Mark reunites with his father on Thraxa, while Eve struggles with the ramifications of using her powers.
Tropes:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: The knife hanging from Thula's hair is able to easily cut and seriously wound Mark (who is admittedly weaker than other Viltrumites, but still).
- Adaptational Badass: In the comic arc this episode adapts, Mark was badly outmatched by the Viltrumites he faced off against alongside Nolan, with him at best serving as a distraction and needing Nolan to directly intervene to save his life. While this holds true against Lucan and he is initially helpless against Thula, after being pressured and ordered by Nolan to stop holding back and go for the kill — also gaining motivation at the sight of the innocent Thraxans the Viltrumites have already butchered — Mark rallies and manages to do very well one on one against Thula, to the point of emerging victorious against her. He only loses when he hesitates to land a killing blow, giving Thula the opening she needs to stab him in the stomach.
- Adaptational Context Change: Mark still hugs his father at the start of the episode, showing that there is some love left and he still misses him. That said... he is a lot less forgiving here than the comic version, understandably pissed instead of wanting things to go back to normal. Mark also visibly struggles with the hug itself, to the point that it comes across like he only hugs Nolan because he can't actually bring himself to attack his father, and pulls back pretty quickly to start addressing their unresolved issues. After all, Nolan killed the heroes he thought were his friends, is part of an evil empire, killed thousands of people to get to Mark, brutalized Mark himself (his own son!) for refusing to cooperate, and thought of his wife Debbie as a "pet". It doesn't help that Nolan had the Thraxans bring Mark over to their planet under false pretenses and already seen as their new emperor with a new wife and son to take care of. It's enough for Mark to give his father a few "fuck you's" and wanting to leave forever. Refusing to hear any more explanation from his dad, Nolan's Thraxan wife Andressa becomes the one who tells Mark how her race has an even shorter lifespan than humans.
- Agonizing Stomach Wound: Thula takes Mark out of the fight by stabbing him in the stomach when he hesitates to kill her. While nowhere near as bad as Lucan's guts spilling out, it leaves him helpless when General Kregg arrives.
- Amazing Technicolor Population: Nolan's half-Thraxan son is essentially a purple-skinned Viltrumite. He wasn't kidding about Viltrumite genes being dominant.
- Armor-Piercing Response:
- Nolan feels saddened by the Thraxans being slaughtered, noting that he shouldn't feel this way as a Viltrumite and questions why he feels this way and why it's better that he does. Mark's response to this ends up destroying Nolan's arguments:Mark: This is how you should have felt on Earth!
- Earlier in the episode when Nolan is faced with a deeply angry and hurt Mark he asks what Mark wants him to say. Mark fires back that the first thing Nolan should have said was sorry for what he did to Mark. Nolan's response is ashamed silence, with him not having it in him to actually apologize which drives Mark to try and leave the planet.
- Nolan feels saddened by the Thraxans being slaughtered, noting that he shouldn't feel this way as a Viltrumite and questions why he feels this way and why it's better that he does. Mark's response to this ends up destroying Nolan's arguments:
- Being Good Sucks: After the Viltrumite soldiers lay waste to the Thraxans, Nolan is filled with rage and even throttles Mark over the pain of feeling empathy for them in spite of their "inferiority."Nolan: Why? Why do I care about them? They were weak, short-lived, barely a species. They shouldn't matter to me.
Mark: That doesn't mean they should die.
Nolan: You don't understand! I'm not supposed to feel this way! How is this better?!
Mark: This is how you should have felt on Earth. - Bittersweet Ending: Very much on the bitter side, almost to Downer Ending territory. Despite Mark and Nolan's best efforts to repel the Viltrumite attack on the planet, they are defeated and Nolan is taken away to be executed for abandoning his post while Mark is forcibly conscripted by General Kregg to fulfill his father's mission, like it or not, because the alternative is mass genocide. Meanwhile, back on Earth, Atom Eve is still going through an Heroic BSoD as she's struggling with how her heroics are getting innocent people hurt with how careless she's been, to the point that after almost getting a husband and wife killed while fighting Killcannon in a rage, she decides enough is enough and hangs up her cape to live with her toxic family because the alternative is hurting more people carelessly. The only markedly upbeat points is that Mark and Nolan's sacrifices allow some of the Thraxans to survive the attack, including Mark's half-brother, and that Debbie finally gains the courage to move on from her pain over Nolan and firmly rejects Cecil's advances that keep them tied to his business.
