Welcome to the Darth Side

General	Script	Quotes	Gallery

"Midnight Madness"

"Welcome to the Darth Side"

"The New Guy"

"Welcome to the Darth Side"
Episode name reference to/pun on: The Star Wars phrase "Welcome to the Dark Side" and the character Darth.
Season 2, Episode 37
Airdate:	CAN: December 15, 2005 USA: November 14, 2008
Directed by:	Karen Lessmann
Written by:	Alice Prodanou
Story Editors:	Jennifer Pertsch Tom McGillis
Episode Guide

Welcome to the Darth Side is the tenth episode of the second season and the thirty-seventh episode of 6teen overall. It aired on Teletoon on December 15, 2005, and later on Cartoon Network on November 14, 2008.

Nikki finds out that Chrissy is a member of Darth's Jedi Knights Club, and gets fired after she tells Jonesy, who reveals Chrissy's secret to the rest of the Khaki Barn. Meanwhile, Jen and Jonesy compete at fundraising for their school's various teams, and Lydia dates Wyatt.

Plot

Main Plot

Nikki is at work and is for once trying to help customers. However, her way of helping is by being truthful about when the clothes the customers are trying don't fit or don't look right; while this may be a valuable service to oblivious fashion victims, it does not lead to higher sales, and as a result her coworkers the Clones are not happy with Nikki's behavior. To make things even more of a burden on the three similarly-dressed blondes, a girl who heavily resembles them then proceeds to enter the Khaki Barn and swiftly begin showing that she has quite a lot in common with the Clones.

Later in the day, Darth walks into the Khaki Barn. Once he suspects that nobody is watching, he heads into the back room and signals Chrissy to join him. Nikki has spotted this encounter, however, and she heads over to eavesdrop, where she finds out that Chrissy is secretly a member of Darth's Jedi Knights Club. She gets caught listening, and when this happens Chrissy threatens Nikki with job termination if anybody else finds out.

Despite this, Nikki can't resist telling her friends about what happened. Upon hearing about Nikki's job worries, Jonesy uses his knowledge to get Nikki to buy some plastic wrap to support the school's hockey team. However, his needing to sell lots of plastic leads him to the Khaki Barn, and while there he ends up letting Chrissy's secret slip. Needless to say, Chrissy is infuriated, and she swiftly fires Nikki and hires on the girl who dressed exactly like the other clones: Ashley.

Nikki has no choice but to find a new job. After a fruitless day of searching, she eventually stumbles into Stereo Shack, where she gets hired immediately due to Darth having a crush on her. While Nikki does like having a job again, she is not happy with the circumstances, which include Darth leering at her all day, and she goes to her friends for help. Of the group, Caitlin has the best suggestion, which is to set Darth up with another girl.

When Nikki returns to work, Darth begins hitting on her again. She shuts him down, but makes him an offer: she'll set Darth up with Julie, and do so by giving him a makeover. Darth reluctantly agrees, and soon Caitlin and Nikki get to work on giving Darth an all-new look. When they finish up, they send Darth into Grind Me to talk to Julie, and soon the two are on the couch making out, with their kiss session only ending when their dental hardware gets tangled together and they fall off of the Grind Me couch, injuring each other in the process.

Darth is left convinced that he blew his shot with Julie until Julie arrives at his workplace and reveals that not only does she like him, but she likes his old style better. With a girlfriend that likes him for himself in his pocket, Darth fires Nikki because she's bad at her job and because he doesn't have the hots for her anymore. This leaves Nikki with no choice but to try to get her job back at the Khaki Barn, but when she arrives there she is swiftly rehired with extra benefits because Ashley is such a good employee that she has lowered commissions for all of the other Clones, leaving them demoralized due to their now completely conformist workplace. Nikki is touched when her demands are meant and the girls hug her after firing Ashley.

Sub-Plot One: Selling for School

When Jen arrives at the Big Squeeze, she has one objective: sell as many chocolate-covered jellybeans as possible to raise money for her school, as the top salesperson gets to choose what the money is used for and Jen wants to improve the snowboarding team's equipment. When it turns out that Ron loves the jellybeans, Jen is certain that she'll win–until she finds out that Jonesy is competing as well (for the hockey team), and that Jonesy is actually a good salesman. Jen and Jonesy then begin battling each other, with Jen selling jellybeans and Jonesy selling plastic wrap.

As their battle wears on, Jen and Jonesy are neck-and-neck. However, Jen has a problem, as her best customer soon turns into a problem. Ron develops an addiction to the jellybeans, spending all his money on them, and when Jen refuses to accept a credit card or an IOU, he decides to cut out the middleman and just confiscate the jellybeans. However, it's at this point that Jonesy swoops in and saves the day by stealing the beans and threatening to drop them into the mall fountain. When Ron begs him not to do so, Jonesy makes an offer: Ron buys all of the jellybeans and all of his plastic wrap with an IOU and he can keep both goods. Ron makes the deal, and Jen and Jonesy agree that instead of trying to compete further they will simply split the prize.

