A cold germ named Tony makes his way throughout Human Resources.
Tropes:
- Alien Blood: The goblin that Anthony Piñata squeezes to death explores into excessive amounts of purple blood.
- Blatant Lies: Once Gil gets infected he announces he's going to sneeze all over the donuts in the break room. Joe tries to stop him but Gil justifies it as a reflex he can't help, even though he's holding back long enough to explain that and grabbing the box of donuts to do so.
- Caretaker Reversal: Invoked, then subverted. Maury gets so invested in taking care of Connie, he invokes Münchausen Syndrome on her to keep her under his thumb. To get her out of it, Connie and Tony deliberately infect Maury so she can "take care" of him in turn. He gets excited about this... but she just calls his craziness out and leaves.
- Caught in a Snare: Petra's coworkers have to snare her with a rope (baiting her with 5 Hour Energy) to keep her from Working Through the Cold.
- Elevator Going Down: While taking the elevator out of the Hate Division, Emmy finds the Spaghetti Man fucking Mona there.
- Hidden Depths:
- Previous episodes seemed to depict Hope as a Fair-Weather Friend that immediately leaves after the first disappointment, which is why Petra hates her so much. However, Hope miserably works while suffering a cold, because she's the only one providing hope to humans and she refuses to leave them all to despair, earning respect from Petra.
- We're given insight into Van's nihilistic hedonism. She outlives every single one of her clients and doesn't want to keep going through that pain, so she keeps her emotional distance.
- Infection Scene: We see Tony jump from monster to monster, infecting them all. First he goes from his house on Joe's keyboard and hitch a ride on Joe's finger right up his nose, infecting him. Joe infects Gil by deciding to kiss him, and Gil sneezes all over the office donuts. Tyler gets sick after eating a donut, then immediately sneezes Tony into Connie's coffee. It spirals from there, as every infection gets a close-up showing Tony jumping to the next monster.
- Instant Illness: The second Tony touches any monster, they get sick immediately.
- "Kiss the Cook" Apron: Maury's apron says "Kiss the Cock," of course.
- Münchausen Syndrome: Maury invokes Munchausen by proxy once he realizes how much a sick Connie needs him to dote on her, feeding her tainted soup and going crazy doting on her. Connie turns it around by infecting Maury.
- Plague Episode: The episode is about a cold virus named Tony spreading throughout the office.
- Playing Sick: Pete pretends to have a cold so he can go home and use his new label maker. However, he runs out of labels within the day and has to sneak into the office to steal more. He feels so guilty when Lionel catches him that he asks Lionel to make him sick as a punishment.
- Pyrrhic Victory: Tony has a very successful day moving from Joe's keyboard throughout the entire office. By coincidence, Petra sneezes him back onto Joe's computer, which leads to Petra disinfecting it, killing him and his whole family.
- Self-Duplication: Tony multiplies as he spreads, grunting in pain the first time this is shown as apparently it hurts everything he does.
- Shout-Out: Mona learning to play chess to cope with her sex withdrawal alludes to fellow Netflix show The Queen's Gambit.
- Sneeze of Doom: Gil sneezes all over the donuts after getting sick, allowing Tony to multiply quickly and ensuring the whole office will get sick.
- Tempting Fate: Gil tells a sick Joe to French kiss him because he never gets sick. Obviously, that turns out to not be true, and thus the office epidemic begins.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Rochelle talks shit about Van's name — "Bitch, was the other option 'Station Wagon'?"
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Through the ghosts of her former clients, we finally understand why Van is such an hedonistic nihilist — she's deeply upset that her human clients all die (sometimes while still young) while she's immortal, so she tries not to get attached anymore.
- Working Through the Cold: Petra, being an Ambition Gremlin, refuses to accept she's sick and tries to fight her way through her cold. She infects so many other people that her coworkers have to stage an intervention. Hope gets sick too, and wants to take a day off, but can't due to being the only one providing hope to humans.
