A new mineral-rich asteroid is sighted heading for Mars, leading to the M-7 nations to scramble for a new capture mission.
Tropes:
- Allohistorical Allusion: With no World Wide Web to popularize the Internet, President Gore's gaffe is not his memetic claim to inventing the Internet
, but that he found the Goldilocks asteroid. - Artistic License – Economics: The asteroid is said to be worth in the neighborhood of $20 trillion, though thousands of tons of iridium flooding the markets would cause prices to crash, making it worth far less.
- But Now I Must Go: Dev decides to head for Mars to supervise the asteroid capture, and he makes it clear to people that he doesn't intend to return to Earth.
- Call-Back: Palmer mentions his admiration for Ed when he took the blame for Apollo 10 before Congress.
- Driven to Suicide: Danny's fate is revealed. He killed himself after several weeks of manning the North Korean capsule on his own.
- Flashback B-Plot: Throughout the episode Danielle flashes back to when the original Happy Valley base was struggling to survive in the 1990s, to show how Danny died.
- Internal Reveal: Palmer tells Danielle that he saw a tremor in Ed's hand, making her aware of his health problems.
- It's All About Me: President Gore makes a speech in which he claims credit for discovering the asteroid, not the M-7 alliance, or America, or even NASA.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Danni gives one to Ed at the end of the episode alongside a Precision F-Strike
- They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: Palmer consistently calls Ed "Admiral Baldwin" as a sign of respect.
- We ARE Struggling Together: The various M-7 partners all begin scrambling to try to lay claim to Goldilocks, even though no one nation could capture the asteroid on their own. Gore's gaffe almost leads to the Soviets pulling out entirely.
- Wham Shot: Danny's suit outside the Korean capsule.
