While most of the Guardians fight the Sequids in space, the Lizard League have overcome the few remaining heroes at the missile base. King Lizard shoots Rex in the head, which he unexpectedly survives and then defeats King Lizard before collapsing. Shrinking Rae is revealed to have shrunk down again and survived, bursting out of Komodo Dragon's throat but is in bad shape. Rex and Rae are rushed to hospital by arriving GDA troops.
In space, Rudy creates a device that can incapacitate the Sequids. After a brief argument with the Immortal, Mark uses it to liberate Rus Livingston but in the mean time the Sequids have attached themselves to Rudy and Eve. Mark and the Immortal work together to free these two and they make a break for it. They are waylaid by Martians but since they want execute Shapesmith, the Guardians fight their way past them, offscreen, and escape in a Martian fighter. They are pursued but Mark disables the attacking fightercraft so they can make it back to Earth.
Once home, they discover the fates of the remaining Guardians. The Immortal is devastated by the loss of Dupli-Kate and eulogizes her at a funeral attended by the Guardians.
Mark returns to college but finds things are strained with Amber, although they love each other, they both feel that they are holding the other back and letting them down as they confide in Art and Eve, respectively.
While at Art's, Mark is given copies of Nolan's old sci-fi books which he realizes contains real information about possible threats to Viltrumites and how to fight them.
Allen visits Earth to take Mark to Thaedus and the Coalition of Planets. After a brief scuffle with The Immortal, they talk. Mark refuses to go to space again in so short of time but shares the intel in the books with Allen and promises to fight with him when the moment comes.
Tropes:
- All for Nothing: Invincible and the Guardians successfully rescue Rus and manage to prevent the Sequids from steering the Martian ship to Earth... unfortunately, a Sequid happens to hide itself inside of Rus' stomach. When he vomits in its apartment, that's when it moves to possess him again, meaning the Sequids, one of them at least, made it to Earth anyway.
- And I Must Scream: Possession from sequid not only allows the host some form of awareness, but because sequids are The Sleepless, his body had been active for months without rest.
- Apologetic Attacker: Invincible disables the Martian fighters by tearing them apart and leaving the Martian pilots drifting. As he flies bodily through the cockpit of one, he offers the pilot a nonchalant "Sorry" in passing.
- Bad with the Bone: A fairly gruesome example. Rex uses the blood-soaked bone from his arm stump to beat King Lizard.
- Berserk Button: The instant Immortal sees someone approaching Earth from outer space, he assumes it's Omni-Man and rushes out to confront him. It's actually Allen, who thankfully at this point is strong enough that Immortal poses no threat to him.
- Book Safe: Variation. While nothing physical is hidden in Nolan's books, he still hid something crucial inside them - information that could be valuable against the Viltrumite Empire. All with the perfect cover of being cheesy sci-fi novels.
- Boom, Headshot!: King Lizard shoots Rex in the head, seemingly confirming a Total Party Kill. However, Rex gets back up as the shot wasn't fatal enough to finish him.
- Breather Episode: Slightly downplayed. While there's still a bit of violence and action, the majority of the episode puts a spotlight on character relationships and developing the overhanging arc of the Viltrumites being at large, alongside Allen's having Came Back Strong and Mark providing the key to defeating the Empire via Nolan's books.
- Brick Joke: An Establishing Shot of Pentagon places center focus on the stolen Martian fighter spacecraft crash-landed in front a sign saying "Parking in Rear". This gets no mention whatsoever in dialogue. In a later scene the same shot is used, with the craft now missing but the huge rut it left in the ground still present.
- The Bus Came Back: Rick, William's boyfriend that was kidnapped and experimented on by Sinclair, returns to Upstate after extensive reconstructive surgery provided by the GDA.
- Came Back Strong: Lampshaded when Allen meets Mark again, the latter pointing out how ripped the former is.
- Caught Monologuing: King Lizard gets his face smashed in by Rex, while in the middle of taunting the man after he just survived getting shot in the head by King and was in no mood to listen. Not that he even could, given Rex's ears were still ringing from having a gun go off at point-blank range.
