- Story Arc: Avalon Mystic Tour
- Characters: Goliath, Elisa, Angela, Bronx, Brooklyn, Broadway, Lexington, Hudson, Demona, Matt, Xanatos, Claw, Puck
- Enemy(ies) : Puck
The Avalon travelers finally make it back home to Manhattan, only to find it completely different. Elisa and Angela get captured by Steel Clan robots, but Goliath and Bronx get saved by Matt and Claw, who now look old much to Goliath's confusion. Matt reveals that 40 years have passed since he, Elisa, and Bronx disappeared from the clock tower that night. Goliath is horrified when he sees that Manhattan is now ruled under the thumb of Xanatos. It gets even worse when he sees the rest of his clan changed in ways he couldn't possibly imagine, and are now a resistance force against Xanatos' tyranny.
This Episode contains the following Tropes:
- All Just a Dream: It turned out that the whole episode was just a dream created by Puck in order to get the Phoenix Gate from Goliath.
- Bad Future: Manhattan has become a futuristic apocalypse with robots and mutates patrolling the ruined streets, as well as countless, frightened homeless people barely hanging on by a thread.
- Big "NO!": "Elisa" is shouting this as the entire illusion begins to unravel, forcing "her" to reveal herself to Goliath as Puck.
- Blaming the Victim: None of the Manhattan Clan (with the sole exception of Broadway) let Goliath forget that he "abandoned" them years ago; never mind the fact that he and Elisa wanted nothing more than to get back home, but the Avalon skiff always had other ideas until the following episode, and their attempts to contact the clan were always thwarted until Griff was transported to Manhattan himself.
- Book Ends: The first and last episodes of the Avalon World Tour, "Shadows of the Past" and "Future Tense", both show Goliath returning to what he believes to be his home, and being subjected to nightmarish visions. And in both of them, the beings who subject him to those visions slip up, and Goliath realizes just in time that his visions aren't real.
- Crapsack World: Manhattan under Xanatos control is like if Rat City encompassed the whole island, miserable, frightened bums wherever you look.
- The Dog Was the Mastermind: Lexington is revealed to be the true mastermind, saying that Xanatos really did die in the fight with Hudson. He just kept his memory alive for the sake of his own plans. Subverted in the end, as everything turns out to be an illusion by Puck.
- Dream Apocalypse: The moment Goliath catches onto Puck's scheme to get the Phoenix Gate, the supposed future world vanishes, leaving behind a cloud with Puck's Eliza disguise coming undone. After Puck makes a speech about why he was after it, he tells Goliath to wake up.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Bluestone, Claw and Bronx are unceremoniously killed by Xanatos' mutate army, vaporized into a ball of light.
- Face–Heel Turn: The dystopian future features Demona having turned good and being Brooklyn's lover, although present-day Brooklyn hates Demona. Word of God says Puck put that last part in for shock value.
- Foreshadowing:
- A couple elements of the dream actually do come to pass, such as the name of Xanatos's son and the destruction of the clock tower.
- Puck's resistance to returning to Avalon drives the following two-parter.
- Goliath sends the Phoenix Gate into the timestream without a mind to guide it. He hopes this will keep the Gate from anyone's reach, but it ultimately kickstarts Brooklyn's Timedancer phase (which is glimpsed in the comics).
- Contained to the episode itself, there are a few things happening throughout that hints at things not being as they seem. First, there is Brooklyn being thrown off for a moment when Goliath points out an inconsistency regarding Demona's relationship status. Then there's "Xanatos'" throwaway line about the spell Puck put on Demona, despite having no reason to know about that. And Broadway's tragic death scene is quite cheesy.
- Lexington being the villain ends up foreshadowing events in the comics, where all of the clones turn their backs on Thailog... except for Brentwood, Lexington's clone.
- Another comics glimpse comes in the form of the Eyrie Pyramid, briefly seen in Brooklyn's TimeDancing escapades when he ventures into the future with his wife Katana.
- Future Badass: The remaining group of heroes who are still alive, Matt Bluestone, Claw, Brooklyn, Broadway, Demona, and Lexington, all became this during Goliath's absence. Lexington in particular will destroy the world. Subverted in that it's an illusion.
- Karma Houdini: Aside from not getting the Phoenix Gate, Puck doesn't suffer any kind of retribution for the nightmarish ordeal he put Goliath through, and even manages a last jab at him by suggesting the illusion might well have been a prophecy. Justified in that Puck is still an incredibly powerful fae against whom Goliath would have been hopelessly outclassed. One could argue, however, that karma does come back to punish Puck big time during the end of The Gathering two-parter.
- Kill the Cutie: Broadway's death is portrayed as a very tragic affair, and all the more so because he was the most happy and tearful that Goliath returned.
