- Original airdate: July 3rd, 2023
Freeza tries to figure out what his father is up to, but ends up trapped in the garage with Cell and Guru.
Tropes in this episode:
- Actor Allusion: Freeza briefly attempts to brute force the pin pad by entering every single possible combination, much like Melvin did in Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series.
- Audience? What Audience?: Cell gets confused when the ogres start talking about the credits.
- Bait-and-Switch: When Cell tries GURU, it takes a bit longer to be rejected than the other passwords.
- Bottle Episode: The episode almost entirely takes place in the garage, and until the ending only Cell and Freeza have speaking roles.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: The ogres mention an announcement after the credits. They even look at the viewer went mentioning how many people miss The Stinger at the end of each episode (and in this case, would've presumably missed context for the next episode).
- The Bus Came Back: In the final moments of The Stinger we see Cooler, and surprisingly enough Bojack.
- Call-Back:
- Freeza asks what Cell and his father were talking about last episode. Cell replies the Die Hard movies, which Freeza has never heard of. We also see the arena the Ginyu were working on in the same episode.
- King Cold brings up the time Guru was tipped over.
- Call-Forward: As fans speculated, the arena is for the Other World Tournament, which the main series hadn't gotten to.
- Continuity Nod:
- Cell asks if Freeza is planning on messing with his garbage cans again.
- Freeza refers to Super Saiyan 2 as "Super Duper Saiyan", which Cell humors.
- Evil Lawyer Joke: When Cell asks if he’s able to sue someone in Hell, Raditz says there are enough lawyers around.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: Freeza immeditately figures out what his father is getting at when he mentions making it an inter-HFIL tournament.
- Foreshadowing: When guessing codes, Cell brings up that the buttons correspond to letters. At the end of the episode, King Cold inputs "4386," which can translate to GEVO, the name of Dr. Gero's son who Android 16 was based on. This is followed by a rather blatant confirmation that whoever set up the code is a member of the Red Ribbon Army, most reasonably Dr. Gero himself.
- Improperly Paranoid: Freeza's paranoia gets him locked in the garage as he could of sworn he saw his father go in there "clear as day" during the night. The next morning King Cold has an explanation for everything. Subverted when it turns out he really is hiding something in the garage.
- Internal Reveal: Freeza learns that Vegeta has become a Super Saiyan for real, and that Super Duper Saiyan (Super Saiyan 2) exists.
- Locked in a Room: Freeza's failed attempt at guessing the password triggers a lock down, trapping him and Cell inside.
- Missing Steps Plan: Freeza says once he becomes Emperor of the Afterlife, he'll force them to restore him to life, find the Dragon Balls to wish himself immortal, and then blow the Afterlife up for good measure. Cell asks him how he'd even get back if he's immortal, with Freeza stating he'd find a way. It is in fact possible for the living to enter the Afterlife, being a physical place that can be flown/teleported to by those who know where to look, but Freeza had no way of knowing that at the time.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish": Subverted as Freeza tries his birthday (0001) and a shortened version of his name on the pin pad. Cell tries HFIL and GURU, but neither work. The code turns out to be 4386.note
- Popcultural Osmosis Failure: Freeza doesn't know any of the movies they were talking about, even when the other aliens are aware of them.
- Oh, Crap!: As King Cold reveals the Hell Games will be an Inter-HFIL tournament, Freeza grumbles out a panicked "He wouldn't" as he realizes he would be bringing in Cooler.
- The Reveal: Downplayed as we still don't really know what's going on, but the hidden pinpad has something to do with the Red Ribbon Army.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: After Freeza learns there is a level beyond a regular Super Saiyan, he asks if it is called a "Super Duper Saiyan", the same name Goku thought of.
- Take That!: Cell wouldn't wish Caddyshack II on anyone, not even Freeza.
- Wham Shot: Twofold:
- When King Cold resets the security system to the garage, the screen flashes the Red Ribbon Army logo after he enters the code, which corresponds to that of Dr. Gero's son, Gevo, signifying that whatever he's plotting involves Dr. Gero.
- King Cold announces during The Stinger that the upcoming Hell Games will be fought between the HFILs, with two of the other HFILs being represented by none other than Cooler and Bojack.