- Blood Knight: After Mark finally gets a decent hit on Thula, she is actually thrilled he is finally starting to fight back.
- Call-Back:
- Telia noted in the previous episode that Viltrumites were known to believe in racial purity, making Mark's very existence noteworthy. In this episode, Nolan alludes to specific rules surrounding breeding with other species as a Viltrumite, but he doesn't go into great depth.
- When the Mauler Twins wake up from the cloning process, the clone is the first to speak, and welcomes the other to the world of the living. Last season, however, Dramatic Irony was at play in knowing this. This time, the Maulers themselves quickly become aware of the fact, leading to the copy's Clone Angst.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Mark spends most of the episode laying into Nolan over his crimes, killing people, beating him up, and calling Debbie a pet, then having the guts to deceive him into coming to Thraxa under false pretenses. It's only because the Thraxans genuinely need his help that he stays.
- Cassandra Truth: After learning of his intention to conquer Earth, Mark doesn't believe Nolan when he says that the Thraxans gave him the throne peacefully. As seen in a flashback, that's exactly what happened.
- Clone Angst:
- The scarred Mauler clones a twin, and thanks to the original's obvious deformities, the clone knows he's a clone and laments it. The scarred Mauler, enjoying being the original, lords it over him and treats him like a servant until the new Mauler gets tired of the treatment and fatally poisons him, as this is exactly why they're not supposed to know.
- Donald also starts to have this in this episode as after finding his glasses in the rubble and watching the security feed of his Heroic Sacrifice, he realizes he shouldn't even be alive. The only problem is, he doesn't know how he came back.
- Curb-Stomp Cushion: Mark learns just how dangerous Viltrumites can be, especially after his own father nearly killed him last season, and even Nolan himself struggles against his fellow soldiers. Mark and Nolan come very close to winning after a brutal battle, and would have if not for Nolan underestimating Lucan's ability to survive being gutted and then impaled.
- Curse Cut Short:
- Subverted for laughs when Mark sees his half-brother.Mark: You've got to be fu— [cut to title card, then back after a few seconds] —cking kidding me!
- Played straight later by Kregg when he socks Mark in the face mid-"go fuck yourself" as he's explaining how Mark must take over Nolan's mission.
- Subverted for laughs when Mark sees his half-brother.
- Defeat Means Respect: Less "defeat" and more a draw, but after the fight on Thraxa ends with all five Viltrumites dead or incapacitated, the Viltrum Empire offers Mark a seemingly sincere attempt to prove himself to them by assigning to him Nolan's original mission on Earth. That being said, they obviously do not trust him to follow through, as Kregg makes it clear to Mark that he's not really being offered an actual choice and that the Viltrumites plan to assimilate Earth either way, regardless of what Mark does.
- Don't Celebrate Just Yet: After Nolan defeats Vidor and Thula, he momentarily lets his guard down to check on Mark. Unfortunately for him, Lucan, who turns out to be Not Quite Dead, proceeds to literally get the drop on him.
- Don't Think, Feel: When Mark is on the losing end in his fight with Thula, Nolan tells him to stop thinking like a human and let his Viltrumite instincts take over, otherwise both of them will get killed. Seeing the dead Thraxans causes Mark to tap into his rage and he manages to gain the upper hand against Thula. Unfortunately, his humanity causes him to hesitate as he's about to deal the finishing blow, allowing Thula to stab him in the gut.
- Driven to Suicide: While flying through space, Nolan notices a black hole and drifts slowly towards it and is very much willing to be consumed by it as he feels too much guilt to continue living. He is only stopped when he notices a Thraxan ship heading straight toward it and decides to save them.
- Easily Forgiven: Subverted Hard, in contrast to how things played out in the comic. Here, Mark — after initially hugging his father — is angry and horrified at his father, going on to aggressively calls him out on several topics: from bringing Mark to him under false pretenses, Nolan's murder of innocents on Earth, his remarks towards Debbie, the fact Nolan noticeably doesn't actually apologize for what he did to Mark, his relationship with another woman while still married to Debbie, and the fact Nolan pressures him to help against the Viltrumites by using his half-brother to guilt-trip him. Mark tries to leave the planet in an effort to get away from Nolan and at one point furiously remarks that Nolan does not have the right to call him son after what he did.
- The Easy Way or the Hard Way: General Kregg's ultimatum to Mark makes it clear the Viltrumite Empire will be conquering Earth one way or the other. The only difference will be if it happens through Mark's hands by whatever means available to him (with the implication he's free to use "just" minimum violence if he's so inclined given the "kill only a few humans" offer) or if the Empire itself has to slaughter millions to make humanity bend the knee.
