The Librarians are caught in a high-tech facility messing with Atlantean stuff-never a good sign. But when they get into a "Groundhog Day" Loop that only Ezekiel can remember, it's up to him to break them all out-or at least keep them alive. Just how far can you push an Anti-Hero before he becomes just a hero?
Tropes:
- Ambiguous Situation: Ezekiel claims to have forgotten everything that happened in the video game loops, but his final expression at the end of the episode hint that he may have been lying about that.
- Bag of Holding: Ezekiel packs a bag with far more weapons and med packs than should be able to fit, and doesn't show any sign of fatigue running around with a backpack full of stuff. Entirely justified, after all, since he is in a video game.
- Bottle Episode: Takes place entirely on a military base, with maybe a few minutes of Jenkins in the Annex.
- Break the Haughty: By the end, Ezekiel is willing to let himself die permanently just because he's sick of watching everyone else die.
- Cliffhanger: Prospero just did...something, and Jenkins immediately forgets it. The only clue we get is the teaser during the credits.
- Death By Genre Savvy: Ezekiel tries to use the tropes of a "Groundhog Day" Loop to figure out how to get past a lock. It gets them all killed because he is Wrong Genre Savvy.
- Double-Meaning Title: The title refers to Ezekiel's ordeal and despair about trying to save the others. It's also a Stealth Pun by way of Expospeak Gag that hints at the fact Ezekiel's true goal is to get from one Save Point to the next.
- Escort Mission: The type of game the Librarians are trapped in. Ezekiel is the player, the others are the escorts, and the rage-people are the enemies.
- Event Flag: Certain events will happen as soon as Ezekiel enters a specific location and there is nothing he can do to prevent them. Before he realizes that he is in a video game, he spends over 60 iterations trying to figure out what causes the outside gate to close. Nothing he does works because the gate closure is a scripted event that will always happen whenever he moves past a certain point.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: The Trope Namer gets name dropped while it's being explained. Anytime one of the group dies, they all get put back to the beginning, with only Ezekiel remembering.
- Hacking Mini Game: Cassandra figures out a lock by matching the colours of the lights to their equivalent musical note. Ezekiel protests that that isn't how locks work until he figures out that it's a mini-game.
- Healing Potion: If a wounded character is given a first aid kit, the injury, including crippling bullet wounds, will be instantly healed.
- Kaizo Trap: The gate closure also works like this, and Unwinnable by Design. There is no way to get through the gate, despite it being the only exit.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: Jones only refers to the zombies as "rage people" but Eve chastises they're not calling them that.
- Only Smart People May Pass: The Hacking Minigame requires a knowledge of physics so Ezekiel brings Cassandra along for that run.
- Platform Game: When they have to climb a pipe Stone asks if it's a platform game. Ezekiel replies that they're just cheating.
- Plot Tailored to the Party: Each part requires using the skills of each of the Librarians. Averted, however, when it becomes clear that the game itself is impossible.
- Quantum Mechanics Can Do Anything: According to Cassandra, superpositioned states can disrupt higher brain function and turn people rabid, or disrupt local space-time into a loop, but not both at the same time. She does mention a magical quantum computer is causing it. In actuality, it brought a video game to life.
- Respawn Point: The titular feature that Ezekiel mistakes for a time loop.
- Rewarding Vandalism: In frustration, Ezekiel starts beating furnishings with a crowbar only for them to disappear and get replaced with a grenade and health pack. It's how he first realises he's in a videogame.
- Rocket Jump: Ezekiel gets the others across a chasm by throwing grenades at their feet to boost their jumps. Baird is wary until he says that rocket jumping is a time honored video game tradition, to which Stone agrees.
- Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: The episode title, 'The Librarians and the Point of Salvation' becomes this when you realize it refers to a video game save point.
- Status Quo Is God: Who knows how many days(weeks, months, years?) worth of Character Development for Ezekiel gets undone at the end. However, the others witnessed the change and know what he is capable of becoming.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial:Ezekiel: The quantum computer is behind this door, which I definitely did not get everyone killed by failing to open.
- Time Loop Fatigue: Ezekiel becomes so fed up with watching his friends die that he tries to destroy the room the loop starts in. This ends up letting him figure out that the team is in a video game.
- Video Game Tropes: How Ezekiel and the others find out it's a Video Game, AND how they eventually escape.
- Wire Dilemma: Ezekiel has to cut one of four wires to open a locked door. If he cuts the wrong wire, the alarm goes off and they are all killed. Since they are in a "Groundhog Day" Loop, he figures that he can just try each wire in order and reset the day if he is wrong. Turns out none of the wires work since it is actually a video game mini-game that does not work like a real electronic system would.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Ezekiel first thinks that he is in a "Groundhog Day" Loop and his attempts to use this to his advantages instead results in Death By Genre Savvy. He is actually inside a video game and the rules are much more arbitrary.
