Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Nels admits he loves his wife, and the same is true with the reverse (Mrs. Oleson loving her husband). For the first time, as Nels spends increasingly long periods on the road, she actually becomes legitimately lonely for her husband, and the same can be said for Nellie and Willie for their father. In the end, Nels admits that, for as much as they aggravate him, he loves his children just as dearly.
Big, Screwed-Up Family: This showcases the dysfunctional dynamic of the Olesons quite magnificently. Nels and Harriet bicker about everything, she undermines his authority (including his trying to put Willie's baseball bat in storage when he chronically leaves it laying around), Nellie and Willie both being brats … on it goes. Nels, admittedly, could be a little more patient and understanding, too.
Fake Guest Star: Richard Bull is credited as a "special guest star," even though he was in 90 percent of the series' episodes and the only one of five characters to appear in all 10 seasons of the series' run.
Gilligan Cut: Right after Harriet comments that she expects Nels to be miserable and missing her (as much as she's missing him), cut to Nels laughing his lungs out at Molly's stories, clearly enjoying himself.
Hen Pecked Husband: This is the episode that shows Nels as henpecked the best. (Out of dozens of episodes where this was already evident).
Likes Older Men: Molly doesn't seem to be into young men, comparing Nels as better than those "college boys shenaniganing around her".
May-September Romance: Molly Reardon, the woman Nels meets while on his traveling mercantile rounds, is 20 years younger than him … and he fails to tell her he's married and has a family.
Oire Land: Molly checks off nearly all the boxes for being television's idea of a "typical Irish lass". Firstly, her name, then she's Catholic, has red hair, throws out a good "faith and begorra" or such every other sentence, dances a mean Irish jig, and likes a little nip in her tea. The only thing she's missing is a scene where she brawls with a leprechaun over his pot o' gold whilst wielding a shilelagh.
Stay in the Kitchen: Played with. After being fed up with being overworked with cooking for his family and the hotel-restaurant, Nels claims that a man's place isn't in the kitchen, even though he's always the one who makes the meals. In the end, when he returns home and Harriet tries to cook him a dinner which winds up overcooked, he admits that he doesn't cook because he's forced by her, but because he genuinely enjoys cooking.
At one point in the episode, Mrs. Oleson is doing inventory and notices that a gold necklace is missing. Nels bluffs an explanation … and in the end of the episode, it is all but a forgotten matter.
What became of Molly after Nels revealed that he was married and left her boarding house is unclear.
