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"Thomas Fights Back" is the thirty-fourth episode in Season 5 (and one hundred and fiftieth overall) of Regular Show. It first aired on July 24, 2014.
Synopsis
Thomas wants to get the park founder's statue back.
Plot
Itās another day at The Park, and Thomas is watching funny web clips on the computer in Pops's House. Muscle Man, dressed only in his underwear, walks in with his dirty laundry. After chucking the full load at the intern, he orders him to take them to the drycleaners, much to Thomasās dismay. As Thomas gets on his way, he overhears Benson and Skips talking in the next room. Apparently Benson has decided that Thomasās internship program was taking up too much time, and while he thought he was a good kid, the best course of action may be to let him go. The two senior staff joke that the last thing The Park needs is another worker who stands around all day doing nothing, since that was already Mordecai and Rigbyās shtick.
Upset at what he heard, Thomas makes a quick call to his mom asking for advice. He intercepts Benson as he walks out the door, casually greeting him. Benson tries to use the opportunity to break the bad news to his employee, but Thomas desperately tries directing him away from the subject, listing all the chores he did that day (which unfortunately only included putting sawdust on some barf near the merry-go-round.) Luckily for the intern, their conversation is interrupted by Mordecai on Bensonās walkie-talkie, who informs them that āthe statueā is gone.
As all the park workers gather at the scene, they find the Curtis Montgomery statue missing. Benson angrily throws his clipboard on the ground, exclaiming that he canāt believe Gene did it again. When Thomas asks who Gene is, Skips fills him in that the heās manager of their rival park, East Pines. It seems that Gene and his men have made a habit of pranking the park workers every year by stealing their statue. This leads Thomas to ask who Curtis Montgomery is, and Benson informs him that heās The Parkās founder, showing him a picture of the man boxing with a bear. Thomas offers to help, but his colleagues already had Rigbyās āOperation Alien Strike Forceā planned for the occasion, which didnāt feature a role for him. As the rest of the workers go to suit up, Benson instructs Thomas to wait in his office. Left alone, Thomas is determined to find a way to prove his worth to the others.
Later that night, Thomas climbs out onto the roof of Popsās house. Using a pair of binoculars and his own walkie-talkie, he checks on his co-workers' progress. As it turns out, Operation Alien Strike Force was just having Muscle Man draw out the East Pines workers by pretending to be stuck at their gate while the rest of the group dress up as aliens and attempt to scare them into surrendering. Unfortunately, Gene easily sees through their disguises and orders his rangers to fire on them (with tomatoes). The confrontation is broken up when a bright, flashing ball of light appears above the group and causes both sides to retreat.
Back in Bensonās office, the tomato-covered Alien Strike Force, alongside Thomas, go back to the drawing board. After Rigbyās idea to go as zombies and Muscle Manās plan to blow up East Pinesās supply bunkers are rejected, Thomas offers to root out the information they need from the inside by going undercover. Before Benson could reluctantly inform him that they couldnāt go with that plan because he was in fact going to fire him, a desperate Thomas pleads with the group to give him this one chance to prove himself as a valuable member of the team. He says that heād gotten to know everyone over his time there and was finally starting to feel accepted, adding that he's the one who fired what turned out to be a flare over the group that saved them before. Muscle Man, however, remains unconvinced and calls Thomas out to be too much of a āmommaās boyā to pull it off. Thomas responds by flipping Muscle Man on his back and locking him in a rather impressive, albeit painful looking restraining hold. Point made, Thomas helps Muscle Man up as Benson asks him what he plans to do.
In a detailed monologue, Thomas explains his plan to pass himself off as āNicholasā, a new intern for East Pines (having skydived into East Pines territory via Carmenita). Once his position is established, he would earn the enemy's trust by doing their chores for them, all the while gathering intel on the layout of the park, the worker's daily schedules and most importantly, the secret location of the Curtis Montgomery statue. The full operation would take thirty days. Once the thirtieth day is up, Thomas instructs the others to watch for his signal.
The plan goes off smoothly, and in a rare stroke of luck, the thirtieth day just happens to be the night of the Park Manager's Formal, which Gene and the East Pines senior staff are attending. Having seen Thomas's flare, the other park workers find a box from the undercover intern containing a set of fitted East Pines workers uniforms and a note telling them to meet him at their gate. The group, now fully suited, reunite with Thomas in an East Pines van. As they drive up to the gate, Thomas briefs his co-workers on the situation with the formal, much to Benson's surprise since he wasn't invited. After briefly chatting with the gatekeeper Jeff as Nicholas while the others hide in the back of the van, they're allowed through. Thomas parks the vehicle near the silo where the statue is hidden. He tells Rigby, Pops and Fives to wait while him, Mordecai, Benson, Muscle Man and Skips climb in through the top with some pre-prepared grappling hooks.
