Basic Trope: A scene shows exactly how somebody catches a disease.
- Straight: A flu-ridden Adam sneezes in Charlie's face, visible germs flying out of his mouth and all over Charlie's face. The next scene shows Charlie sick with the flu.
- Exaggerated:
- Adam sneezes in Charlie's face, coughs all over Charlie's pillow, and takes a drink from Adam's water glass, so there's no doubt where Charlie got sick.
- Adam goes to a party where he ends up sneezing on every person, as well as every object they touch, so the entire room is covered in germs.
- Charlie sneezes on Lola, and she quickly comes down with the flu. She then sneezes on Rick, who catches the flu, and he sneezes on John, until every single person has the flu.
- Downplayed: Charlie gets sick after visiting a sick Adam, but there's no specific scene that shows how he got infected.
- Subverted:
- Charlie somehow doesn't get sick even after Adam sneezes on him.
- It turns out Adam didn't have the flu, leaving it a mystery how Charlie got sick.
- Double Subverted:
- Adam had a different illness that Charlie also manages to catch.
- Charlie thinks he got sick after visiting a sick Adam, but it turns out Adam didn't have the flu. However, Adam's mother had the flu, and Charlie caught it when he greeted her at Adam's front door.
- Parodied: People are shown to get sick from unlikely or impossible circumstances, such as catching HIV from a toilet seat.
- Zig Zagged: ???
- Averted: We never see how Charlie got sick.
- Enforced: The executives didn't think the audience would understand why Charlie was sick unless there was a scene showing him getting sick.
- Lampshaded: "It took a flashback to your visit with Adam to realize he got you sick?"
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: Charlie refuses to go near Adam or touch anything that he's touched.
- Discussed: "I wish there were an easy way to see just where I caught this cold!"
- Conversed: "I rewatched the last episode of Generally Hospitalized. Dr. Hottie must have caught his pneumonia from that patient coughing all over him!"
- Implied: Charlie chews some dirty gum he found on the street and ends up sick the next day. It's never explicitly stated the gum was contaminated with germs, but it's the most logical conclusion.
- Deconstructed: After Charlie discovers Adam got him sick, he's angry with Adam for being so irresponsible and doesn't want to be his friend anymore.
- Reconstructed: ???
- Played For Laughs: The spreading of germs is used for gross-out humor.
- Played For Drama: We see Charlie get infected with a deadly disease that will soon leave his children without a father.
- Played For Horror: The Virus turns people into bloodthirsty zombies. Seeing them get infected means they'll soon become undead and try to kill the other characters.
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