Sub-Plot Two: Lydia Loves Wyatt

Jude and Wyatt are hanging out at work when Jude mentions that he has good news for Wyatt: he set Wyatt up with a girl who thinks that he's cute. Wyatt is at first intrigued–until the girl in question walks in and Wyatt realizes that Jude set him up with Lydia. Wyatt swiftly ducks below the counter to avoid being seen, and Jude lies that Wyatt isn't there. At that moment, Wayne walks in, and Lydia mistakes him for Wyatt; while at first Wayne tries to set her straight, upon hearing that she has chicken nuggets he agrees to go out with her.

Wayne soon finds himself regretting this decision, however, as Lydia quickly shows why Wyatt didn't like her by revealing her craziness to Wayne–a craziness that has for some reason been coupled with a chicken obsession. Wayne is not pleased and takes to hiding from his would-be girlfriend, and when she enters Underground Video Wyatt is the only one who forgets to duck. When this happens, however, he is confronted by Lydia, who somehow thinks that she went out with him and not Wayne. This scares Wyatt immensely, and while backing away from Lydia he stumbles into his coworkers, causing them to rise up. When this happens, Lydia spots Wayne and puts two and two together: Wayne and Wyatt are obviously identical twins.

Naturally, the duo is shocked by this leap of logic. However, Jude has in the meantime figured out a solution. He informs Lydia that the Wyatt twins are allergic to chicken, and that a random guy likes her. Lydia jumps on this information, and swiftly begins pursuing the random guy Jude pointed out, along the way forgetting all about Wyatt and Wayne.

Trivia

• Jonesy's job: Plastic wrap seller
  Reason for failure: None, because he was doing it as part of a school fundraiser to raise money for the hockey team, which he was greatly invested into.
• Nikki's job: employee at Khaki Barn
  Reason for firing: Chrissy found out that Nikki told the others about her secret membership of the Jedi Knight Club.
  Reason for re-hiring: Ashley was swiftly making sales, abruptly overshadowing the sales performances of the Clones, and that the trio themselves missed Nikki's snarky and cynical attitude.
• Nikki's second job: employee at Stereo Shack
  Reason for firing: Darth got over his crush on her and, ultimately, she just sucked at her job.

Notes

• Nikki applied for work at the following places: Wonder Taco, The Penalty Box, Frilly and Pink, and the tattoo parlor. Despite applying, she wasn't hired for the following reasons:
  • The Wonder Taco: Nikki insulted Julie's singing ability while the latter sung the food stand's anthem. Afterwards, the former walked away laughing.
  • The Penalty Box: Nikki had no athletic prowess according to Coach Halder, as evidenced by her inept ability to hit the tennis balls.
  • Frilly and Pink: The word "khakis" hit Nikki's sore spot, prompting her to walk off in a huff without uttering a word.
  • Tattoo Parlor: Nikki had no tattooing skills required for her to get the job.
• This episode marks the first time Nikki has been fired from her job. She is the fourth of the main six to get fired, along with Jonesy (who was first fired in "Take This Job and Squeeze It"), Jude, and Wyatt (the latter two being fired in the episode "Going Underground"). She is also the only girl of the main six to be fired from her job.
• Ron the Rent-a-Cop gets addicted to Jen's chocolate covered jelly beans because they were his favorite candy when he was a kid. His nostalgia is what makes him buy so many.

Errors

• Chrissy and Darth fired Nikki from her jobs for trivial reasons. This falls under Canada's wrongful dismissal law, though in Darth's case, his other reason for firing Nikki, which was her poor work etiquette, was more acceptable.
  • Chrissy, however, would've been ordered by Canadian law to compensate Nikki and Ashley or rehire them, as her reasons for firing them from the Khaki Barn were unlawful.

Episode connections

• Lydia, a girl who first appeared in the episode "It's Always Courtney, Courtney, Courtney!", reappears in this episode.
• This episode, and the season 1 episode "Breaking Up with the Boss' Son" both have Darth as a central character. In both episodes, Wyatt mentions that Darth isn't a bad guy.
• The topic of addiction would later resurface in the episodes "Smarten Up" and "Over Exposed". In the former episode, Jude's coffee addiction was a sub-plot while in the latter, Jude's addiction to the Ragin' Cajun fries that were sold at Burger McFlipster's led to him being fired.
• This is the second time that Lydia responds to a breakup by saying that it doesn't mean they can't still go out. She also said this to Jonesy in "It's Always Courtney, Courtney, Courtney!" when he tried to break up with her.

Cultural references

• The scene where The Clones meet Ashley has multiple references to the film Mean Girls.
  • This is the second episode to reference said film, with the first being "Unhappy Anniversary".
• The unseen Lindsay Lohanigan is a parody of actress Lindsay Lohan. Incidentally, she would later be mentioned again in the episode "Major Unfaithfulness."
• Nikki makes a subtle reference to the (then-upcoming) movie Star Wars: The Clone Wars when, upon seeing the Clones fighting, states that "the Clone Wars" have begun.

Video

This clip was provided by Retro Rerun on YouTube.