- Cliffhanger Copout: Averted. The last episode ended with King Lizard holding a gun to Rex's head and the latter daring him to pull the trigger, this episode opens to the same scene...and KL does exactly that, shooting the hero in the head. Thankfully Rex is tougher than he looks and after being unconscious for a while, manages to stagger back up long enough to take out the villain.
- Defiant Captive: Nolan pulls this routine on Kregg. He gives no verbal answers to any of his demands, merely a steely stare, even when subjected to a Neck Lift. This angers Kregg quite a bit, making him remark that Earth's society has crippled Nolan.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Zig-zagged. Mark rightly suspects that there's a thread of truth in Nolan's cheesy sci-fi novels, but when Allen confirms that the "Space Rider" is actually a real person known as the "Space Racer", he realizes that the novels are basically a list of everything that can kill a Viltrumite.
- Feel No Pain: Rex is temporarily in this state after getting shot in the head, as apparently, the damage to his brain and his own anger and adrenaline make what should be agonizing injuries completely fail to register for him.
- Gilligan Cut: After defeating the Sequids, the Martians demand the Guardians to hand over Shapesmith (who they refer to as "the great betrayer") so he can face punishment for his actions unwittingly endangering everyone. When Mark learns the punishment is death, he responds "I understand". Cue the Guardians, including Shapesmith, escaping in a stolen Martian ship while being chased by other fighters...
- Heavyworlder: In one of his stories, Nolan recounts a world with such heavy gravity that Viltrumites could barely walk on its surface and the natives had strength equal to their own.
- Hope Spot: Rus Livingston is rescued and is busy cleaning his apartment when he gets the urge to vomit into the sink. The water swirls and a Sequid leaps from it, possessing him once more.
- Hidden Depths: Turns out, the foul-mouthed and anger-prone Rex Splode is, according to Eve, the only person on the planet who still reads physical magazines due to his view that "the Internet sucks". Not just any magazines either, they're home decorating magazines which she thinks has to do with Rex not having a real home growing up.
- Honesty Is the Best Policy: After Debbie rejects several nannies that are obviously GDA spies, the final one flat-out admits Cecil sent her and then explains that her qualifications and specialized skillset are so unique that she can afford to tell Cecil to take a hike if she needs to. This convinces Debbie to hear her out.
- How the Mighty Have Fallen: As General Kregg points out, Nolan has gone from one of the Viltrumite Empire's greatest warriors and conqueror of hundreds of planets to a "weak, sentimental traitor" waiting in a jail cell for his eventual execution and refusing to rejoin the Empire, all because of a "moment" of time on Earth. Kregg takes this to mean Earth and its people are "toxic" and deserve to pay for this crime of destroying one of their finest.
- Ignored Epiphany: Downplayed. Rex describes to Mark how having his life flash before his eyes made him regret treating the women in his life poorly. However, when Eve brings him magazines he focuses on them and keeps cutting her off with interjections, prompting her to give up on continuing the conversation.
- Improbable Weapon User: Rex manages to defeat King Lizard by punching his face in. His tool of choice is the still bleeding, handless stump on his arm with the bone sticking out.
- Instant Expert: Played with. Rudy is able to fly a Martian fighter just fine, but can't figure out the weapons. Shapesmith is no help there, as his only experience with the craft is getting to sit in one during a childhood field trip.
- I Should Write a Book About This: It turns out the books Nolan wrote are thinly veiled retellings of his career as a Viltrumite soldier. Which means they're a treasure trove of information about things truly capable of threatening Viltrumites.
- It Always Rains at Funerals: Not this time. While the sky is full of clouds at Kate's funeral, there's no rain at all. Immortal discusses the trope, stating how Kate would have hated rain.
- Jerkass Realization: Rex realized that he has always been a terrible boyfriend to every girl he's ever dated after he nearly dies from his headshot.