- Lack of Empathy: The Talon clone troopers' cybernetic implants have clearly made them into soulless, living weapons, showing no pity to anybody, least of all the homeless lady we see a Talon trooper blast at, destroying her (implicitly) only worldly possessions, stomping on a framed photo of her mother (Maria Chavez) with zero care.
- Master of Illusion: As it turns out, Puck is incredibly talented with those, creating an elaborate illusion, designed to make Goliath surrender the Phoenix Gate. He very nearly succeeds.
- Mind Screw: Goliath receives three in rapid succession. First, it looks like that Xanatos has gained immortality due to his body being destroyed and his mind being picked up by his satellites. Then, it looks like that Lexington has pulled a Face–Heel Turn and was the actual mastermind before everything. And then, finally, it's revealed that the whole thing was actually a dream created by Puck.
- Near-Villain Victory: Puck comes dangerously close to obtaining the Phoenix Gate from Goliath, who is willing to hand it over by the climax of the episode, but overplays his hand at a crucial moment. Goliath is too weak to literally hand it to him and drops it on the ground inviting Puck (disguised as Elisa) to take it, which isn't enough for Puck to be able to pick it up and he keeps pressing Goliath to put the Gate in his hands. With Goliath's increasing suspicion, Puck's hold on him withers until the entire illusion collapses around him.
- Not So Above It All: Puck hoped to use the Phoenix Gate to convince Oberon into letting him stay among mortals. As he says, "Even Oberon's not above a little bribery."
- Or Was It a Dream?: Puck messes with Goliath by suggesting the dream was instead a prophecy.Goliath: And that’s why you created that horrible dream!?Puck: Oh, was it a dream? Or a prophecy?Goliath: I must know!Puck: Mmm-hmm, like I’d tell you. Wake up!
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech:Goliath: You betrayed your own clan!
Lexington: You betrayed us! You disappeared when we needed you the most! - Rewatch Bonus: Once it is known that Puck created the fake Bad Future scenario in an attempt to get Goliath to hand him the Phoenix Gate, many things make sense. Throughout it all, everyone kept insisting Goliath hand over the Phoenix Gate in order to undo everything, be it to the one asking or requesting to hand it to someone else as a contingency. It's just that when Elisa was left, Puck started getting desperate, proving that he was playing as everyone in the dream.
- Rules Lawyer: The rules forbid Puck from simply taking the Phoenix Gate, so he engineered a situation to try to prompt Goliath into literally handing it over. Apparently there's no rule that a mortal has to know a Child of Oberon's true identity.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the chief inspirations for this episode was the Marvel Comics X-Men story "Days of Future Past". This story, widely regarded as a classic among X-Men fans, was partly set in a bleak future in which the Sentinels had first killed or enslaved both the X-Men and the rest of the mutant population, then proceeded to enslave the human race as well; Greg Weisman has freely admitted that it was an influence for the depiction of a Xanatos-ruled Manhattan.
- During the duel between the Xanatos program Goliath, the former misquotes the "Alas, Poor Yorick" line from Hamlet (as "Alas, poor Goliath; I knew him well") and also combines two lines from a scene in the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when it asks Goliath's head "What are you going to do, bite my kneecaps off?"
- Spotting the Thread: At the end of everything Goliath suffered in the Bad Future, he's finally willing to try and Set Right What Once Went Wrong with the Phoenix Gate, but is too weak to do so himself, so he manages to get the Gate out of his pouch and offers it to Elisa to use. When Elisa insists he physically hand her the Phoenix Gate, Goliath realizes the deception and exposes Puck's attempt to steal the item.
- Time Travel Escape: Constantly recommended by everyone around Goliath as a means of escaping or undoing the living hell Xanatos has created in New York. Viewers who have been paying attention to the Phoenix Gate's previous uses and its rules will see this as clear foreshadowing that things are not what they seem.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Goliath is taken aback by the disheveled homeless they encounter on the streets non-reaction to his and the rebels presence. As Matt puts it "they've got better things to be afraid of." Which is underscored by a squadron of Steel Clan drones performing an aerial sweep overhead and a battalion of Talon clone troopers marching forward, the latter so icily emotionless they don't change direction when approaching a poor lady in rags whose buggy is stuck in a pothole, simply blasting it to bits and thoughtlessly crushing the framed photo of her mother underfoot.
- Villain World: The premise of Puck's illusion.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: Ironically enough not Xanatos himself this time but Puck. His underlying plan is fairly simple: Design a dire situation for Goliath in which he will give up the Gate. As Goliath continuously refuses to use it, Puck spins the story on and on, creating ever more horrendous scenarios, until Goliath reaches a breaking point and willingly gives it up. Unfortunately for Puck, he slips up at a crucial moment.
