When Felix comes home in the middle of a date, Oscar can barely restrain his anger. His girlfriend, Nancy, expresses concern about his health and talks Oscar into trying to show more patience with Felix to decrease his own stress. Despite Felix's unintentional provocations, Oscar reins in his rage, but he begins acting out his suppressed hostility in his sleep and nowhere in the apartment can hide Felix from his frustration.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Absurdly Ineffective Barricade: Downplayed; Felix's furniture keeps Oscar out for a few minutes, but he keeps pushing the door and breaks in to smack Felix with the newspaper anyway.
- Apocalyptic Log: A downplayed, comedic example occurs after Oscar begins sleepwalking. Felix takes a camera to bed with him, and, just as Oscar raises the newspaper, he takes a photo.
- Calling Out for Not Calling: The fight that pushes Oscar over the edge occurs when he arrives home an hour and a half late. Felix is sitting on the couch seething about the overcooked roast he made for dinner and chastises Oscar for being unable to tear himself away from the game to call.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: While bemoaning his unintentionally provoking hatred from everyone, Felix tells Oscar that his ex-wife Gloria used to hit him too. Oscar doesn't pay much attention to it.
- Furniture Blockade: Felix uses his bedroom furniture to keep Oscar out. It doesn't work for long.
- Hard-Work Montage: A montage midway through the episode shows Felix making an increasingly large number of plans either to keep Oscar from hitting him or to get proof that it's happening.
- Innocently Insensitive: Felix accidentally tests Oscar's resolution to show patience with him with things as small as asking to change their shower schedule for the next morning to things as big as criticizing the way he made Felix's breakfast. He never realizes why Oscar has suddenly become so hostile until Oscar finally loses his temper and he realizes Oscar hasn't been yelling at him for the past few days.
- Moment Killer: Felix arrives home from the opera early right when Oscar and Nancy are in the middle of kissing. He tries to tell them to return to their date and wishes them a happy anniversary, but unfortunately, he keeps killing the mood with a variety of other things. When Oscar loses his temper, it finishes what Felix started.
- Never Wake Up a Sleepwalker: Murray tells Felix not to awaken the sleepwalking Oscar, because woken sleepwalkers become aggressive. Felix questions how things would get worse when he's already being smacked over the head nightly. When Murray wakes him up, Oscar gets more confused than aggressive.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Oscar is startled when Felix (who hates his messy room) says he entered it after having a "dream" that Oscar hit him on the head with a newspaper.
- Repression Never Ends Well: Oscar's girlfriend, Dr. Nancy Cunningham, talks him into trying to exercise more patience with Felix, in the interest of decreasing his own stress. Oscar suppresses his desire to lash out at his roommate when he annoys him. However, the hostility comes to the fore while he sleeps, leading to him sleepwalking and hitting Felix with a newspaper nightly.
- Shout-Out: Oscar calls Felix "Mr. Clean", referring to the Proctor and Gamble mascot.
- Talking in Your Sleep: Oscar sometimes repeats things Felix said that annoyed him in his sleep.
- Tempting Fate: While trying to get back to the romantic mood after being sidetracked, Oscar remarks happily that Felix is at the opera and not due back for hours. A few seconds later, Felix opens the door.
- That Was Not a Dream: Felix initially thinks Oscar hitting him might have been a very realistic dream. Then, while he's retrieving Oscar's laundry from his bed, he finds a rolled-up magazine.
- Too Unhappy to Be Hungry: After some time with Oscar hitting him nightly, Felix appears at the breakfast table with a suitcase. Oscar tries to offer him breakfast to make him feel better, but Felix says he's not hungry. He then calls himself a "bad seed" and laments that he makes people hate him without knowing why. Once he and Oscar have figured out why all this has been happening, his appetite returns.
