When Daphne gets dumped, Niles's opportunity to share his feelings about her is torpedoed due to Frasier and Roz's meddling. To add insult to injury, she starts dating a guy who looks and acts exactly like Niles.
Tropes:
- Death Glare: Niles gives Frasier a positively murderous one when, after listening to Frasier's advice to wait before swooping in on Daphne, which resulted in Daphne dating Rodney, Frasier tries to tell Niles to wait when trying to find a date for himself.
- Doppelgänger Dating: Much of the episode's humor stems from Daphne dating Rodney Banks, a Mirror Character to Niles.
- Hope Spot: When Frasier convinces Niles that he found a nice girlfriend in Adelle, he then sees Adelle and Rodney entering Nervosa, dating each other.
- Identical Stranger: Despite not being related in any way, Niles and Rodney are virtually indistinguishable. It's also implied that Rodney's older brother is this to Frasier.Frasier: Maybe we should put a little red mark on the real Niles so we can tell them apart.
- Idiot Ball: Niles wasn't even hiding how furious with Frasier he was for talking him out of asking out Daphne the night she met Rodney, but he still left Niles alone in the kitchen with his fancy cup set depicting the wives of Henry VIII (and he just found an Anne Of Cleves to complete the set).
- Innocently Insensitive: Daphne being charmed by Rodney's habits, like smelling her hair, becomes degrading to Niles since he did the same things to her over the years they've known each other.
- Manchild: When Niles starts giving Frasier the cold shoulder, since he advised Niles against approaching Daphne when she was just dumped but has gotten a new boyfriend the next day, Frasier says that he's behaving like a 'pouting adolescent'. Niles even spitefully puts gum on Frasier's chair when he visits Niles in Nervosa.
- Mirror Character: Rodney and Niles don't resemble each other much in looks, but in every other manner...Martin: [over the phone] Oh, I can't talk right now, Duke. I'm in The Twilight Zone!
...
Frasier: I think we should put a little red mark on the real Niles so we can tell them apart! - Mirror Match: Averted, Frasier advises Niles not to get into a physical fight with Rodney, as the result would just look "too weird."
- Oblivious to His Own Description: Asked for his opinion of Rodney, Niles smirks and says, "bit of a pretentious fop, wouldn't you say?"
- Shout-Out: When Martin gets a call from his friend Duke after meeting Rodney, he tells Duke that he's in The Twilight Zone.
- Staring Contest: Frasier has one with Eddie to give the latter a taste of his own medicine when it comes to staring at people. He fails. He tries it again in The Tag, but Martin takes over for him and actually intimidates Eddie with his stare.Frasier: It's like his eyes turned into sorcerer's pinwheels and started spinning!
