One week after the kentrosaurus mission, it's off to Eocene period North America to rescue the famed early whale basilosaurus. But with her less than happy meeting with Colette from the previous week still weighing heavily on Alice's mind, could the park's first mission since the dunkleosteus mission to use the Ancient Mariner end up becoming an unpleasant repeat of what happened at Gogo Reef?
- Big Sister Instinct: A mildly Played for Laughs example can be found in Tina, who makes sure to inform Cass's possible hopeful admirer Horace that he ''will' regret it if he does anything to hurt her sister.
- Bittersweet Ending: While largely more on the sweet side by virtue of the successful rescue of the target species and various other Eocene animals, plus said animals successful integration into their new homes at the park, there is nonetheless Alice's getting suspended for a month for her hardly ideal behavior over the course of the mission to add a slight taste of bitterness to the whole affair.
- Call-Back:
- As Alice takes note, Drew ends up using a strategy to rescue the various herbivores gathered around an Eocene lake for a drink that has visible similarities to the strategy she used to scare Rocco and Laverne through the portal and away from the wounded Eshe back in Oozing from the Pit.
- Similarly, as pointed out by both Alice and Jack, Alice's reckless stunt performed in the rescue of the encountered protohyaenodon pack does have a precedent (and one that Drew himself had genuinely complemented her on at the time) in the methods she utilized to rescue Ernesto the subadult Florida jaguar male back in Building Bridges.
- As Stavros points out immediately after having to shout at the rescue team to bring a halt to a vicious argument they're engaging in, the last time the Ancient Mariner was used for the sake of a rescue mission (for context, all the way back in the Phase 1 dunkleosteus mission) ended with a vicious argument unfolding that just narrowly avoided resulting in someone getting maimed or killed. And simply put, Stavros is most certainly not in the mood to risk a repeat.
- The Cuckoolander Was Right: As Khatin finds himself very begrudgingly admitting to himself when he is introduced to the newly discovered giant vaguely dragon-like choristodere, the speculations of in-universe conspiracy nut paleontologist Bernie Evans about choristoderes evolving into becoming entirely ocean going turns out to be correct.
- Dinosaurs Are Dragons: While neither truly a dinosaur or a dragon, the newly discovered giant choristodere species encountered in the Eocene heavily evokes the appearance of an oceanic dragon-like creature, a fact that Jack and several other characters don't take long to point out.
- Heinous Hyena: While not truly hyenas, the protohyaenodon encountered are described to sound and behave somewhat like hyenas, and prove reasonably dangerous in Drew and Alice's work at getting them through the portal.
- Interspecies Friendship: After an effort at integrating Martha and Ellie with the larger rescued woolly mammoth herd ends with the two sisters merely being allowed to be tolerated within said herd's direct immediate presence, Nikolai and the rest of the staff overseeing the integration attempt take notice of Martha forming a companionship with Achilles the woolly rhino.
- Leeroy Jenkins: In her lingering anger over her confrontation with Colette from the previous episode, Alice ends up engaging in some noticeably more reckless than normal behaviors that come at the risk of getting herself, Drew, and Jack seriously hurt at best.
- Monster Whale: The target species for this mission is the type species of the famed early whale basilosaurus. And when the creature is finally encountered in the flesh in the climax, it is in the context of an entire pod trying to hunt down and eat a pod of zygorhiza, and they naturally prove very intimidating as a result.
- Mythology Gag: Due to the target animal being a basilosaurus species, the plot takes several cues from the basilosaurus mission in Prehistoric Earth.
- Named After Somebody Famous: According to
Word of God, one of the male coragyps at the La Brea Aviary is named Voltaire and one of the females is named Antoinette (after Marie Antoinette). - Not Using the "Z" Word: Jack and Leon have an argument about whether to call the newly discovered dracosuchus a dragon, which is a homage to the Trope Namer.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: With the usually calm and collected Alice starting to act uncharacteristically reckless and bullheaded over the course of the mission (to the point that the usually similarly reckless Drew is forced to takeover as the Only Sane Man between the two of them), it proves quite clear that something is wrong.
