The Turtles must defend their home in the sewers when Bradford tries to destroy it with a dangerous chemical.
This episode provides examples of:
- Anxiety Dreams: Splinter's nightmare is of Shredder killing the turtles.
- Breather Episode: After the Wham Episode that was The Gauntlet.
- Call-Back: The Purple Dragons are back from Never Say Xever, and they're still using the fortune cookie factory as their hideout.
- April refers to her training with Splinter to be a kunoichi, which has not been mentioned since Monkey Brains.
- The turtles are still using ninja smoke bombs.
- The T-phones are back.
- Mikey names the new mutant enemy again.
- The Cameo: Xever makes a non-speaking appearance in one scene. Justified, since he's now a mutant fish and can no longer breathe without water.
- Spike also makes a brief appearance.
- Catapult Nightmare: Splinter has one at the beginning of the episode.
- Chekhov's Gun: Mikey's water balloons and Donnie's patrol buggy.
- Damsel in Distress: April is caught by Bradford, quickly Bound and Gagged, and the turtles have to come to her rescue. To her credit this is only the second time she's been kidnapped in the series and this occasion only occured because she succeed in finding out Shredder's Evil Plan beforehand, and pulled off (clumsy) Roof Hopping to do so.
- Divide and Conquer: Thanks to the Patrol Buggy's detachable sidecars, the Turtles can split to chase down two separate vehicles. While Donnie and Raph go to save April from Fong's van, Leo and Mikey go to stop Dogpound's tanker truck.
- Doomed Hometown: Invoked. Shredder knows the turtles are in the sewers, so he plans to destroy the sewers in order to kill them. Thus, the turtles have to defend their home from being doomed.
- The Door Slams You: Crosses into Toyota Tripwire as Bound and Gagged April can only kick a truck door open into a Purple Dragon's face.
- Dumbass Has a Point:Mikey: What? We live in a sewer. Now you're clean freaks?
- Embarrassing Old Photo: April's school ID
◊. Yikes. - Foreshadowing: Once again provided by Space Heroes.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The abovementioned student ID is flashed very fast indeed to pass for a building inspection ID.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Captain Ryan slaps himself this time.
- Get Out!: Dogpound says this to the driver of the tanker truck.
- Hammerspace: Mikey pulls those last two water balloons out of thin air. Lampshaded by Leo asking "Where do you keep them?"
- I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: Raph just before he quotes the Space Heroes line to Leo.
- Insistent Terminology: Donnie corrects everyone who calls his patrol buggy a go-kart.
- Let Me Get This Straight...: Bradford reports his failure to Shredder at the end of the episode and Shredder tries to understand exactly what he has been told. His tone of voice makes it clear he is more confused than angry.Shredder: They defeated you with go-karts and a water balloon?
- Meaningful Echo: Raph quotes a line from Space Heroes to snap Leo out of his anxiety. Leo replies with another quote.Raph: Get it together, Captain! You're our leader! Start acting like it!Leo: You're right, Raph. That was the anxiety ray talking.Raph: (Beat) That's it? You're not gonna slap yourself?
- My God, What Have I Done?: Splinter's over-training the turtles left them all exhausted and paranoid, making them more susceptible to an attack than before. He realizes this by the end of the episode, and apologizes.
- Never Say "Die": Averted. Splinter does not sugarcoat the danger that the Shredder poses to the turtles.Splinter: Rest? The Shredder will not rest...until you are all dead!
- Never Trust a Trailer: Much like the previous episode, the commercials for this make it look as if the plot revolves around Mikey declaring a prank war and only shows scenes of him hitting his brothers with water balloons.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While well-intentioned, Splinter's fear of losing the Turtles to Shredder leads him to put them through weeks of Training from Hell with barely any sleep to ensure that they'll be able to survive another fight with him. All he succeeds in doing is making the Turtles paranoid and anxious, leading to the Foot nearly succeeding in destroying their home. Once the situation is settled, Splinter acknowledges his mistake and apologizes for letting his fear infect them.
- Nightmare Sequence: After a nightmare of Shredder killing his sons, Splinter snaps and puts them through weeks of Training from Hell to ensure they'll be ready to face him again.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: The Shredder's (in Splinter's dream) eyes glow red when he corners Leo.
- Recurring Extra: The fishmonger from Never Say Xever and The Gauntlet makes another cameo.
- Water Guns and Balloons: No guns, just balloons for Mikey.
- Training from Hell: After having a nightmare of Shredder killing the Turtles, Splinter panics and forces them to train much harder than before, with barely any sleep, for weeks on end in a misguided effort to ensure they'll be able to survive another fight with him. Unfortunately but unsurprisingly, this ends up backfiring since Splinter's harsh training drills makes the Turtles overtly paranoid and afraid to confront their opponents, which jeopardizes their mission.
- What a Piece of Junk: The patrol buggy. Although Donnie insists that it's not ready yet, it still has some nifty features and allows the Turtles to catch up with the bad guys. Then again, it falls apart when the chase is over.
- Where's the Fun in That?: Leo's response to Raph telling him he could have given a warning when he was bout to split the Patrol Buggy.
- Wig, Dress, Accent: April disguises herself as a pizza delivery boy simply by wearing a coat, a hoodie over her head and talking in a deeper voice. It's good enough to fool the Purple Dragons, but not the Foot.
