Peter and the guys help Mort burn down his pharmacy to collect the insurance money.
Tropes:
- Assembly Line Fast-Forward: One of the first things Peter and Quagmire do to help get Mort's business back to profitability. Predictably, the conveyor belt starts speeding faster and they struggle to keep up. Forcing them to binge the prescriptions to make up for it. This results in Quagmire vomiting all over the belt and Peter developing both a nosebleed and a "wicked boner" before passing out.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Depending on how you look at things. At first, Peter, Quagmire, and Mort were about to serve time, but Joe decides against it after empathizing with their grievances against insurance companies and lets them go, but at the same time lets them off the hook after they committed a serious felony.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Joe was within his rights to arrest Peter, Quagmire, and Mort for committing insurance fraud and yet the trio’s argument that insurance companies callously try to keep their clients from receiving much-deserved coverage does hold some water.
- Call-Back: Goldman's Pharmacy has gone bankrupt ever since Muriel Goldman was murdered by Diane Simmons, because Muriel was no longer around to fleece customers.
- Insane Troll Logic: At the end when Chris says that when somebody does a transgression, they must get repercussions, but Peter laughs it off by saying “Not if you're white.”
- Inspector Javert: Joe is relentless in trying to see if foul play happened at the burning of Mort’s pharmacy.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While the Griffins were seldom understanding of why Peter, Quagmire, and Mort decided to burn down the pharmacy, they aren’t really wrong when they express bewilderment of why Joe would just let them go despite their actions.
- Karma Houdini: Invoked when Joe decides not to send Peter, Quagmire, and Mort to prison after agreeing that insurance agencies are not worth siding with.
- Our Zombies Are Different: The beginning of the episode shows that Peter has a pet zombie who he feeds brains to the same way a dog owner would give their dog bones and/or meat.
- Pun: Joe is in Vegas in the first act attending a concert for a paraplegic Cher cover artist named "Wheel-Cher".
- Shout-Out:
- Peter and Quagmire putting pills in bottles while helping Mort’s business and soon getting overwhelmed due to the conveyor belt’s exceeding speed is an obvious reference to the scene from the episode “Job Switching” from I Love Lucy where a similar thing happens but with chocolate.
- Quagmire’s false alibi for burning down Mort’s store was that he was at the movies seeing the film No Strings Attached.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: After Joe arrests Mort for committing Insurance Fraud, as well as Peter and Quagmire for helping him, they call out Joe for not knowing what's it's like to be pushed around by insurance companies who do their best to keep their clients from receiving the help they were promised, much less need. Joe then tells them about the night he became paralyzed from the waist-down, and the Flashback shows him in a doctor's office where he's informed his medical insurance refused him a spinal surgery that would've allowed him to walk again because it would the company $200,000, but approved a wheel chair because it only costs $60. Once Joe tells his story, he erases the incriminating phone messages the guys left on their cell phones, and allows them to go free and Mort to collect the insurance money he desperately needs.
- Small Role, Big Impact: Had Brian not left his steak bone in the yard, the events of the episode never would’ve happened.
- Sympathy for the Devil: Or rather sympathy for criminals as Joe decides to eradicate the evidence against his friends and release them from custody after relating to their grievances about insurance companies.
- Truth in Television: In real-life, there are insurance companies who try to save as much money as possible at the cost of ignoring their clients’ needs (as Joe can attest from the insurance company who could have given him an operation that would have cured his paralysis but chose to give him a wheelchair instead because it was cheaper).
- Uncanny Family Resemblance: Mort’s lawyer who is ambiguously related to him and looks like a clone of him shows up to represent Mort when he is arrested by Joe.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Played for Laughs as after Joe releases his friends from custody, they just react to confusion that he sets them free instead of thanking him and Peter decides to mock Joe, throw his hat to the end of the hallway and run for the hills. Joe even states that he’s having second thoughts on erasing Peter’s confession from his phone.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Twice over.
- Brian leaving his steak bone leads to Peter on his riding mower running over it, sending the bone into Quagmire's head and setting the plot in motion.
- Later, Quagmire decides to spy in on a woman stripping while promoting Mort's pharmacy, causing the airplane banner to rip off. This leads to a bus full of teens crashing and the guys having to commit the insurance fraud to cover their tracks.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Though the teens involved in the bus crash are confirmed dead after the banner incident; the bus driver isn't. Leaving it unclear if they fished him out offscreen and didn't bother acknowledging it, or simply Never Found the Body.