- Rhino Rampage: While not truly rhinos, the megacerops encountered in this episode heavily resemble rhinos to an extent (by virtue of being brontotheres), and one large bull amongst an encountered herd proves quite eager to try to charge at Drew and Alice when the latter alerts him to their presence with a burst of noise from her airhorn.
- Savage Wolves: Invoked by Drew via a recording of snarling wolves to scare a sizable gathering of herbivores at a local Eocene lake into stampeding towards him and through the portal.
- Shout-Out:
- As confirmed by Word of God, the appearance of the dracosuchus is based quite heavily on the marine dragon from Dragons: A Fantasy Made Real.
- The argument Jack and Leon have over whether or not to refer to the newly discovered giant choristoderes as 'dragons' is an almost word for word recreation of a similar argument (only involving zombies instead of dragons) in Shaun of the Dead.
- Amongst the residents of the La Brea Aviary, the cathartornis pair are named Gomez and Morticia and the gymnogyps amplus duo are named Mzingo and Mwoga. And as far as A-LionGleek considers canon, one of the male La Brea owls is named Twilight, one of the male California turkeys is named Gonzo, the male Grinnell's crested eagle is named Pazuzu, one of the mated neophrontops pairs is named Azazel and Mystique, and there's even a mated pair of neogyps named Gallus and Smolder as well as a female Daggett's eagle named Gilda.
- To Uncharted: One of the male basilosaurus rescued is named Nathan, two of the female basilosaurus are named Chloe and Elena, and one of the adult male megacerops is named Sullivan (Sully for short).
- To Percy Jackson and the Olympians: One of the mated pseudoprotoceras pairs are named Grover and Juniper, one of the male metamynodon is named Tyson, and two of the dracosuchus are named Percy and Annabeth. And in an example that also doubles as a shoutout to Ice Age, the male megacerops calf is named Frank.
- As confirmed by
- Shown Their Work:
- In an admittedly speculative case, the conger vetustus and congeris brevior, both ancient evolutionary relatives of modern conger eels, are portrayed as having very similar high aggression levels and temperaments.
- Similarly, the cylindracanthus flotilla, much like some species of modern swordfish, are shown to occasionally gather together in loose aggregations.
- The agriochoerus is explicitly referred to by Drew at one point as a 'tree camel' in reference to how they are in fact genuinely related to camels on the evolutionary ladder.
- Slippery as an Eel: Two prehistoric species of conger eel are amongst the animals rescued for the park in this episode. And much like modern day conger eels, both of said prehistoric eel species prove to possess quite aggressive temperaments.
- The Bus Came Back: Or more accurately, the ship came back. Specifically, the Ancient Mariner is finally put to use again after having last been used all the way back in Devils of the Deep. Likewise, Stavros and Kira make a proper appearance in an episode of the 'mainline story' for the first time since that same previous mission after the former gets a silent cameo in Building Bridges and the both of them had speaking roles in two 'Extras' chapters set in between this episode and Devils of the Deep.
- This Is Gonna Suck: To quote Leon and Jack after Drew dismisses their attempts to warn him at the beginning that something might be wrong with Alice...Leon: This should be nothing short of a disaster.Jack: (sighs resignedly) Yep.
- Threatening Shark: Averted with the otodus auriculatus shiver, which are able to peacefully chow down on a chum offering provided to a group of pterosphenus without causing any trouble for the snakes or the people trying to rescue them for the park. Downplayed, meanwhile, with the otodus angustidens shiver, which are portrayed as very intimidating predators in the context of their efforts at hunting the zygorhiza, but are no more dangerous and violent than any modern day species of shark.
- Vile Vulture: Downplayed in that they don't so much directly cause any harm or violence as they antagonistically hiss at their neighbors, but Rocco and Laverne are very much still the pugnacious and antagonistic vulturine jerks they've always been in prior chapters.
- What the Hell, Hero?: As a result of her reckless behavior causing needless trouble and difficulty for herself and the rest of the team, Alice winds up on the receiving end of some understandably ticked off reprimanding from Drew and Stavros.
