Two murders have taken place in a gated community near Los Angeles. Steve is going undercover, as a doctor, to figure out what's happening there.
"Trapped in Paradise" displays symptoms of the following tropes:
- Artistic License – Biology: Full siblings have a 50% genetic similarity (identical to father/son, which is stated correctly by Mark), not 75%. Anything higher is the result of in-family marriage, which the episode doesn't claim happened in this family.
- Conspiracy Theorist: As a tabloid reporter, Shelby has a habit of cooking up wild stories, so she initially suspects that the gated community murders are the result of some sort of conspiracy or aliens.
- Exiled to the Couch: Invoked. When Steve and Shelby have to sleep for the night as part of their cover, Steve initially insists on taking his mock-punishment of sleeping in the living room, but Shelby wants him to be in the bedroom with her. She doesn't allow him on the bed, so he sleeps on the couch nearby.
- Intrepid Reporter: Shelby Turner, a reporter for The Comet who poses as Steve's wife to investigate the death of witness protection victims, including Paul Foster, her informant. Steve genuinely ends up falling for her.
- Jurisdiction Friction: Steve has a tense encounter with an undercover FBI agent, after Shelby is apprehended while searching a van that belongs to his subordinates, who were dressed as cable repairmen. The agent claims that the murders are not under the jurisdiction of the Los Angeles homicide unit and suspects Shelby to be the culprit. Steve is left with no choice but to put Shelby under false arrest (for obstruction of justice), to get her out of their clutches.
- Lurid Tales of Doom: The Comet, a magazine where articles about zombies and aliens are not out of character.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: The third victim's death, falling off a ladder while changing a light bulb.
- Witness Protection: Four brothers were inserted into the community under this program. Unfortunately, one was brought in with his wife, who was willing to murder them to get her old life back.
