Peter and Quagmire's friendship hits a fork in the road when the latter accidentally dials the former while admitting his love for Lois.
Tropes:
- All Love Is Unrequited: Quagmire, after multiple episodes of lusting after Lois, finally reveals that he actually has feelings for her. Unfortunately, Lois doesn't reciprocate due to her marriage to Peter.
- An Aesop: Everyone has secrets they're not proud of but as long as they don't act on them, it shouldn't be a problem. Done tongue in cheek because Lois states that everyone's secret make everyone terrible people and that the only way for relationships to last is to live a life of bland compromise keeping them hidden.
- Bestiality Is Depraved: Peter enjoys an erotic dance from a pheasant performing through glass. Then he asks the audience what's wrong with that picture.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: After requesting a "pheasant on the glass", and we see Peter watching a pheasant performing a glass dance, he turns to the audience and dares them to tell him what's wrong with the scene. note
- Disproportionate Retribution: Peter suggests breaking into Quagmire's house and assaulting him for being in love with Lois. Brian immediately rejects the idea.
- Dumbass Has a Point: Peter makes a completely valid point in telling other people that there is a difference between lusting over someone and being in love when they try to rationalize Quagmire's secret feelings for Lois by telling him that Quagmire wanted to have sex with Lois many times.
- Feud Episode: Peter and Quagmire are at this, when Quagmire dials Lois.
- Flipping the Bird: Peter gives Quagmire the bird when he leaves Spooner Street.
- The "Fun" in "Funeral": One cutaway has Quagmire whispering a sexual innuendo at his grandmother's funeral.
- Furry Reminder: A gag has Ariel under the sea wishing for legs...and then ravenously devouring Joe's pair when they end up dismembered in the water. She says it was the fish part of her that wanted legs.
- Jerkass Realization: Peter apologizes to Quagmire for going crazy over Quagmire's unrequited feelings for Lois.
- Just Friends: How Quagmire and Lois settle as once the tension dies down.
- Keeping Secrets Sucks: While Quagmire makes no secret about how sexually attracted he is to Lois, his romantic feelings for her have been hidden for a long time now and have given him internal conflict when it comes to his friendship with her and her husband (and Quagmire's best friend) Peter.
- Mutual Envy: Quagmire is jealous of Peter's marriage to Lois and Peter is jealous of Quagmire's feelings for Lois. Inevitably, this leads to a conflict between the two.
- Oral Fixation: Peter develops a fondness for toothpicks, but later ditches the habit when he sees a senior using it to pick her gross teeth.
- Pet the Dog: Brian is surprisingly defensive of Quagmire in this episode. He's the one who constantly advises Peter to not let Quagmire's love for Lois get in the way of their friendship and puts himself in the middle of Peter and Quagmire at the end of their fight before helping Cleveland restrain Peter.
- Properly Paranoid: Although he may be overreacting, Peter's belief that Quagmire wants to steal Lois from him is not unfounded considering how he comes dangerously close to doing so in earlier episodes like "Meet the Quagmires" and "Big Man on Hippocampus." There's also how Quagmire has no qualms sleeping with married women, most especially the time he slept with Cleveland's first wife Loretta.
- Shout-Out: Ariel appears, wishing for a pair of human legs, and when Joe's severed legs float to the sea bed, she eats them, claiming it was the fish part of her that wanted them.
- Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Gender-inverted. This is the exact reason why Quagmire is secretly in love with Lois.Quagmire: No, I don't want a woman like Lois. I want Lois, she's perfect! I've loved her for years! She's warm and kind and beautiful. I've never been so in love with anyone.
- Skewed Priorities: Joe pays more attention to Peter's idea for a movie than Quagmire's accidentally recorded confession.
- Time to Move: Quagmire decides to move to another place after his conflict with Peter regarding his feelings towards Lois because his house is right next to Peter's and that living next to Peter will cause more tension between the two. He moves back to his old house by the end of the episode.
- Too Dumb to Live: Peter picks his teeth while driving, leading to him swallowing and choking on the toothpick after going over a speed bump.
- Unrequited Love Lasts Forever: By the end of the episode, Quagmire is still in love with Lois, but he decides he would rather remain friends with her and Peter.
- With Friends Like These...: Quagmire considers Cleveland a bad friend because he tries to trick himself Peter and Joe into lending him money so that he can selfishly use that money to buy whatever he wants.