- Finger Poke of Doom: Lucan shows the gap in strength between him and Mark (when Mark is holding back) by pushing Mark into the floor with a single finger.
- Good Adultery, Bad Adultery: Mark is not happy to see that Nolan took a new wife on Thraxa even though he's still married to Debbie, accusing him of just replacing his family. However, he has no problem with Andressa, as she didn't know Nolan was married until late into their courtship and six months is half a lifetime to her.
- Good Is Not Nice: Nolan may be outright against the Viltrumite Empire now and is starting to care about other forms of life, but as Mark angrily points out, he doesn't actually apologize for what he did to Mark and thousands of innocent people on Earth, even downplaying his rampage as a "mistake" which prompts Mark to go Screw This, I'm Outta Here. He notably also lied to acquire Mark's help and emotionally manipulates him to get his help. To Nolan's credit, it's for a good cause and he does regret what he did, but these less positive traits are still present in him.
- Gutted Like a Fish: Nolan stops Lucan by slashing his stomach open then impaling him on a stalactite. Unfortunately, while this does incapacitate him for a while, he gets back up and snaps Nolan's spine with a sneak attack just after his partners have been killed, then calls in a ship to retrieve him and Nolan.
- Head Crushing: Nolan does this to Vidor, punching his head from both sides with such intensity that his eyes bulge out of their sockets and his skull messily and painfully fractures under the skin. This doesn't kill him though, so Nolan knocks him down and begins stomping on his head while condemning him for killing Thraxans. He's forced to stop before finishing the job to save Mark from Thula.
- History Repeats: Like at the start of the Mauler Twins' career, the original/clone distinction is made clear, thanks to one of them having the scarring from Angstrom's explosion and the other being totally clean. This works out with the original putting himself on a high pedestal next to his clone, making his clone do all the work while he just stands around and gives orders, only for the clone to poison him, hinting that he'll go back to the ambiguity for his next clone.
- Hope Spot: After stabbing himself in the arm, Donald sees the blood pour from his wound and feels the pain from it, giving him a sense of relief before noticing the dent on the knife.
- Internal Reveal: Donald learns that he blew himself up last season.
- Interrupted Suicide: Nolan comes very close to throwing himself into a black hole, but stops when he sees the Thraxan ship in trouble, choosing to rescue them.
- Jawbreaker: Nolan saves Mark from Thula by elbowing her jaw with enough force to completely destroy it. She's last seen choking on her own blood.
- Maligned Mixed Marriage: Nolan explains to Mark that Viltrumites are only supposed to interbreed with genetically similar species, and the Thraxans are about as dissimilar from Viltrumites as one can get. If his son is found, he'll be killed without even getting a chance to prove himself as Mark does later in the episode.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Granted, Nolan leaving Earth alone isn't exactly a "good deed", so much as "not following through" with his true mission. He does help the Thraxans during his exile, which eventually allows the other Viltrumites to kill some of them to punish and antagonize Nolan.
- "No More Holding Back" Speech: Mark is initially no match for Thula, until Nolan tells him that he needs to start fighting like a Viltrumite: kill or be killed. When Mark does so, he's able to narrowly get the better of Thula, until he hesitates on the killing blow and she stabs him in the stomach.
- Not Quite Dead: Lucan delivers a decisive blow against Nolan, even with his entrails spilling out after being stabbed in the caves earlier. He tells Nolan to make sure an enemy like him is truly dead before he contacts his higher-ups for pickup and succumbs to his wounds. Lucan is last seen on a stretcher, but his fate is still unknown.
- Papa Wolf: No matter what happens, Nolan is determined to protect both Mark and his half-Thraxan son from the threat of his people; even if the former can't stand the sight of him.
- Poisoned Drink Drop: A variant as "King" Mauler actually falls to his knees and cracks the lemonade glass he was holding in the process.
- Post-Victory Collapse: Lucan is the last one standing amidst the Viltrumite slugfest, remaining conscious long enough to contact reinforcements before collapsing from his wounds.
- Rapid Aging: Though Nolan's half-Thraxan son is mostly Viltrumite, he still ages much faster than a human or Viltrumite infant, already looking like a six-month-old despite being much younger than that.
- Robotic Reveal: Implied. Donald seems to suspect he isn't human anymore and jams a knife into his forearm to check. He's initially relieved when it hurts like hell and red blood pours from the wound... until he sees the tip of his knife has crumpled from the impact. The exterior may act like or even be real flesh, but there's definitely something much sturdier further down.