- Made of Iron: Rex somehow manages to not only survive being sliced up by Iguana's claws, his hand being bitten off, and taking a freaking bullet to the brain, he even gets back up and beats down his attacker (with the bloody stump of his arm!), then converses with GDA forces for a bit before collapsing again. He manages to have just enough vitality for the GDA to get him stabilized and on the road to recovery. It probably helps that King Lizard is lazy and shot near the edge of his head, as a shot dead center of his skull probably would have kept him down.
- Manly Tears: Immortal begins to cry after Kate's funeral concludes. It's an indicator of how badly her death has affected him, even with all the other relationships he's had in his centuries of existence.
- Mythology Gag: One of the universes Angstrom Levy travels through in The Stinger is the world of The Walking Dead, which makes a cameo during his fight with Mark in the original comic.
- Not Quite Dead:
- After seemingly being crushed to death and being eaten, Shrinking Rae is revealed to have survived though ends up in critical condition.
- Before that, Rex manages to get back up after being victim to near-fatal Boom, Headshot!, defeating King Lizard and then falling back down when GDA forces arrive.
- Proud Warrior Race Guy: When Mark expresses worry to Allen that his father might already be dead, Allen offers the assurance that it's unlikely as Viltrumites are "weird" when it comes to killing their own people after their great purge, since it happens so rarely. Shortly afterward, it cuts to a Viltrumite detainment facility where General Kregg exposits that for a Viltrumite to be executed, they should be healed and whole in order to better Face Death with Dignity and honor even if their crime was without any of it. Nolan meanwhile, due to his past stellar record of service to the Empire and his power, is even being offered a chance to rejoin his people as a way of redemption, only to piss Kregg off when Nolan makes it clear with his silence he's not interested.
- Reality Is Unrealistic: As over-the-top as it looks, Rex surviving a gunshot to the head (and even standing up afterwards) is actually something that has happened to real
people.- Handguns are relatively weaker when compared to other firearms, and the angle of the shot meant that only a small portion of the right hemisphere was damaged. The bullet also went all the way through instead of breaking up inside of the skull, so tissue damage was more localized.
- Adding to this, high adrenaline would have made it possible for Rex to attack King Lizard in this state, while also making him unaware of pain. This is also why Rex isn't screaming while using his stump to punch, he cannot feel it, and he may have forgotten that his hand was missing. It also helps that Rex has slow, slurred speech in the aftermath, which is a common symptom of brain damage.
- Star Killing: The Infinity Ray, according to Nolan, can destroy entire stars.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Heroes and villains often talk or go on expository rants or trade barbs after some gunplay. In this case however, when King Lizard tries to launch into a smug lecture towards Rex, Rex can barely hear a thing he's saying, since a gun just went off near Rex's head. From Rex's point of view, King Lizard's words are only a half-comprehensible mumble while the ringing in Rex's ears takes up most of his attention.
- There Are No Therapists: Averted, the GDA actually does have them, but Immortal doesn't want to speak to any of them.
- Translation with an Agenda: Allen uses the opportunity as the telepathic go-between for Mark and Immortal while in space, to say "Mark" hates Immortal's beard.
- Trash of the Titans: Shapesmith evidently never bothered to clean up the trash in Rus' apartment. Rus is clearly unhappy about having to clean it up, especially with how rotted and decayed it all is.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Rus ends up disgusted by the rotted food in his apartment that he rushes to the (equally disgusting) sink to puke, and the camera never cuts away.
- Wave-Motion Gun: The Infinity Ray in Nolan's novels is a gun that fires a beam that pierces anything. The example given shows it cutting through a swarm of space piranha and into the star behind them, causing it to go supernova.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Allen, while speaking for Mark, justifiably calls out Immortal for attacking him first and not letting him explain why he’s there, with the Immortal realizing he’s right when he calms down.
- Who Wants to Live Forever?: Discussed. Immortal notes that he's had many lovers over the course of his existence, yet Kate, his most recent one, is affecting him far more intensely than the others, and he's not sure why.
