Title: Suspicion
Directed by: James Burrows
Written by: Tom Reeder
Air Date: January 16, 1986
Previous: Take My Shirt...Please
Next: The Triangle
Guest Starring: Kelsey Grammer, MC Gainey, Hamilton Camp
"Suspicion" is the 14th episode of the fourth season of Cheers.
It's another night at the bar. The gang, on this particular evening, is bothered by one particular customer. A man sits in the booth by the front door and stares at them all evening. He sits, drinking coffee, occasionally scribbling notes. And watching them, for hours.
The gang feverishly wonders who the man is. Cliff guesses KGB spy. Others guess a private investigator building a paternity case on Sam, an IRS agent about to audit Norm, or a postal investigator after Cliff. Finally, as Sam confronts the man, Diane admits the truth: he's another student in her psychology class. The whole evening, in fact, has been an experiment in paranoia for the class—Diane's homework.
Diane begs Sam not to be mad. After he says "Oh, we don't get mad, Diane" in a particularly meaningful way, she becomes paranoid that somehow, some way, the gang will get revenge.
Tropes:
- Bucket Booby-Trap: After spending the whole second half of the episode afraid of whatever joke the gang is going to pull on her, Diane eventually expresses disappointment that they didn't pull a prank on her, saying that they must still view her as an outsider instead of one of them. Right after that she falls victim to their Bucket Booby-Trap gag.Diane: I LOVE YOU GUYS!
- Butt-Monkey: For much of Season 4 Frasier was this, mooning after Diane and hopelessly waiting for her to take him back. This is one of the most extreme examples, as Frasier came back from a Colorado ski trip, where a hot lady was flirting with him, when Diane summoned him. He thought she wanted to get back together but she only wanted him to spy on the others.
- Kubrick Stare: The mysterious man in the booth does this, which only increases the gang's paranoia.
- Mistaken for Spies: Cliff, the craziest of the denizens of Cheers, guesses that the strange man by the door is a spy.
- Perfumigation: Another example of the Running Gag about Sam's pungent cologne. After he drops a bottle—a $2.50 bottle—which shatters on the floor, his office is uninhabitable for a while.
- Recitation Handclasp: Diane thinks that the PBS crew which has arrived to interview her as one of "Boston's Working Poets" is part of Sam's prank. So, after she's asked to recite her poem, she clasps her hands together...and does an excellent impersonation of a squawking chicken.
- The Reveal: The mysterious man at the bar is Diane's friend from psychology class and the whole evening has been an experiment.
