Jerry plants a suspicion in Laura's mind when he hears that The Alan Brady Show's latest guest star is the beautiful Valerie Blake. Multiple circumstances conspire to increase Laura's suspicions. Will Rob ever manage to get his calm, happy marriage back?
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Business Trip Adultery: Jerry quips about Rob possibly setting up late night meetings so he can spend time with the beautiful guest star, and Laura becomes increasingly suspicious about it. He's doing nothing of the kind; in fact, in at least one case, he tried to talk his way out of staying late.
- Chekhov's Gun: One late night, Rob tells Laura that he'll put the baseball cards he got for Ritchie under his pillow. At the end, Valerie reveals that Rob's been telling her all about his family during rehearsals by remembering that Ritchie loves baseball cards.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Laura becomes increasingly suspicious that Rob is having an affair with Miss Blake. Early on, when he responds to her question about the star's looks with a Wolf Whistle (which may have been at least possibly because he was too exhausted to formulate words), she wallops him with a pillow.
- Distracted by My Own Sexy: Sally talks to her reflection in a hand mirror, saying she doesn't know why she isn't married and kissing the glass surface.
- Embarrassing First Name: It turns out that Valerie Blake is a stage name. Her real first name is Bertha.
- Freudian Slip: Irritated over Rob having to spend multiple evenings with the new guest star, Laura snaps that he's been quite busy "Blakely", rather than "lately."
- Friendly Address Privileges: When Sally calls her a nice lady, Miss Blake says that if she thinks she's so nice, she should call her "Valerie" rather than using her last name.
- Happy Dance: Rob does a dance when he manages to make up with Laura.
- Hypocritical Humor: Miss Blake protests that they can't throw out the sketch after Rob worked with her on it for so long. Mel gives a long speech about how they must sacrifice everything for their audience...and then excuses himself to go to the theater with his wife. Buddy lampshades it and hopes Mel got tickets behind a pole.
- Mistaken for Cheating: Rob has to stay late at night to work with a beautiful female guest star multiple times, at least once without the other writers, who have prior commitments. Sally also leaves lipstick when she gives him a thank-you kiss. Rob laments the Double Standard to Jerry, saying that a dentist can work late with a female client and it's just business, but the same understanding isn't afforded to writers. It's cleared up when Laura tries to investigate yet another work meeting. She sees the other writers and Mel are there, and Valerie addresses her by name, saying that Rob has mentioned her thousands of times.
- Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: After everyone keeps making comments about his evenings with the new guest star, Rob rants to Jerry about the unfairness of the suspicions. Rob tells him that he thinks Laura is the World's Most Beautiful Woman, but Jerry won't be satisfied until he hears Rob say that Valerie Blake is a dazzling vision and Laura looks like a fishwife next to her. Unfortunately, Laura only comes back in for the latter part.
- Rewind Gag: When Rob has to call the other writers back into the office, they redo everything they did when they got up to leave backwards as they "rewind" themselves to their previous positions.
- Wolf Whistle: Miss Blake's attractiveness causes multiple whistles and growls.
