With DJ eliminated, and the cooking duties having gone back to Chef, in which the food goes back to tasting terrible, the contestants are put through a disaster movie challenge...which (in the second half) goes horribly wrong!
Tropes:
- Armor-Piercing Question: Ahead of the second challenge, Leshawna balks at getting into the submarine.Chris: [smugly] Not even for a million bucks?
- Bullying a Dragon:Duncan: We'll just float up to the top with the water and open the hatch.
Harold: Funny, you don't look like a thinker.
[Duncan immediately forces him underwater] - Cat Fight: As tensions flare amid rising water, Heather and Leshawna start slapping each other. Duncan quickly breaks it up.
- Chekhov's Gun: The bendy straws Harold took from breakfast, are later used so that Harold can breath when opening the hatch to save everyone.
- Chirping Crickets: Chris asks who is excited for the second disaster-themed challenge. Everyone keeps quiet for the crickets to be loud and clear.
- Comically Missing the Point: After the water is drained, Lindsay says this'll make escaping from underwater a lot easier. Beth and Izzy just glance in embarrassment.
- Disaster Movie: The main theme of this episode.
- Drowning Pit: What the submarine challenge turns into for the campers, due to the gaffer's not having the codes and Lindsay and Justin's idiocy destroying the copy of the codes the grips were given.
- Food as Bribe: Owen agrees not to sue the show after Chris lets him eat with the Gaffers (via a blender).
- Freudian Slip: Worried about possibly drowning, Leshawna starts tearing up. When Harold tries to comfort her by saying she doesn't have to cry, Leshawna angrily insists that she never cries, which is how Duncan figures out about her Crocodile Tears to get a spa trip.
- "Hell, Yes!" Moment: Chris when Harold saves the day.
- Human Ladder: Duncan, Leshawna, and Heather climb on top of each other to reach a hatch on the ceiling. They topple over when Heather's attempt to grab hold of the hatch causes Duncan to lose balance. They don't try again.
- Hypocrite: Izzy calls her teammates loons despite being a crazy Cloud Cuckoo Lander.
- Imaginary Friend: Izzy says that Owen is the only one that gets her outside of her imaginary friends. She acknowledges how she should stop talking to them, only to get into an argument with one (Phil).
- Irony: Owen's teeth and jaw get busted from being hit with Chef's manifesto. Beth comments on the tragic irony of a guy who lives to eat having a broken jaw.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Chris shows concern for the contestants when they almost drown to death considering that without them he's out of a job.
- Knuckle Cracking: One of the things Beth has to say about Brady is that he has a habit of cracking his knuckles. She acknowledges that most people find it gross, but she finds it adorable when he does it.
- Lampshade Hanging:
- For the Gaffers, Chef rigged the ceiling hatch to spew fire when opened. Chris points out that's a bit much.
- Unlike other occasions where the contestants seem to be in life-threatening danger but are actually safe, they really do almost drown this time. In the confessional, Duncan chastises the producers for this, albeit admitting dying on TV would've been a cool way to go.
- Lethal Chef: After DJ's elimination, Chef's cooking makes the food anything but good again.
- Lying Finger Cross: Chris makes a deal with Owen that he can eat snacks with the winning team if he promises not to sue the show for the serious physical harm that's been done to him during a challenge. Owen promises, but just to be sure Chris asks if his fingers aren't crossed. Owen waves his hands in front of him to show he's truthful.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Lindsay and Justin arguing over who gets to try to input the code causes the paper to fall in the water, making it completely unreadable.
- No Sympathy: Sure, the contestants are about to drown, but Chef really wants to unwind and play cards.
- Oh, Crap!: Chris when he realizes the castmates might actually die.
- Only Sane Woman / Sanity Ball: Izzy of all people acts like this for much of the episode, to the point that she screams "I'm surrounded by LOONS!" when Justin and Lindsay get especially clueless.
