When Buddy starts behaving strangely, Rob tries to figure out what's wrong. Initially, he guesses that his coworker is seeking psychiatric help, but when he finds out that Buddy's wife doesn't know anything about it, his suspicions grow more sordid. Can the pair sort things out before a big blowup occurs?
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Artistic License – Linguistics: Rob says shalom to Buddy to congratulate him. Buddy explains that the proper term for congratulations in Hebrew is mazal tov, whereas shalom means "goodbye." While it's true that mazal tov means congratulations and that shalom can mean "goodbye," it can also mean "hello," and its literal meaning is "peace"—so it doesn't sound as awkward in the context Rob uses it as Buddy implies.
- Call-Back:
- Rob refers to Buddy looking the same way as he's been looking recently when he walked out on his wife, presumably referring to the extremely early episode "Divorce."
- Buddy invites Mel to his bar mitzvah along with his long-time friends and coworkers Rob and Sally, presumably due to the mild truce they reached during "The Bottom of Mel Cooley's Heart."
- Continuity Nod: At one point, Buddy offers a sketch idea: Alan walks into a barber shop, hands the barber his wig, and asks him to wash and cut it while Alan does something else. Rob rejects it, saying that Alan doesn't like reminding people about his baldness, presumably referring to "Coast-to-Coast Bigmouth".
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Downplayed; Sally refers to Buddy's strange behavior as not being "his usual awful self", and when Rob asks why he kept everything a secret, Buddy quips that doing something nice would ruin his reputation if it got out. However, despite the stress of preparing for everything, Buddy goes through with a bar mitzvah thirty years late because it will make his mother happy.
- I Have This Friend: Played with. When he gets stuck with the job of straightening Buddy out, Rob awkwardly begins a story about a friend of his who met a woman and fell in love with her and began lying to his wife and friends to see her. After suspecting Jerry (and being told it isn't him), Buddy asks Rob if he's referring to himself. Rob is actually trying to refer to what he thinks is going on with Buddy, in a very roundabout way.
- Mistaken for Cheating: When Rob finds out that Buddy has been lying to Pickles about whatever he's doing, he wonders if he's having an affair. Sally is incredulous, considering Rob and Buddy the men she knows least likely to cheat on their wives. However, she begins to believe it, especially when a woman named Dorothy leaves a message for Buddy to let him know that her husband will be home at 5:00 that day. The episode even plays the trick on the viewers themselves; Dorothy and Buddy's behavior and dialogue looks and sounds very much like a mistress begging her lover not to break off their affair. However, Dorothy is the wife of Buddy's rabbi; it's her husband he's really been sneaking out to see because he's finally getting bar-mitzvahed.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Buddy is for once very sincere and non-jokey as he gives his bar-mitzvah speech.
- Rags to Riches: Downplayed; while Buddy's situation in present day isn't wealthy, it is comfortable. As a child, his family was so poor that he couldn't take time off from work to get confirmed.
- Sustained Misunderstanding: Rob tries to confront Buddy over cheating on Pickles with another woman, and Buddy tells Rob that the woman who left the note is his rabbi's wife. Rob is even more scandalized that Buddy is cheating on Pickles with his rabbi's wife. Luckily, it only takes Buddy a few more sentences to clear things up.
- Tender Tears: Apparently Mel was touched enough to begin crying during the bar mitzvah ceremony. When Laura brings it up, he retorts that she was also crying, though she says she's "allowed."
