Francine begins undergoing "empty nest syndrome" when Steve's relationship with Debbie goes to the next level, and she tries to fix it by having another baby. Meanwhile, Roger becomes a professor at Hayley's college.
Tropes:
- Alone with the Psycho: Hayley and Roger find themselves trapped with Ethan after he psychotically reveals he murdered his father and holds them at swordpoint.
- Attempted Rape: Stan wakes up at one point to find Francine on top of him, trying to have sex while he was still asleep. He quickly maces her. Despite Stan even screaming "Rape" this is Played for Laughs.
- Bait-and-Switch:
- During the montage of Stan and Francine having sex, we see an occupied toilet on an airplane while other passengers angrily wait, making it look like they're in the "mile-high club." Then the camera pulls out to show that Stan is actually observing the plane from the bedroom.
- At the CIA, Francine shoots a tank of a white liquid to get rid of Stan. They both initially think it is sperm, but she then finds it was actually milk.
- When she finds the CIA sperm samples, one of the vials is marked "Janet Reno." Francine is more surprised that it's not in its correct alphabetical position, rather than the fact that Reno apparently donated sperm.
- Downer Ending: After Stan tells Francine how children are supposed to leave their parents, they return home to find Steve crying on his bed because Debbie broke up with him. Rather than following Stan's advice, she actually starts telling Steve that no woman will ever be good enough for him.
- Eye Scream: Francine hits Stan with pepper-spray after realizing he had a vasectomy and tries to stop her from going to the CIA sperm bank.
- Hypocritical Humor: "A world with no children. Future generations will thank us!"
- Never My Fault: After Roger reveals he's just been spouting bullshit as a professor, Ethan breaks down saying he killed his dad because of him. Despite the fact Ethan took a lot of liberties with what Roger was saying the whole time.
- Oh, Crap!: Hayley and Roger's reaction when Ethan gleefully reveals he stabbed his father to death and laughs about it.
- Profound by Pop Song: Having been made an English professor, Roger quotes Prince's spoken-word intro to "Let's Go Crazy" in his opening lecture.Roger: You may have thought this class was about literature. You were wrong. This class is about life! Electric word, "life." It means forever, and that's a mighty long time. But I'm here to tell you, there's something else— my office hours. They're Tuesday from 1:00 to 3:00.
- Self-Made Orphan: Ethan tells Roger that his father never supported his dream to cook, but Roger inspired him. And that resulted in him killing his father.
- Shout-Out:
- Roger tries to punish Hayley for criticizing him by giving her a week of detention. When she says that there's no detention in college, he threatens to "take away 50 points from Gryffindor."
- Roger admits that most of his lessons are just stolen from Dead Poets Society.
- Francine comforting Steve while also slipping into insanity at the end of the episode is taken from The Shining.
- Skewed Priorities: Roger has two of these during Ethan's dinner party. He helps himself to more shrimp gruyere puffs after Ethan laughs that he killed his father, saying that "not eating isn't going to bring him back." Later, while trying to escape with Hayley and finding the corpse of Ethan's father, he exclaims in relief that his ear finally popped while they were screaming.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: After getting a vasectomy, Stan walks up to Francine saying that he was wrong and she was right, "and there is nothing suspicious about that."
- Verbal Backspace: Roger initially introduces himself as "Professor Guggenheim," only to realize he doesn't know how to spell it and gives his name as "Professor Baxter."
