After the other Castaways take care of him while he's sick, Mr. Howell decides to change his will to grant each of them bequests. However, shortly thereafter, strange events begin to convince him they're trying to kill him for the inheritance. Then Mr. Howell concocts a scheme of his own which just might put everything right again.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Attending Your Own Funeral: Mr. Howell makes out his will, leaving various things to the other castaways. He then believes they're trying to kill him and stages his death by letting them believe he fell in quicksand. He watches his funeral from a tree and sees they really did care about him. He then falls out of the tree. After the joyous reunion, he quips that he's never been to a lovelier funeral and they shouldn't let him interrupt.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: When Mr. Howell thinks the castaways are trying to kill him after he includes them in his will, Mrs. Howell looks directly into the camera as she says that she's going to get to the bottom of the events.
- Burying a Substitute: Because Mr. Howell faked falling into quicksand, the other Castaways think it's too dangerous to try to recover a body. They have a funeral with his hat instead.
- Dead Hat Shot: Invoked by Mr. Howell. Unable to outrun the other men, he drops his hat on a patch of quicksand and hides in the nearby foliage. It works, even fooling the Professor.
- False Reassurance: After getting to the bottom of things, Mrs. Howell panics when she realizes that her husband is fleeing to the other side of the island, where she fears some wild animal will kill him. Gilligan tells her she doesn't have to worry about wild animals; on that side of the island, they usually fall in quicksand.
- Inheritance Murder: Mr. Howell changes his will to include his fellow castaways. Then a group of circumstances (e.g., the Professor nearly rolling a boulder on him and Mrs. Howell) make him think they're trying to kill him. However (predictably), that's wrong; they were collaborating on a surprise party for him.
- Out-of-Context Eavesdropping: Mr. Howell overhears the other castaways talking about how to kill the wild boar they caught for the party they're throwing him, and thinks that they're talking about him.
- Parental Substitute: At the funeral, Gilligan and Mary Ann both confess that Mr. Howell was like a father to them.
- Tear Up the Contract: A variant; Mr. Howell changes his will to include all the other Castaways and gives them each a copy for when the time comes. While they're grieving, each of them tears up their respective copy. This moves Mr. Howell to tears; he'd been convinced they were only interested in his wealth.
