- The Control Voice: The desire to barter and acquire is as deep as any part of human nature. But what happens to values when one barters with a being whose nature is not human at all?
An alien owns a shop and sells items with unique properties.
- The Control Voice: The pursuit of material things is ultimately pointless if one loses the things that are truly valuable to the human spirit.
Tropes:
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: It is implied that Nostradamus received visions of the future due to an item given to him by the alien shopkeeper.
- Character Narrator: This episode features narration from the alien shopkeeper explaining that he was sent to Earth as a penance and that his mission is to help humans by giving them an item in the shop that they need to improve their lives.
- Just Got Out of Jail: Andy Pace has recently been released from prison after serving a sentence for drug dealing and is still on probation. He is desperately searching for a job so that he can support his pregnant wife Gabby and prove to her parents that he is not a deadbeat.
- The Little Shop That Wasn't There Yesterday: Andy Pace runs into Sewell Lane in order to evade the cops, having attempted to steal from an undercover officer, and finds a strange curio shop. The shopkeeper, who is secretly an alien shapeshifter who was sent to Earth as a penance, offers him a wallet. When he later goes to the pub Dentry's, Andy finds that money that he doesn't have keeps appearing in the wallet. He quickly realizes that when he touches someone, all of the money that they have on them appears in his wallet as if by magic. As time passes, Andy becomes increasingly greedy. When his drinking buddies Red and Joe and the Dentry's bartender Phil win $43,000 on a football bet, he touches all of them to congratulate them and all of the money appears in his wallet. However, there is another unintended side effect as a delighted Red announces the melanomas on his hands caused by skin cancer have disappeared. Andy is horrified to find that they have appeared on his hands. He runs back to Sewell Lane to find the shopkeeper but he instead finds a brick wall in place of the shop. The skin cancer spreads all over his body within minutes and he drops the wallet as he has finally realized that it is more trouble than it is worth. As soon as he does so, Andy finds himself back at the moment that the shopkeeper first offered him the wallet. He tells the shopkeeper that he has finally learned his lesson. This episode ends with him and Gabby happily pushing their newborn baby along the street in a stroller.
- Shapeshifting Sound: The shopkeeper shapeshifts into numerous forms over the course of the episode, often accompanied by a soft, mystical-sounding "whoosh."
- Technicolor Eyes: The shopkeeper's eyes glow purple.
- Tuckerization: Andy Pace passes by a building site with a sign for Crocker Construction, a reference to the series' writer and producer James Crocker.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting: The shopkeeper belongs to a species of shapeshifters and assumes multiple forms in his dealings with Andy Pace.
