With Jake almost graduating high school, Alan tells him that he needs to get his life together. When Jake and Eldridge have no plans whatsoever, Judith makes Alan ask Walden for a job, to which Walden refuses, but Billy vouches for them and gives them a fairly simple job of switching drives when one is about to fail. They're able to do the job, but they download 40,000 hours of porn to watch and accidentally infect all the drives. After getting fired, Jake and Eldridge decide to join the Army, based on the sales pitch "Do you like to play video games?: Alan, fearing for the boys and the security of America, makes a failed attempt to prevent them.
Later, when Alan, Judith, Evelyn, Berta, Herb, and Walden throw a going away party for Jake, they, save Herb, reminisce of Jake's childhood. It isn't until they are at boot camp that Jake and Eldridge realize that they were tricked into joining the army.
In the scene where Eldridge is suggesting to get frozen yoghurt, behind him you can see a box for the 2001 video game Halo: Combat Evolved for the Xbox.
In the flashblacks none of them Charlie clearly appears in, save for a few cutoffs from his face. This was possibly due to either Chuck Lorre's enmity towards Sheen, or the fact that his likeness being openly portrayed would've had legal repercussions.
Realistically speaking, it would be neigh impossible for Jake and Eldridge to enlist in today's Army. With the Iraq War having ended, and Afghanistan facing a drawdown, the US military has been seeing a Reduction In Force. Not only would they have to pass the Armed Services Vocational Aptiude Battery (ASVAB) test with a 31 or better, but they would also face a urinalysis test for drugs including but not limited to marijuana, (which Alan could have simply informed the recruiter about assuming he had even known this) which can traced as far back as a whole month. Unless the two of them abstained from substance abuse for one month before going to the Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS), they would've been permanently disqualified from any branch of the service.
Despite the recruiter implying that today's Army is all inclusive, with the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell," this doesn't mean that medical waivers for recruits with low ASVAB scores would be likely.
While the real-life downsizing military standards may have been an oversight by the writers, the case may be that this plot-twist was used to reduce Angus T. Jones' screen time as he sought to pursue his religion as a Seventh-day Adventist, openly expressing that he was a "paid hypocrite" because his religious beliefs conflicted with his job as an actor in expressing the show's adult themes.
This is the last episode to feature Jake, Judith and Evelyn in a scene with one another.
This is possibly the last appearance of Eldridge McElroy
This is the last time to feature an entire season's main cast in one episode, as during the next three seasons Taylor and Hinkle are not featured in any of the same episodes, making it impossible.