonesy gets a job as a customer service representative at a travel agency and finds out that he has a lot in common with his co-worker Joanie. Nikki notices this and starts to fear that Jonesy might leave her for Joanie. Meanwhile, Jude gets a job at the Penalty Box and gets Coach Halder to chill out a little; however, Jen isn't sure that this is such a good thing.

Main Plot
Jonesy is in a good mood, as he's just gotten a new job–and the perks are amazing. His workplace has high-speed internet, a giant LCD screen for his computer, and no boss hanging around, which means he won't have to do any work. The situation only gets better when he arrives at work and finds that his co-worker, Joanie, is much like him in personality and will also be using the job as an opportunity to goof off.

After saying goodbye to her boyfriend, Nikki heads off to work with her friends. On the way there, they act surprised that Nikki isn't jealous of Joanie. Meanwhile, Jonesy goes on his second break of the day and heads over to Burger McFlipster's, where he and Joanie get spicy chicken fingers. While there, Wyatt moons over Joanie until they leave, but Joanie gives Wyatt a parting gift: a spitball right into his eye.

Later, though, Jonesy starts to make Nikki jealous, as all he can talk about is how cool Joanie is. Wyatt isn't helping either, as he is focused on how hot Joanie is. To make matters worse, Joanie comes to the table to remind Jonesy to come back to work and passes along a little tidbit of information: being three minutes late from a break isn't enough that anyone would punish them, but adds up to a day of paid vacation every year. Jonesy then heads back to work, and forgets to kiss Nikki goodbye.

At work, Joanie sets up a donation box for them to purchase food with. When Jonesy questions the ethicality of such a box, Joanie easily rationalizes it, and Jonesy remarks that he's impressed. They then use the money to buy curly fries from Wonder Taco, and while there Jonesy bets his coworker that he can eat the fries in less than five seconds. Joanie eagerly accepts the bet, and soon begins stuffing Jonesy's face with fries. Caitlin and Wyatt witness this while walking through the mall, and realize that they have to get Jen and tell Nikki about it.

When Nikki is informed, she is completely nonplussed, even when Caitlin shows her a video intended to prove that food is an aphrodisiac for guys. She then goes on a break and walks through the mall with Caitlin, making Caitlin promise not to talk about Jonesy and Joanie. All seems well until she spots Jonesy and Joanie wrestling with each other at work.

Although Nikki leaves before they notice her, there is a rational explanation: Jonesy and Joanie are just roughhousing. Furthermore, Joanie is not interested in Jonesy romantically, as is illustrated when Joanie gets Jonesy to let go of her so that she can pick up a cute guy that walks by. However, they have gotten close enough that Jonesy considers Joanie a pal and brings her along to the movies on what Nikki believed would be a date. To make matters worse for Nikki, Jonesy and Joanie spend the entire movie palling around, totally ignoring her and not even noticing when she leaves in the middle of the movie because she can't take it any more.

Nikki talks to her friends about her problem, and they agree that something is going on between Jonesy and Joanie. After Nikki leaves, Jonesy shows up, and gets the information from his friends, who all believe that he's going to break up with Nikki. Jonesy is depressed by their reaction, and when he goes back to work, he doesn't even react when Joanie pulls a prank on him. When she asks him what's wrong, Jonesy spills his guts, and Joanie reacts the same way he does–with disbelief that anyone would think they'd date. She then offers him advice: show Nikki how much he cares, and she'll come back to him.

Jonesy realizes that he could get Nikki tickets to a new museum exhibition, and actually uses his workstation to work in order to do so. He then takes the tickets to Nikki, who is shocked by him remembering that she'd wanted to go. Nikki then points out that Jonesy is a lot more like Joanie than like her, to which Jonesy responds that he'd rather not date himself. This convinces Nikki that Jonesy really does love only her, and they kiss.

Sub-Plot: Penalty Box Jude
Coach Halder needs somebody to do inventory, and he believes that Jen is just right for the job. However, when Jen learns from Jude that Jude loves to count things, she decides that Jude would have more fun doing inventory, and sets Jude up with a job interview that he aces. Soon, Jude is at work doing inventory, but along the way moves boxes out of the storeroom to count them and sets them up in the form of a skateboard ramp. This leads skaters to come in and try out the ramp, agitating Coach Halder–until one of them buys a skateboard from the store. This convinces Coach Halder that Jude has untapped selling potential, and he lets Jude remake the store in his image.