- Sadistic Choice: General Kregg orders Mark to take his father's place as Earth's conqueror, even if that means he has to kill a "few humans" to put them in line. Otherwise, if the planet hasn't submitted to Viltrumite rule by the time another Viltrumite arrives to check on his progress, they'll kill millions to correct that mistake.
- Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: Omni-Man claims Mark would have to travel millions of miles to get home. A single light-year is trillions of miles and the nearest galaxy, which is the closest to Earth they could plausibly be, is millions of light-years away.
- Self-Mutilation Demonstration: After watching the video of him blowing himself up, Donald tries to determine what he is by stabbing himself in the arm. He is initially relieved to see normal human blood pour from the wound... until he takes a closer look at the knife and sees that the tip has bent.
- Status Quo Is God: The scarred Mauler Twin wants to create a clone army now that he's sure he is the original, only to be killed off by his clone, ensuring that the next version won't know who's the "original".
- Suddenly Shouting: Mark's anger damn near boils over when Nolan seemingly trivializes his actions on Earth, saying he "made a mistake".Nolan: Mark. Look... I made a mistake. And I've thought about you every day since...
Mark: (enraged) A "MISTAKE"!? - Tampering with Food and Drink: The clone of Mauler is giving the scarred original some lemonade. He then comments on how it tastes terrible and hopes the next clone will be a better cook. Then he falls on his knees and we learn why it tastes terrible.Mauler #2: My bourguignon is exquisite, you jackass. And so is my lemonade. (Beat) When it's not laced with a modified mycotoxin, that is.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: When General Kregg orders Mark to take his father's place as Earth's conqueror, he acknowledges that Mark might find doing so difficult given his "sympathies" and suggests he will only have to kill a few humans to make a point.
- Too Dumb to Live: Combined with Aesop Amnesia; The Mauler Twins noted last season that they have to make their mental duplication process seamless, otherwise one of the two knows that he's the clone, which, in their own words, never ends well. This makes it particularly dumb for the scarred Mauler to treat his clone like a glorified servant, and rather predictably, the clone poisons "King Mauler" at the end of the episode to restore the status quo.
- The Unapologetic: Nolan is well aware of his actions last season, and seems to feel bad about them, but he doesn't once apologize during his talk with Mark. Mark harshly tells his dad that a simple "sorry" would have been a start of at least trying to redeem himself, but follows that it wouldn't have meant anything in the end.
- Uncertain Doom:
- The fate of Nolan's Thraxan family is unclear. The last we see of them, they're heading deeper into the caves. Lucan, who was left in there with them, may or may not have killed them prior to his sneak attack on Nolan.
- Unlike Lucan and Nolan, who are seen being tended to by their fellow Viltrumites, Vidor and Thula's bodies aren't seen being recovered, leaving it unclear as to whether they survived the severe injuries Nolan inflicted on them.
- What Is This Feeling?: Nolan actually cares about the Thraxans and is sad that they are being slaughtered. He is completely confused as to why he feels this way and questions Mark why it's better that he does.
- When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Eve mocks Killcannon for being a one-trick pony.Eve: Shooting, shooting, shooting! I guess when your arm's a gun you only have one trick.
Killcannon: It's a good trick!
Eve: Not tonight, it isn't. - The Worf Effect: You thought Omni-Man was a terrifying force by himself? Even he struggles against three of his fellow Viltrumites and is eventually subdued.
- Worthy Opponent:
- All three of the Viltrumites sent to execute Nolan speak of him with a measure of reverence towards his strength despite his act of treason, even addressing him as "the Great Nolan", to the point they give Mark passing respect by virtue of just being his son despite being much weaker than any of them at first. This only further encourages their Blood Knight tendencies to slug it out against him and Mark instead of having some measure of reservation out of respect.
- Thula in particular seems to show a bit more respect for Mark once he stops holding back, even if she subtly mocks him afterwards for hesitating when he had her dead to rights.
- You Are Too Late: Nolan lured Mark to Thraxa in the hopes of training him to help resist the Viltrumites when they inevitably show up. "Inevitably" turns out to be about five minutes after Mark arrives.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Nolan was a superhero on Earth, but it was a front to prepare it for Viltrumite invasion until he left following his fight with Mark, abandoning his mission. For this chain of events, he is a fugitive of both Earth and Viltrum. He ends up ruling Thraxa but, sooner or later, his people will find him.
