Community General is having an inspection from an accreditation committee. Mark is happy to lead the tour, even if it is his birthday, but is held up when he finds a patient's dead body. It's already hard enough to find the killer when the victim had so many enemies and having to juggle the committee inspection. What could make things even worse? Well, how about the fact that the body seems to have a habit of disappearing and popping back up all over the hospital?
"The Busy Body" displays symptoms of the following tropes:
- Accidental Murder: Ralph didn't set out to kill Lorenzo and didn't even know him. He killed Lorenzo in a panic because he was going to report his attempted theft of the pharmacy's drugs.
- Amoral Attorney: Lorenzo P. Kotch, perfectly willing to fight for his clients by lying right through his teeth.
- Asshole Victim: Lorenzo P. Kotch.
- Birthday Episode: The episode takes place on Mark's birthday.
- Bludgeoned to Death: Lorenzo was killed when he was struck in the back of the head with a nightstick.
- Body in a Breadbox: The dead body keeps appearing all over the hospital.
- Crime of Passion: Lorenzo's murder, for all intents and purposes, was this, as all Ralph originally wanted to do was steal drugs in order to have Community General ditch Techno-Sure and rehire his dad, albeit for self-serving reasons.
- Disability Alibi: What ultimately clears Rupert Leverton from being the killer. The punch he gave to Lorenzo earlier in the day required stitches which were done by Jack. Jack explains that the injury plus the anesthesia he gave for the procedure meant Rupert couldn't hold so much as a straw, which makes breaking open Lorenzo's head with a nightstick out of the question.
- The Gambling Addict: Ralph McReedy.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: When Mark catches Ralph retrieving Lorenzo's body, he is wearing surgical scrubs and a face mask, explaining how he could have moved the body all over without being noticed.
- Informed Ability: Techno-Sure is apparently a highly regarded security firm. They seem much more incompetent, so much so that Norman dumps them by the end of the episode.
- It Was Here, I Swear!: When Mark brings Steve to the initial crime scene, they find only the small puddle of blood left from the victim's head wound. The body and the bloody nightstick, not so much.
- Pint-Size Powerhouse: Norah Stebbings is maybe 5'5, so it seems unlikely she could have killed Lorenzo at first. However, Jack finds out while tailing her that the woman has three black belts, which makes things look much more likely.
- Running Gag: Delores wanting Mark to open her birthday gift.
- Trapped by Gambling Debts: What set off this mess. Ralph kept moving the body so that the committee would find it on their inspection. He was figuring this would get the hospital to throw Techno-Sure security under the bus and rehire his dad as their security. What does this have to do with gambling? Well, Ralph is so up to his neck in debt that the cabin his father was going to retire to was the only thing valuable enough to save him.
- Worth It: Rupert missed the lunch rush getting his hand stitched and it may have hurt like Hell, but to him, it still felt good to deck a slimeball like Lorenzo.
- Who Murdered the Asshole: Subverted. Mark spends much of the episode trying to figure out who the killer was from the many people who hated him, as it turns out the real killer was simply trying to discredit the security company Norman had hired for reasons stated above.
Mark Sloan: I stopped asking myself why the killer hated Kotch; everybody hated Kotch!.