Soon, Jude has put whalesong on the speakers, done promotions with free energy drinks, and convinced Coach Halder to embrace the art of the soft sell and to become tranquil and calm. Unfortunately, these changes have had the combined effect of sinking the store's sales through the floor. When Jen sees this, she decides that Jude's changes have to be undone, so she engages in little acts guranteed to irritate Coach Halder. However, Jude's training has sunk in too well, as Coach Halder is able to remain calm no matter what she does–until an errant movement by Jen creates a domino effect that sends a wave of chaos crashing through the store. This finally causes Coach Halder to blow his top, and he fires Jude, reverses all of Jude's changes, and puts Jen on probation for letting him hire Jude.

Quotes
Jonesy: A, my desk has a giant LCD screen, and C, they have high speed internet! Wyatt: Which means B, you don't actually have to do any real work. Jonesy: You are a true ar-tist! Nikki: (angrily) Yeah. She's a real giver! Wyatt: I've become this babbling idiot whenever Joanie's around. Jonesy: No. You think? Wyatt: She's just so smoking hot! Nikki: AHEM! Joanie: (belching louder) Jonesmiester. Jonesy: Jonesmiester! Caitlin: Ahem, guess! Jonesy: Is break time over? Joanie: Don't worry! As long as we're only three minutes late per break, no one can say anything, but it adds to a whole day of paid vacation every year! Jonesy: Oh, man, that is genius! Huh, Nikki? Jonesy: Oh yeah! (He returns to get his drink.) Bye, everybody. Caitlin: Ahem, we saw Courtney! Nikki: "Ugh!" (She storms off.) Caitlin: I tried. Jonesy: You're my hero! Wyatt: Maybe Jonesy's just really hungry? (Caitlin gives him a disgusted look.) I tried. Jonesy: Make that two! Nikki: Excuse me? Jonesy: Right, sorry. Make that three! Don't want to leave out Joanie! Nikki: Perish the thought. Caitlin: I can't believe Jonesy would do that! No more lemonade for him! Jen: Guys can be such jerks sometimes! Wyatt: Joanie's soooo hot! (The girls give him disgusted looks.) I just realized I'm the only guy at this table. Jen: I. Give. Up.
 * Jen: I've never seen you this excited about work before, Jonesy!
 * Joanie: (blowing a spitball into Wyatt's eye) Yes! I totally nailed that one!
 * Jonesy: Joanie has the best ideas, and not for saving the planet or anything. Fun stuff, like water balloons.
 * Jonesy: You should hear Joanie's belch! It's louder than this! (He belches loudly.)
 * Nikki: Jonesy, didn't you forget something? (She puckers up.)
 * Joanie: Donate a dollar for the hungry? (The customer donates coins and then walks off.) Score! Curly fries, here we come!
 * Coach Halder: Well, you just can't put a price on karma!
 * Caitlin: Joanie's feeding Jonesy curly fries!
 * Nikki: Ugh, I'm going to get some jujubes.
 * Nikki: I got tired of watching them bond, so I bailed in the middle of the movie.
 * Coach Halder: Masterson! I can't believe you let me hire this lunkhead! Red card! You're on probation!

Trivia
Reason for firing: His ideas to make the store better caused the Penalty Box's sales to significantly decline, in addition to making Coach Halder seem chill about these things.
 * Jude's job: Penalty Box inventory counter (and later team manager)

Errors

 * Wyatt, despite being in a relationship with Marlowe, lusts over Joanie.
 * Despite having a job at the Penalty Box, Jude does not wear a jersey.
 * Starr is seen in her normal clothing despite going goth in a few episodes prior.
 * Jonesy mentions getting Deutsche Marks from German tourists. It could imply that some of these tourists exchanged their Deutsche Marks for Canadian dollars. In the modern day, German citizenry uses euros.
 * Joanie makes a mention of people donating money to make themselves feel better and for tax write-offs. For the latter, this is entirely false because in the case of their donation box, as people that donated did not receive a receipt and wouldn't be able to claim it as a donation to charity on their taxes. In some cases, however, tax companies that do have donation boxes tally up all the money received and write it off to charitable donations on their own tax forms.)

Episode connections

 * Jude calls back to the pilot episode "Take This Job and Squeeze It" when he mentions the time he counted the blades of grass on his front lawn. In the mentioned episode, he got bored one day and counted the number of stores throughout the Galleria Mall.
 * One of Jen's lines was reused from the episode "Prank'd."

Cultural references

 * Jen's line "I have only begun to fight" references John Paul Jones's quote "I have not yet begun to fight."
 * Jonesy's statement "I am an island" might be a reference to the Simon & Garfunkel song "I Am a Rock" off of their album "Sounds of Silence."

Video
This clip was provided by 6teen on YouTube.