Trish revisits her troubled childhood with Dorothy while plotting to stop Sallinger and stamp out evil across the city.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Accidental Murder: Trish didn't mean to kill Nussbaumer.
- Blackmail: Hogarth blackmails Trish into helping her getting Dmitri behind bars, otherwise she'll reveal her secret.
- Character Title: The episode title refers to Trish's comic book identity.
- Deconstruction: Of the Detect Evil trope. When Nussbaumer dies, Trish reacts with appropriate horror – but Erik laughs, because he can feel a piece of evil leaving the world. Being able to objectively tell who is evil (by way of physical agony) can't help but cause a bit of Black-and-White Insanity.
- Engineered Public Confession: Trish and Erik try to arrange one for Nussbaumer.
- Flashback: To Trish's childhood, more specifically to her getting a role on the insistence of her (then pretty abusive) mother.
- Freudian Excuse: The basics of Trish's philosophy is her mother basically indoctrinating her that talent is a gift that one is obligated to put to full use. As a child, she was forced to be the family's breadwinner. As an adult, she sees it as her duty to fight "bad people".
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: While Nussbaumer's death was an accident, Trish eventually completely loses herself and beats Jace Montero to death deliberately. The trope is further emphasized by Erik getting a headache as Trish walks away to kill the next evil person.
- Knight Templar: Trish fully devolves into this. Notably, when Erik tells her that Nussbaumer killed drug dealers, she says that it's ok because they were bad people. When he elaborates that they were children who had nothing in life, she immediately flips to storming off to confront him.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the flashback scenes, Dorothy tells Trish that she deserves to be more than a sidekick in someone else's show. Season 3 puts a lot more Character Focus on Trish, effectively elevating her to co-star status.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Trish's reaction to killing Nussbaumer.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: How both Nussbaumer and Montero die, courtesy of Trish.
- Oh, Crap!: Subverted with Sallinger. He was expecting Jessica. Instead he got Trish. Instead of fear, he just chides himself that he should have connected the dots earlier.Sallinger: Oh... oh, I should have known. You didn't need the light.
- Once More, with Clarity: The episode fills in a lot of blanks of Trish's activities over the last two episodes, casting a different light on many things we saw her say and do before.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The credits song is the upbeat theme of It's Patsy!... after Trish just brutally murdered somebody and doesn't plan on stopping.
- Villainous Valor: Sallinger actually gives Trish a decent fight before being beaten down.
- Wife-Basher Basher: Trish beats up a man who was loudly beating his girlfriend in the next room.