- Plot Hole: Convinced that they're about to die, Leshawna begins crying. When Harold tries to console her, she recovers and insists she never cries. Despite very clearly crying just a second ago and having no motivation to do that other than sheer desperation, her claim that she never cries convinces Duncan and Heather that she faked her tears in "One Flu Over The Cuckoos". They are correct, but that conclusion doesn't follow from the demonstration that Leshawna does, in fact, sometimes cry.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Chris panics over the contestant's situation… because without them, he's out of the job.
- Rapid-Fire Nail Biting: Chris can't stop biting his nails as he watches and waits if Harold can unlock the hatch fast enough to save all eight contestants from drowning. It's not that Chris is worried about their well-being, but without contestants there's no show and no paycheck.
- Reed Snorkel: A challenge turns into a true drowning risk for the contestants. The only way out is a hatch on the floor, but it needs to be cracked open first and at that point the water is so high that anyone who'd work on finding the code would be slowed down by the need to come up for air. Luckily, Harold has brought along a package of straws taken from breakfast that morning. He has Leshawna link them up for him into one long snorkel so he can work on the hatch without interruption. Courtesy of Harold, everyone gets to live that day.
- Safecracking: Part of the challenge, and what Harold's forced to do to save everyone's lives.
- Sanity Slippage: Chris over how the contestants drowning would put an end to his luxurious lifestyle.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: For the first challenge, all of the Screaming Gaffers cross the finish line, but Chris declares the Killer Grips the winners on the basis of Owen breaking his jaw. He says someone suffering a serious injury counts for more, to which Heather accuses him of making up the rules on a whim.Chris: I love my job.
- Security Cling: When the alarms go off as part of the second challenge, Beth immediately grabs onto Justin and very much enjoys it. He quickly backs away, much to her annoynace.
- Shout-Out:
- The episode title is be a reference to director and producer, Irwin Allen, who was known as the "Master of Disaster" for his movies.
- After Chris shoots Izzy with a golf ball, he says, "I got one!" to which Chef replies, "Don't get cocky, kid".
- The music playing while Harold is opening the hatch is similar to the Mission: Impossible theme.
- Owen utters the phrase "Hey! You dropped your chips in my pop! Hey! You spilled your pop in my chips!" before mixing them together, parodying the Reese's Peanut Butter Cups commercial.
- The way Chris introduces the reward to British Columbia is introduced like how they do it on The Price Is Right. Also, Chef climbing the mountain is a reference to Cliffhanger a game played on the same show which includes a yodeler climbing up a mountain.
- Skewed Priorities:
- While playing cards during the challenge.Chris: Really, it might be time to end the challenge. The water's gettin' pretty high and, uh, those kids are terrible swimmers.
Chef: Focus! I want my chips back. I'm starvin'. - After Owen's jaw is broken, Chris says the crew will get him some medical attention once they're done filming this dramatic moment from every possible angle.
- Jerk as he is about it, Duncan tells Harold to stop bragging about his mad lockpicking skills and to instead do some actual lockpicking before the water gets any higher.
- While playing cards during the challenge.
- Sub Story: The second part of the episode's challenge takes place in a sinking submarine movie prop.
- Surrounded by Idiots: With Beth going on about her supposed boyfriend, Justin being overly clueless, and Lindsay being Lindsay, Izzy feels this is the case.Izzy: I'm surrounded by loons!
Justin: Where?
Lindsay: Oh, I love ducks!
[Izzy screams] - Taking the Bullet: Owen tells the others to get behind him, as he takes the brunt of the golf balls.
- Taught by Experience: Duncan can see reasonably well in the dark, which he attributes to his various nighttime criminal activities.
- Tempting Fate: As everyone starts running up the bridge set as part of the first challenge, Izzy remarks this is actually pretty easy for once. Then Chris activates the shaking.
- Throw the Book at Them: While looking for items to throw at the contestants, Chef finds his unpublished manifesto, a thick book containing his life story. He swings it at Owen and breaks most if not all of his teeth as well as his jaw.
- What the Hell, Hero?: The Gaffers were not happy when they learn that Leshawna used Crocodile Tears to get to the Spa.
