You figure four masked men with guns broke in here to steal her secret apple dumpling recipe? Jealous neighbor maybe?
— Kaleb Miller explains at length why this is all McKay's fault.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Henry Wallace stole classified materials (treason), kidnapped two people (and infecting them with malfunctioning nanites as incentive to help him), and basically destroyed his life to save his daughter. The nanites work as they do once fixed for all of a couple hours before their "repairing" of Sharon Wallace's heart leaves her in a vegetative state. Then she starts to suffer internal bleeding that the nanites can't repair and subsequently dies, meaning he doesn't even get to say goodbye to his daughter.
- The Atoner: Wallace after the nanites leave his daughter in a vegetative state and learn that the ones he infected Jeannie will definitively kill her if not fixed. The parallels between his family and hers is enough to give his life so Todd has the strength to finish repairing the flawed coding.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Thanks to the siblings, Wallace gets what he wants when the nanites cure his daughter's cancer...then they shut down her heart to repair the murmur depriving her of oxygen. The brain damage "resets her to zero" as McKay states: meaning that Wallace's daughter would live for a long time but in a vegetative state if not for sudden internal bleeding she suffered when the nanites ran out of steam.
- Buy Them Off: McKay's imposed penance for the events of the episode includes eating vegetarian food without complaining, reading his niece extra bedtime stories, and buying Jeannie's family a Prius. May be a subversion, since, rather than actually being insincere, he's doing all this to hide the fact he actually attempted the Redemption Equals Death route (but was preempted).
- Convenient Coma: Jeannie is placed into a medical coma while the others hurry to find a solution.
- Dramatic Irony: Over three years after the Wraith learned of Earth's existence, a Wraith (Todd) finally sets foot on the planet and in the SGC itself...and it's as a prisoner rather than as a conqueror. Ironically, said Wraith does at least get to feed on another human...
- Driven to Suicide: McKay offers to feed himself to the Wraith to save Jeannie, but Sheppard makes Wallace do it instead.
- Dynamic Entry: Comically averted. McKay attempts to kick down the door, but Agent Barrett preempts him by calmly opening it.
- Empty Shell: Sharon's fate after the nanites shut her down for repairs and damage her brain in the process. Rodney points out that it's not exactly a vegetative state, since the nanites will inevitably repair the damaged brain tissue, but Sharon has effectively been reset to zero. It ends up being moot when the nanites run out of power in the middle of repairing the damage, causing her to bleed out from all the arteries they were in the middle of fixing.
- End of an Age: Meta example. This episode marks the final crossover appearance of Agent Malcolm Barrett on Atlantis and his final appearance in the franchise (ending a run that had begun 6 years earlier with the SG-1 episode "Wormhole X-Treme!".)
- Flawed Prototype: Wallace injects Sharon with the nanites before the coding as been completely ironed out, making them even more destructive than the cancer already killing her. Even after that's corrected, the nanites indiscriminately repair everything they perceive to be wrong with the host, regardless of any damage they cause along the way (which they can also fix), which results in Sharon being rendered a vegetable through oxygen deprivation when they shut down her heart. And for a final kick in the teeth, the nanites can't replicate so they have a finite lifespan, powering down mid-operation and killing Sharon in the process.
- Gone Horribly Right: The nanites, which work too well, repairing not only the cancer but every defect they can find, regardless of the effect on the host.
- Heroic Sacrifice: McKay intends to feed himself to Todd so the Wraith can save Jeannie. He informs Sheppard of this. Sheppard promptly makes other arrangements.
- Manipulative Bastard: When presented with the incontrovertible fact that Todd can't work any more without feeding, and the NID aren't exactly going to serve up a human snack, McKay plans to sacrifice himself to save his sister. Sheppard responds by calmly and quietly presenting the situation to a horror-struck Wallace, bringing along pictures of Jeannie's husband and daughter, to hammer the situation home... before explaining Todd's dietary requirements. When McKay finally manages to get into the lab holding Todd again, he sees Todd up and about, finishing off the coding, while Wallace's body is being zipped up in a body-bag. McKay is horrified, but grateful.
- Most Definitely Not a Villain: Despite Sheppard giving Ronon a nice suit so he can blend in on Earth, Ronon points out he'll still stand out. He's right.
- Off Stage Waiting Room: Ronon gets briefly stuck in one and is forced to listen to Walter's stories.
- Out of Focus: This episode focuses heavily on Rodney. Sheppard is secondary and Ronon does next to nothing. Teyla and Carter do not appear. Even Atlantis itself is only seen a few times.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Todd has to be brought into the SGC to help McKay with reprogramming the nanites. Unsurprisingly, any attempts to appeal to him on humanitarian grounds fall flat. Todd is not human, nor does he care about Jeannie's life. On the contrary, if circumstances were different, he would have happily fed on every human in the room. He only agrees to help when Rodney makes a convincing case that it's an important step towards defeating the Asuran replicators.
- Redemption Equals Death: How Sheppard sells Wallace on the idea of feeding himself to a Wraith.
- Sequel Episode: To Season 3's "McKay and Mrs. Miller".
- What the Hell, Hero?: McKay gives Sheppard a very mild version at the end of the episode, rendered more unusual by ending it with "thanks."
