Desperate for a lead to finding Sara, the Legends track one of the pods to a small town in the 1950s, where everyone is going crazy for a local burger restaurant. Meanwhile, Sara and Gary crash-land on an alien planet.
Tropes:
- The '50s: The alien lands in 1955.
- Arranged Marriage: Gary mentions that he was traded to Kayla.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Gary telling Sara that there are alien plants that liquefy you, and ones that sing.
- Been There, Shaped History: The Legends inadvertently help create Big Belly Burger in the aftermath of the alien invasion.
- Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Amelia Earhart appears on an alien planet to be discovered by Sara and Gary, and subsequently reveals herself to be an alien.
- Burger Fool: Nate, Behrad and Zari get hired as this in order to investigate Big Bang Burger. Behrad also reveals that he once had a similar job, which he considers to be one of the best times in his life because it was one of the first times in his life that he got to shine as himself, rather than as merely 'the Dragon Girl's brother'.
- Call-Back: Upon seeing a dog on the alien planet, Gary reminds himself to not get tricked again.
- The Cameo: Zari 1.0 makes a brief appearance, creating a second Air Totem from the first one after growing tired of her successor and Behrad's bickering over sharing it.
- Chekhov's Gun: Gary's "strong women" deck is used to identify Amelia Earhardt.
- Cynicism Catalyst: The reason for Spooner's hostility toward aliens is because her mother was also abducted and never came back, having to believe she was dead to avoid getting her hopes up in seeing her again.
- Death by Materialism: Rhonda insists on protecting the alien pod because its "secret sauce" will let her franchise Big Bang Burger prosper and make her rich. When the alien leaves the pod, she is the first one eaten.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Ava introduces herself to Rhonda Beeman as being with the police, and, being from the 1950s, Rhonda immediately asks her which one she's married to. And later, she gives Ava an odd look when she mentions being in a relationship with a woman.
- Eaten Alive: Bert and Rhonda Beeman get eaten by an alien.
- Fantastic Racism: Spooner spends the entire time expressing her hatred of aliens, and only decides to help Ava find Sara so that she could kill more aliens.
- Got Volunteered: Ava initially refuses to bring Spooner back home until Sara is found. At the end of the episode however, she willingly stays despite being given the option to leave.
- Hidden Depths: Mick understands police code, which isn't surprising due to his criminal history. Spooner understands it as well, which is also unsurprising given how Properly Paranoid and Crazy-Prepared she is.
- I Choose to Stay: Spooner at the end, despite being given the opportunity to go home.
- I'm a Humanitarian: The aliens on Gary's home planet eat their own.
- Instant Sedation: Zari's 'Dragon Ash' supplement, which comes in a variety of types, including a sedative that knocks out the crazy, meat-craving customers in seconds.
- Lethally Stupid: Rhonda starts feeding alien goo to her customers not caring what was in it and what kind of effects it could have. This would have gotten everyone in town eaten by the alien. The Legends' intervention limits the death toll to just Rhonda and her husband.
- Missing Mom: Spooner's mother was abducted along with her, but unlike Spooner, she never returned.
- Mundane Utility: Behrad and Ava are shown using the totem for preparing hamburgers.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Ava spends the entire episode trying to get Spooner to work with the team to save Sara. After taking down the alien bug, she succeeds... but now Spooner only wants to help so that she can kill as many aliens as she can.
- Paper Tiger: The alien, despite sounding and looking terrifying, gets killed with by single blast from Spooner's gun (and a bit of electricity).
- Serious Business:
- Cooking burgers for Behrad — he regards it as an art and is fastidious about getting every detail of the preparation right, including his emotional state, as he believes his "vibes" will affect the taste (he even tries to stop Nate from serving two burgers which he fears will have caught "bad vibes"). This is because his time working at Burger Herder was the first time he was appreciated for himself, rather than being in his sister's shadow.
- Mick is also uncharacteristically devoted to the mission, using his skills as a career criminal to piece together that meat is a crucial part of the mystery while everyone else is slacking off, putting together a list of locations to search, and even stealing a cop car to help the team get around. Either he's thrilled to be in his criminal element again, or he really wants to rescue his friend and captain Sara. Or both.
- Spooner reacts aggressively to people dressing up as aliens for fun due to her traumatic experiences with real aliens.
- Shout-Out:
- Gary mentions The Hunger Games.
- The alien makes Godzilla noises. Behrad also compares the alien to Mothra.
- The whole alien sauce plot is one to the film The Stuff, something the Legends lampshade.
- There are a couple of references to the McDonald brothers, as well as the episode's setting of San Bernardino, California being where their restaurant was actually founded.
- Signs of Disrepair:
- The containment pod crashes through the town's welcome sign on its way down, rendering "pop. 127530" into "pop. 0".
- When the alien is blasted to a crisp, the "Crispy Fries & Burgers" sign it crashes into is wrecked and leaves "Crispy Bugs".
- Skewed Priorities: Rhonda Beeman doesn't care where her alien sauce comes from; all she cares is that it's saving their family business and her marriage.
- Spotting the Thread: Sara and Gary realize something's up with Amelia Earhardt when she repeats her story word-for-word.
- Tap on the Head: Rhonda hits Ava on the head from behind with a mixer. Spooner later returns the favor while saving Ava. Gary also does it to Amelia Earhart with a piece of wood when she threatens Sara.
- Too Dumb to Live: Bert trying to shoo a giant alien away ends with him getting eaten by it.
- Trigger-Happy: Spooner is very quick with attempting to resort to violence in regard to aliens.
- Unwitting Pawn: Bert had no idea that Rhonda's secret sauce is of alien origin (and was even horrified to learn the truth), while "Mothra" uses Rhonda to feed its sauce to the town to "fatten them up".
- Visionary Villain: Rhonda plans on starting a franchise with the help of the alien goo.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- Spooner and Mick give this to Ava for forcing Spooner to use her abilities to communicate with the alien goo to find Sara.
- When Gary notes that one of the things that made him start to love Earth was friends, Sara retorts that despite them knowing each other for three years he's completely hid his alien origins and his true reason for being there.
