When Dr. Matt Crower starts digging into the circumstances of Merlyn Temple's death, Lucas Buck puts pressure on a judge to have him committed to an asylum. Meanwhile Matt stops a woman called Angela (Veronica Cartwright) from shooting Lucas. She says she is Lucas's mother, and urges Matt to kill Lucas before he endangers all of humanity.
This episode has the following tropes:
- Assassination Attempt: Gail, Ben and Billy charge into the room and wrestle Matt to the ground before he can shoot Lucas. Lucas predicts he'll only get one shot off and he's right—it hits the wall instead.
- Call-Back: Lucas brings up Matt's visions in the previous episode as to why he should be committed. Matt in turn raises the suspicious circumstances of Merlyn Temple's death.
- Chekhov's Gun: The literal version; Matt doesn't hand in the snubnose revolver that he took off Angela, covering up for her attempted murder of Lucas. He later uses the gun to try and finish the job.
- The Coroner Doth Protest Too Much: Matt says that Merlyn Temple's X-Ray shows she was killed by a Neck Snap instead of a Shovel Strike like Lucas claimed. Lucas blandly says that her killer must have done both. After all, Ben was there to witness it too, right?
- Dissonant Serenity: Lucas is calm when confronted with a gun-toting Dr. Crower, and doesn't even flinch when a bullet hits the wall next to him. It's left ambiguous whether a bullet can kill Lucas, though he implies that it could.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: In-Universe; Angela compares Lucas to Hitler, while Judge Streeter compares Lucas trying to get Matt committed to an asylum to similar practices against dissidents in the Soviet Union.
- Driven to Suicide:
- After Lucas goads the judge's wife into gambling away money they don't have, Judge Streeter comes home to find she's slit her wrists in a white standalone bathtub. She survives, but it's enough to make the judge submit to Lucas.
- Lucas coaxes Angela into jumping out the hospital window. Matt witnesses her suicide, and naturally assumes the sheriff threw her out.
- Everyone Can See It: Selena and Dr. Billy Peale make moon eyes at each other while he's giving her a flu shot. They then realise all the kids in the class are staring at them.
- Evil Is Deathly Cold: Years later the heating in the room where Caleb was born still doesn't work properly.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: Matt regards Lucas as a manipulative Dirty Cop and murderer, but not pure evil like Angela claims he is. She replies thus:Angela: It's 1928. You meet this Bohemian student in a café, and he tries to sell you one of his third-rate watercolors. You refuse. He gets furious. You can see the evil in his eyes. And then someone tells you...that this impudent little twit will one day exterminate six million Jews. What do you do?
- The Gambling Addict: Charlotte. She wins a pile of money, but Lucas convinces her she's on a winning streak with inevitable results when she stays in the game.
- Insult Backfire: Matt tells Lucas to go to hell. Lucas says he's been there and it's not as bad as people think.
- Minion with an F in Evil: Deputy Ben Healy takes Matt Crower out into the woods for what the latter assumes will be the classic "shot while trying to escape" ploy. Turns out Ben really is giving him a chance to escape, as long as he leaves Trinity and never comes back. Matt refuses, so Ben hauls him off to the asylum.
- Think of the Children!: When Matt balks at killing Lucas, Angela convinces him that he will be saving Caleb by doing so.
- Kill Me Now, or Forever Stay Your Hand: Lucas hands Angela a switchblade and gives her the opportunity to stab him, but she can't go through with it.
- Manipulative Bitch: Angela brags to Lucas that posing as his mother sacrificing her son for the future of humanity sounded better to Matt than a jealous ex-lover.
- Mr. Smith: Lampshaded when Matt notes that Angela Smith could have chosen a more imaginative name. Though for all we know it really is her name, because it's certainly not Angela Buck.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Played with; Matt stops Angela from shooting Lucas, but it's questionable whether she would have pulled the trigger. She instead manipulates Matt into trying to assassinate Lucas himself, which gives the latter all the proof he needs to get Matt locked up as a dangerous lunatic.
- Right Behind Me:
- When Matt confronts Ben about the false reports of how Caleb's sister died, the man responsible is of course right behind him.
- Lucas overhears Angela convincing Matt that he's the next Hitler. He thinks it's a cheap shot.
- Lucas doesn't have it all his own way. When Selena overhears Lucas bragging to Billy that she'll believe anything he tells her, she makes a point of kissing Billy right in front of Lucas.
- Averted when Matt turns up to kill Lucas, who knows who it is and why he's there before he even turns round.
- Room Full of Crazy: Ben, Caleb and Gail break into Matt's room to find it's been turned into a classic example, including a picture of Lucas with a target drawn on it.
- Second-Face Smoke: Judge Streeter blows smoke in Lucas's face when refusing to have Matt Crower committed. Lucas doesn't even flinch, and on their second meeting he wrests the cigar from Streeter's hand and demands he personally sign the papers instead of leaving it to Lucas.
- Shout-Out:
- The episode title to Death Takes a Holiday.
- Lucas mockingly calls Dr. Crower "Kevorkian
" when he turns up to shoot him.
- Slut-Shaming: Lucas tries to convince his ex-girlfriend Selena that she's just an easy lay to Billy Peele. Selena doesn't fall for it, not least because Billy had turned down a strongly implied invitation from her moments before.
- Stab the Scorpion: Ben appears to be reaching for the revolver on his gunbelt to shoot Matt, only to hand him the handcuff key instead.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Dr. Crower is Put on a Bus but Dr. Peele, who, just like Crower, is new in town and working at the local hospital, takes over Crower's role as Buck's nemesis.
- Tome of Eldritch Lore: Matt noticeably staggers when it's handed to him.
- Yandere: Turns out Angela isn't Lucas's mother; she's an ex-lover who took his virginity when he was sixteen and hates him for leaving her.
