Gender-Separated Ensemble Episode

Whenever you have a mixed gender group of friends, often there will be episodes where the women get their own adventure together without any of the men along. And similarly for the men. Because even though you are all good friends, sometimes you just need some Girl Time.

This is particularly common with a Three Amigos setup (two girls one guy/two guys one girl), and how the odd man out either feels lonely, or more commonly gets a side adventure with a minor cast member.

This makes sense in some cases. Would you want your guy friend there while you shop for lingerie, or would it really make sense having your female friend there trying out for the football team with you?

Similar to Girls' Night Out Episode, only:

This Trope is more like an expanded version of Girls' Night Out Episode because

• Girls' Night Out Episode is specific to girls, this is not.
• Girls' Night Out Episode does not involve a subplot involving the other gender.
• While Girls' Night Out Episode is used as an opportunity to show off the few female members of the cast interacting with each other, this trope can apply to either gender and the purpose is less of a "just because we need to focus on the women" and more circumstantial.

A sometimes Sub-Trope of Three Amigos which are about trios as a whole. See Two Lines, No Waiting for other kinds of A- and B-plots.

Examples of Gender-Separated Ensemble Episode include:

Live Action TV

• Lizzie McGuire, particularly in an episode where Lizzie and Miranda goes to buy bras as the A-plot, whilst Gordo hangs back to help Lizzie's little brother Matt and Mr. McGuire make a martial arts film as the B-plot.
• That's So Raven: Most of the time, while Raven and Chelsea were off doing some disguise adventure, Eddie was the the occasional big brother figure to Raven's brother Corey or the other son to Raven's Dad.
• Weird Science: Lisa tends to make Gary and Wyatt solve their own problems.
• Hannah Montana: Miley and Lily were almost always together while Oliver often ended up paired with either Jackson or Rico.
• A season one episode of Friends has the guys go to a hockey game, and the girls spying on George Stephonalopus.
• There are a few episodes which follow this for iCarly:
  • "iFence", where Freddie and Spencer took up Fencing. Sam had to read a book for a bet, whilst Carly had to deal with her cousins, and ended up getting mad because their fencing took too much time.
  • "iWas A Pageant Girl" had Carly and Sam go off to a beauty pageant, with Spencer roping Freddie into a double date that derailed when they started playing the 'What Am I?' game.
  • iCarly: "iTake On Dingo" started with Spencer, Carly, Sam and Freddie all heading to the Dingo studio because they were ripping off their webshow. Once there, Freddie and Spencer split up to find the frozen severed head of Charles Dingo, whilst Sam and Carly beat up tv writers with a sock full of butter. Their stories came back together in the end, but it probably counts.
• Happened in the episode of That '70s Show when the boys went to Canada (including Leo) while Jackie convinced Donna to come with her to a modelling try-out.
• Naturally, Sadie: Rain would often be paired up with Sadie's brother Hal or one of the male supporting characters for a 'boy's adventure' while Sadie and Margaret where involved in a female plot.
• Happens regularly in Coupling, where pretty much every episode will have a separate discussion by the guys and the girls highlighting the different attitudes and perceptions of the two sexes. This is largely because the cast is composed or two Power Trios with Steve and Susan as the centered egos, each with their own same-sex id and superego friends.
  • The ultimate example is the third season opener "Split", where for most of the episode there's a Split Screen, as Steve and Susan's friends try to help them get over their split-up.
• Happens in Farscape but the gender subplots are separated into two different episodes: "Mental as Anything" for the guys and "Bringing Home the Beacon" for the girls.
• Super Sentai has one every year, often involving a female Monster of the Week who kidnaps the boys on the team or incapacitates them in some way, leaving the girls to rescue them.
• Dawson's Creek had some episodes like this. One that comes to mind is "Road Trip," where Dawson and Pacey go into the city to hit on girls and Joey and Jen deal with a rumor a jock started about Joey.
• The Sarah Connor Chronicles had the one where John & Derek go to a military school to protect Martin Bledell while Sarah & Cameron stay behind to protect a child also name Martin Bledell.

Western Animation

• Every so often, The Simpsons has an episode where Bart and Homer are off together on a caper. As a result, the subplot has Marge and Lisa (and occasionally Maggie) dealing with something else. There doesn't appear to be an episode where this is reversed; if the main plot is about Lisa or Marge, then the guys just sort of hang around.
  • Bart and Homer become truckers, replacing a truck driver that Homer literally ate to death, while Marge and Lisa deal with an annoying doorbell.
  • Homer and Bart went to the Superbowl. Marge and Lisa had to deal with a Vincent Price egg painting kit that didn't come with any feet. They really do get the short straw.
  • Homer and Bart become con-men, Lisa and Maggie have to deal with Marge's sudden addiction to Long Island Iced Teas. Although at the end, they re-enter the main plot as it turns out that isn't all they've been doing.
  • The family get split up while camping in an early episode. Marge and Lisa manage okay; Homer and Bart suffer a Macho Disaster Expedition resulting in Homer being mistaken for Bigfoot; Maggie gets adopted by bears.
• When Kim Possible and her Sidekick Ron get Trapped in TV Land with their arch-enemies, they quickly get divided by gender lines - Kim with Shego, and Ron with Dr. Drakken.

Web Original

• This happened in most of the second season of The Guild, with Zaboo moving into Vork's house and discussing girl troubles with Bladezz, while Clara and Tink took it upon themselves to help Codex with her love life.