Back at the gate, Jeff is playing cards with another East Pines worker wearing shades. After losing, the shades wearing worker decides to prank the interns for some laughs instead. Of course, he ends up finding Thomas missing from his quarters and immediately calls to inform Gene, who rushes back to his park.
Meanwhile, Thomas and the others are just about to move the statue out of the silo with a forklift. The intern urges his teammates to hurry, as Gene would be back any minute. This comes too late, as he opens the door to find Gene and his men already waiting for them outside. The two sides have a standoff, Gene demanding they leave the statue while Benson declares that the statue belongs with them. The East Pines manager threatens to call for backup, but Thomas, having a trick or two up his sleeve, uses reverse psychology and tells him not to. Gene indignantly announces that he doesn't take orders from interns, to which Thomas replies that he's not their intern, he's The Park's intern. Thinking he has them cornered, Gene patronisingly calls this touching and presses the call button on his walkie-talkie. Unbeknownst to him, Thomas had rigged the device to blow up a stack of barrels near the door, and Gene and his team are promptly knocked down by the explosion.
Thomas and company use the opportunity to hightail it out of there on the forklift. They load the retrieved statue into the van and make their escape with the rest of the group. Gene and his men try to follow in the nearby carts, only to discover they were empty on fuel. He tries to call Jeff at the gate, but none of the men's walkie-talkies had any batteries in them. Cut to the actual location and Thomas had just pulled up with him and Muscle Man in the front seats. Jeff, clueless to the situation, asks "Nicholas" what he was doing out again and who Muscle Man was. His nerves getting the better of him, Muscle Man freezes on his line but Thomas was able to cover for him, saying that he was a maintenance man that Gene asked him to drive back home. Jeff informs them that he'd have to verify this with Gene since it was the first he'd heard of it. He tries to call his boss on his walkie talkie, but of course doesn't get through.
At the same time, Gene's group had made their way to the emergency phones. Gene tries to use the phone to alert all East Pines personal of the security breach, but is shocked to find the line cut. It turns out that while Thomas was doing their chores, he'd secretly been sabotaging their equipment, effectively breaking down their communications system. Finally coming to this realization, Gene drops the speaker which dramatically shatters and screams "Nicholas!" into the skies.
Cut back to the front gate. Thomas is attempting to talk Jeff into letting them out. Jeff becomes suspicious of the situation and orders him and a sweating Muscle Man to step out of the van. Pressure mounting, Rigby whispers at the others to just ditch the statue and get out of there. Startled by the unexpected noise, Jeff aims his weapon at Thomas and demands to know what that was. Thomas, somehow managing to keep his cool, feigns ignorance and offers to call Gene to have him confirm their story, much to the confusion of his colleagues. With Gene and company closing in fast on foot, Thomas dials the number on his phone. Much to Jeffās surprise, Geneās voice comes through the speakers, ordering him to let them out. Flustered, Jeff immediately opens the gate moments before the real Gene calls out to him from afar not to let them through. But it is too late, as Thomas slams the accelerator and just manages to squeeze through the half-opened gates. The East Pines crew chase them out onto the streets but to no avail, They were gone and so was the statue, then Gene screams "Nicholas!" into the skies again.
Finally safe back at The Park, the team return the statue to its rightful place. Benson, pleased with the result, apologizes to Thomas for doubting him. Rigby asks how he managed to pull off that trick with Gene's voice, and Thomas replies that he had it pre-recorded. The team congratulate him on a job well done. Muscle Man tells him that he'll always see Thomas as a "momma's boy", though he lets out a rather undignified yelp when Thomas pulls his martial arts stance again, much to the others' amusement. Able to keep his job, Thomas receives an incoming call from his mom and informs her of the good news.
Characters
- Thomas
- Muscle Man
- Benson
- Skips
- Mordecai
- Rigby
- Pops
- Hi-Five Ghost
- Gene
- Rival Park Members
- Jeff
- Curtis Montgomery (mentioned and pictured)
Trivia
- The date of the Manager's Formal and the operation to take back the statue was on June 4, which means the day the mission started was on May 5.
- This episode reveals the founder of the Park, first hinted in Appreciation Day .
- This episode reveal that Gene has hair, despite being made of metal.
- The girl Hi-Five Ghost skated with in Bald Spot can be seen at the Park Manager's Formal.
- There are several instances in this episode that foreshadow Thomas' true self in "The Real Thomas." His fighting stances, his alias "Nicholas" hinting his real name later on revealed to be "Nikolai", and him saying "Mission accomplished!" at the end of the episode.
- The character Curtis Montgomery, park founder also has many references to the founder of Springfield, of "The Simpsons" .It is shown a picture where he fights a bear, and Jebediah Springfield.
- Both Founders Park of "Regular Show" and the City in "The Simpsons" have statues in their homage, and to the scenario where the statue of the park is was inspired by the Springfield Square.
- This is the final episode to be boarded by Andres Salaff before leaving for Adventure Time in October 2013, but got to board on his final Regular Show project, Regular Show: The Movie.