Gaia sends the Planeteers to Thailand when a mysterious force begins trashing the country, leaving the locals at the risk of starvation. Teamed up with Gi's friend Nuo, they discover that the culprit is Hoggish Greedly, strip-mining for rubies using a machine disguised as a dragon from a local legend.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Act of True Love: While running away from the dragon beast, Linka catches her foot in a root system. She and Wheeler both try to free it, but can't do so in a hurry. Despite Linka begging him to run (thus giving him an out), Wheeler shields her and tries to ward the dragon off with the fire from his ring. When this proves unsuccessful, he proceeds to lure the beast away from Linka, risking his life to save her.
- Almost Kiss: Wheeler and Linka go off to search for clues together, and Wheeler takes advantage of the opportunity to flirt. For once, Linka appears to be in a receptive mood, and the two are leaning toward each other when the arrival of the dragon kills the moment.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: When Wheeler disappears after luring the dragon away from her, Linka is at the point of tears, saying she'll never forgive herself if something happened to him.
- Bad Boss: After Gi floods the base, Rigger hangs onto Greedly, begging his boss to save him. Greedly dismisses him, saying he's saving himself. However, he's too busy hanging onto a pipe to try to throw him off.
- Bullying a Dragon: When Greedly catches Gi sneaking Wheeler out the back way, he tells them that he didn't say they could leave. Gi proceeds to burst the flood wall with her water powers.
- Defiant Captive: Being shackled to a wall doesn't keep Wheeler from mouthing off to Greedly.
- Deliberately Distressed Damsel: Gender-flipped. Upon seeing Wheeler for the first time after he lured the dragon away from her, Linka throws herself into his arms in relief. Wheeler tells her that if he'd known getting captured would produce this reaction, he'd have gotten himself caught more often.
- The Dissenter Is Always Right: In an inversion of the usual, Wheeler is the only one of the Planeteers who is convinced from the start that the dragon is fake.
- Draw Aggro: While attacking the dragon with fire doesn't work, it does focus on Wheeler after he does so. He takes advantage of this to lead it away from Linka so she can free her caught foot.
- Empathic Weapon: Ma-Ti's Heart Ring is unable to scan exactly where Wheeler is, because Hoggish Greedly's evil blocks out most of the ring's ability to detect. However, he does pick up some vital clues.
- The Glomp: Linka throws herself at Wheeler after Gi brings him back safely.
- Go Through Me: When the dragon corners him and Linka (whose foot is trapped), Wheeler steps forward to confront the beast and tries to drive it away with a fire blast.
- Help, I'm Stuck!: When the dragon shows up during their search for clues, Linka gets her foot stuck in a network of tree roots. Wheeler tries to help her untangle it but can't quite make it budge.
- I Shall Taunt You: Wheeler calls the dragon "stupid superstition" as he tries to draw it away from Linka.
- It Doesn't Mean Anything: Wheeler decoys a dragon wrecking the country from Linka when her foot sticks fast in a tangle of roots, resulting in an extremely warm welcome when he comes back. At the end, Wheeler remarks that he thinks he'll miss Thailand. This surprises Linka because he didn't initially want to be there. Wheeler answers that her hugging him changed his mind, and Linka tries to downplay it by saying that Wheeler was just a better option than the dragon. After she turns away, Wheeler's face switches to a "kicked puppy" expression.
- I Will Only Slow You Down: Linka gets her foot stuck during one of the dragon attacks, and when Wheeler can't pull it loose, she begs him to leave her and save himself. Unsurprisingly, he refuses.
- Jabba Table Manners: Greedly stuffs his face during multiple scenes, sometimes splashing other people.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: The Planeteers arrive in Thailand and find out that a dragon is ravaging the countryside. Of course, they split up to look for clues. It takes Wheeler and Linka all of ten seconds to get distracted from the mission and move in for a kiss... which is when the dragon shows up again.
- Logical Weakness: Inverted; Wheeler attempts to burn the dragon with his Fire Ring, only to find it's fireproof.
- Never Smile at a Crocodile: Wheeler and Gi get attacked by crocodiles while in the river.
- Panthera Awesome: While Nuo is guiding the team through the country, Wheeler encounters a tiger. Luckily, it's not interested in him, but he's a bit shaken and Kwame teases him about letting the "pussycat" scare him.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: The "dragon" turns out to be a mining machine. Hoggish Greedly disguised it to look like a creature from one of the village's legends so that it would scare off the locals.
- Tempting Fate:
- Wheeler asks if Nuo is kidding them when he tells the Planeteers that some say a dragon is responsible for the destruction, claiming that it couldn't be real. He eats his words when the dragon shows up. (However, it does ultimately turn out to be a machine rather than an actual dragon.)
- Greedly scoffs at Gi threatening him with her water powers, saying that the wall is supposed to keep the river out. It doesn't for very long once Gi begins manipulating the river.
- Terror At Makeout Point: Downplayed; Wheeler and Linka get distracted from clue-hunting and lean in for a kiss... and then the dragon shows up. It comes after them, and Linka's clearly convinced it wants to kill them. However, Wheeler attacks it and then decoys its attention to keep it away from her. While Wheeler remarks about its sharp teeth when it finally catches him, it doesn't inflict any lethal damage.
- Underequipped Charge: When Linka catches her foot in some roots, keeping her from running away from the dragon, Wheeler plants himself in front of her and blasts it with his ring. Wheeler is a strong ordinary human with a power ring; the dragon is large and powerful enough to uproot trees and easily fit a human in its mouth... and it turns out to be invulnerable to fire, forcing him to go with distraction techniques instead.
- What's an X Like You Doing in a Y Like This?: Captain Planet quips, "What's a nice guy like me doing in a dive like this?" while diving into the water to put out the fire the dragon caused.
