Time for Egon to save the day
A sphinx is turning Manhattan's intellectuals into blathering idiots as punishment for not solving his riddle. Meanwhile, Egon is depressed over getting old and starts to impose himself in the Ghostbusters' field work.
The page contains the following tropes:
- Compressed Vice: Egon's concerns about his age and usefulness come after he has already participated in several adventures with the current team. This is actually the result of a production snafu; the episode was intended to be set soon after the new team formed but ended up delayed to the point of airing towards the very end of the season.
- Continuity Nod: A Jeopardy! episode references the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Egon and the rest of the original team encountered the Horsemen during "Apocalypse — What, Now?" on their show.
- Feeling Their Age: Egon is now 39 years old and he fears he might be losing his touch.
- Noodle Incident: Egon and Ray got kicked out of a university for attempting to reanimate a dead person.
- Not Helping Your Case: "Look, just because my hair is turning gray, and I'm getting flabby, my eyesight and hearing have diminished, my metabolic rate has slowed down, and I'm no longer producing brain cells, doesn't mean I'm getting old."
- Our Sphinxes Are Different: The Ghostbusters face a sphinx wearing a pharaonic headdress which asks them the famous Riddle of the Sphinx. Its human face is actually a mask hiding a mishmash mass of teeth, eyes and tentacles, which it only removes to drain the intelligence of those it deems to possess the brightest minds that fail to answer its riddle.
- Riddle of the Sphinx: The main question The Sphinx asks his victims to answer. For some reason, most of them don't even know how to answer it since it's very much known in real-life. Thankfully, Egon solves it.
- Riddling Sphinx: The sphinx asks the Riddle of the Sphinx to those it meets, seeking to test their intelligence in order to find the ones with the brightest minds, which it then absorbs. At the end of the episode, Egon is able to answer the Sphinx's riddle, immediately sending it down a Villainous Breakdown since no one answered it correctly before (apparently only Egon had bothered to read up on his Greek mythology), and hence vulnerable to capture.
- Ship Tease: Janine offering to help Egon with his research and later telling him he looks distinguished.
- Shout-Out:
- Garrett recalls seeing Clash of the Titans (1981) at a young age.
- Three of the Sphinx's victims were watching Jeopardy! before he arrived.
- Sore Loser: After getting the right answer, the Sphinx decides to ask another riddle.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: While stuck, Egon confesses that he's feeling his age and how struggling to keep up with his students makes him feel useless. Garrett assures him that the team relies on him for his knowledge and experience.
