Season 1, Episode 8: Big Man On Hippocampus
Tropes That Appear In This Episode:
- Adam Westing: Chris Hardwick guest stars As Himself in ancient Greece. This gets justified by him as being cursed to moderate all panels at conventions until the end of time.
- Auto Cannibalism: Deliria turns Shlub into a carrot and while he slowly transforms back to normal he has to be told not to eat himself.
- Bad Boss: Hephaestus exploits eager inventors that look up to him to invent things that he modifies and take as his own, even if he claims otherwise. He is verbally and emotionally abusive under the belief that everyone around him is treacherous, openly admitting that he doesn't have a heart.
- Bait-and-Switch: A golden giant stands sentry outside VolCon, an inventor's convention, promoting the event, which would lead one to think it's the mythical giant automaton Talos. It turns out to be a giant painted gold trapped within mechanisms that torture him into reciting scripted lines.
- Brick Joke: Two-fold; Chris Hardwick says that due to a curse he's moderating VolCon and every panel until the end of time. The last scene of the episode over the credits is him closing his eyes at the end of the day to open them to a crowd in medieval times. He's moderating a panel on the printing press, when writing as a concept was dismissed as ridiculous in Tyrannis' time.
- Call-Back:
- Hippocampus brings up how he freed Prometheus in his eponymous episode.
- Deliria still disdains Athena's snake-based transformation curses as hacky.
- Forced Transformation: In her efforts to undo Medusa's petrification, Deliria transforms a lot of poor humans into human-animal hybrids with animals sticking out of their heads. When Shlub tries to talk her into stopping, she impulsively transforms him into a carrot.
- I Just Want to Be Loved: Hephaestus couldn't care less about inventing, considering himself having already proven his genius. Now he's focusing all his efforts on fulfilling the requests of his godly family in hopes they'll come to love him, no matter how impossible that may be given he's well aware that they're all insane bullies.
- I Let You Win: Hephaestus claims that he intentionally made the lock on Prometheus' chains easy to pick, undermining Hippocampus' achievement.
- I Love You Because I Can't Control You: According to Hephaestus, he managed to wed Aphrodite because even she couldn't find his heart.
- It Will Never Catch On: Hippocampus is dismissive of Tyrannis' idea of inventing writing. Another inventor Tyrannis interviews is dismissive of this and his idea of indoor plumbing. Of course, the episode ends on a convention for the printing press.
- Just the Introduction to the Opposites: Deliria's first attempt to undo Medusa's petrification is to turn Medusa into a "Reversadusa", a snake head on two legs with people sticking out of its head. When she moves the person that was petrified to look at her, all it does is petrify Reversadusa instead.
- A Kind of One: Discussed; Shlub corrects Stupendous that Gorgons are a kind of monster of which Medusa is a specific individual, so it's either a gorgon or the Medusa, but it's never a Medusa. Deliria complies with him while Stupendous is annoyed by his insistence on the terminology.
- Magic A Is Magic A: Deliria learns after lots of effort that she can't create a monster that undoes Medusa's petrification. Seemingly only Athena can restore victims petrified by the curse she placed on Medusa.
- Monster Protection Racket: Deliria scoffs that Athena created a monster that petrifies people and the only way to restore them is to bring them to her temple and pay her tribute.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Deliria is horrified that she turned Shlub into a carrot.
- Punny Name: Vol Con is a two-fold pun. The fact that Hephaestus's convention takes place at a volcano, and the fact that his name in Roman mythology is Vulcan.
- Shadow Archetype: Hippocampus and Hephaestus are both handicapped geniuses with a dysfunctional family. While Hippo is dismissive of his family's approval, Hephaestus is consumed with earning it, both because they're assured in their genius. Hippocampus turns around on being with his family when Hephaestus reveals to him that, unlike Tyrannis with him, no one in his family ever stood up to defend him.
- Shout-Out: In Hephaestus's personal workshop, there's a mechanical owl that looks an awful lot like Bubo from Clash of the Titans (1981).
- Special Guest: Chris Hardwick guest stars As Himself, and Steve Buscemi guest stars as Hephaestus.
- Taken for Granite: Stupendous' friend is turned to stone by Medusa. Deliria turns Medusa into "Reversadusa" so she can reverse the petrification, but this only ends up getting herself turned to stone.
