A trip to Ma-Ti's village gets interrupted by Verminous Skumm's latest polluting scheme, which doubles as a takeover scheme. He's contaminating water sources with a potion that turns anyone who drinks it into rat people under his command. Ma-Ti and Kwame must find a cure when the other Planeteers are infected.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- And Then John Was a Zombie: Any person who drinks or gets exposed to the rat potion will turn into a rat person who obeys all of Skumm's commands, even if they were trying to stop him minutes before.
- Ant Assault: Wheeler swings on a vine, smacks into a python, and, upon falling back to earth, puts his hand in a fire ant nest. The ants take offense and leave a bunch of sores on his hand.
- Are You Sure You Can Drive This Thing?: While escaping with the infected Wheeler, Linka and Gi in order to bring them to the shaman, Ma-Ti is steering the geo-cruiser. Kwame has doubts from almost the very start – and for a good reason.Kwame: Have you ever done this before?!
Ma-Ti: Yes, of course! Well, not really... once on Hope Island... on the flight simulator... - Blush Sticker: Ma-Ti uses his training from the shaman to make a paste for Wheeler's hand after he gets fire-ant-bitten. When Ma-Ti reveals this, Wheeler, who'd been griping about the trip, gets a couple blush spots.
- Crisis Makes Perfect: Before taking the controls of the geo-cruiser while escaping from Skumm, Ma-Ti had only done one simulation and had apparently crashed. Despite Kwame's terror, he manages just fine.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Linka says she's sick in Russian upon seeing Skumm on the monitor (though technically using the wrong gendered word). She then repeats it in English.
- Kids Driving Cars: Twelve-year-old Ma-Ti takes control of the geo-cruiser while he and Kwame are escaping from Skumm. Kwame isn't sure of this from the beginning, and then Ma-Ti tells him that he's only done one simulation. Unfortunately, by that time they're too far along to switch pilots.
- Nice Guy: Wheeler gripes about the jungle and calls the shaman "silly" while the team is traveling to Ma-Ti's village. When he puts his hand in a fire ant hill, Ma-Ti instantly mixes up a paste for the injured hand. When Wheeler asks how he knew that, Ma-Ti lightly teases him that it's something the shaman taught him.
- Not So Stoic: Kwame, normally one of the calmest of the group, begins sweating and hyperventilating when he finds out that they're engaged in an aerial chase with Skumm and the pilot (Ma-Ti) hasn't even done two lessons.
- Trick-and-Follow Ploy: While the Planeteers escape entirely on their own, Skumm follows them just long enough to attach a tracking device to the geo-cruiser before pretending that they lost him. This allows him to track the transformed Wheeler, Linka, and Gi to South America when Ma-Ti goes to ask the shaman for help.
- Unhand Them, Villain!: While they're in Skumm's lair, Wheeler gets grabbed by some machinery and yells at it to let him go. Skumm obliges...because he's right over a vat of the rat potion.
- Vine Swing: While Wheeler is bored by most of the jungle plants, he immediately sees the potential of a vine and uses it to swing around. Unfortunately, he smacks right into a python.
