Worrying about the mutation he's undergoing, Peter tries to start a relationship with Mary-Jane to ease his worries, but she is unwilling to commit. She then is confronted when an ex-boyfriend of hers, Morrie Bench, re-enters her life, hoping to renew their relationship, and refusing to take no for an answer. Meanwhile a mysterious thief has committing robberies throughout New York and the police suspect Spider-Man.
This episode provides examples of:
- Achilles' Heel: Hydro-Man can control water he's close to, but it turns out he is also sustained by it. Getting too far away from a large body of water and exerting himself too hard chasing Mary Jane leave him barely able to hold himself together.
- Adaptational Badass: Hydro-Man is far more of a threat here than in the comics (mostly due to his single-minded obsession with Mary Jane).
- Adaptational Jerkass: In the comics, Morrie Bench was a normal person before getting his powers in the comics. Prior to his transformation, this Morrie Bench was Mary Jane's unstable ex-boyfriend and a troubled kid who got expelled from school. His parents made him enlist in the Navy in hopes of straightening him out, which didn't work out.
- Armor-Piercing Response: When Mary Jane first tells Morrie to back off and asserts that their relationship is over.Mary Jane: Leave me alone.
Morrie: At least I never ran out on you like your father did!
Mary Jane: You shut up about him! - Batman Gambit: Mary-Jane is able to help Spider-Man defeat Bench by getting him to follow her to recycling plant, leading away from the water that feeds him. By the time Spider-Man points this out to Bench he is barely holding himself together.
- Breather Episode: Spider-Man's mutation disease is only referred to in passing, with the focus instead on a standard adventure and his relationship with Mary Jane.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Mary Jane says this was why she broke it off with Morrie two years ago, referring to him as a possessive jerk that made her miserable.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Hydro-Man uses his amazing water powers for petty theft that he hopes will entice the ex-girlfriend that wants nothing to do with him.
- Didn't Think This Through: After Hydro-Man causes a massive geyser in the park, Spider-Man makes his presence known.Mary Jane: What are you doing here?
Spider-Man: A 500-ft. geyser in Washington Square, and you're wondering why I'm here? - Disappeared Dad: It's established here that Mary Jane was abandoned by her father. While holed up in Liz's apartment, Mary Jane reflects on how the old man ran away when things got tough.
- Dramatically Missing the Point: When Bench attempts to reconcile with Mary-Jane by showing her his powers and promising to give whatever she wants, he fails to realize that MJ broke with him because his unpleasant personality or how she feels how his powers are further making her repulsed by him.
- Entitled to Have You: Despite Bench insisting that he doesn't want to own Mary Jane, his exact words when Spider-Man comes to save her are that she belongs to him.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: When Bench questions why Mary-Jane would help Spider-Man defeat him as he loves her, but Mary-Jane that you don't kidnap the people you love or force yourself on them.
- Freudian Excuse: Mary Jane is reluctant to get close to Peter, due to her bad experiences with Morrie and how her own father abandoned her.
- Friend to All Living Things: While scoping out the damaged aquarium, Spider-Man spots a poor fish that got knocked out of the tank and left flapping on the ground. Spidey puts the fish back in the water, remarking that the thief just leaving it there was rather unfriendly.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: One of the security guards tries calm his partner down about how nobody is going to steal the pearl necklace in the tank because the water pressure is too deep. He gets proven wrong when Hydro-Man shows to steal the pearls.
- Irony: After this Hydro-Man adventure, Peter and Mary Jane's date at Coney Island takes place during the rain.
- Never My Fault: Bench thinks Mary Jane broke up with him because he was loser with no money or car. Even after she explains how he was an awful person who didn't care about her feelings, he refuses to see his attitude was a problem.
- Noodle Incident: After breaking up with Mary-Jane, Bench got into a fight when they were in high school, in which got he expelled, and caused his parents to enlist him in the Navy hoping to keep him out of trouble.
- Not Good with Rejection: No matter how many times he gets rejected by Mary-Jane, Bench refuses to give up, even going so far as threatening to flooding New York City after she continues to reject him.
- Pet the Dog: Liz allows Mary-Jane to stay in her apartment so she can be safe from Bench, and lets Peter go and see her.
- Properly Paranoid: At the aquarium in the opening of the episode, one security guard worries about leaving $2 million in pearls in a fish tank, with a recent rash of robberies going on. His worries get proven true when Hydro-Man steals them.
- Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: After following Mary-Jane to a recycling center, and she pushes a large stack of on him, he says to her after reforms...
- Hyrdo-Man: That. Wasn't. Nice.
- Taught by Experience: When his webbing proved useless against Hydro-Man during the first bout, Spider-Man cooked up a batch with a special coagulant to better immobilize him.
- Tempting Fate: Trying reassure his partner that the pearls are safe, the other security guard reminds how thick the glass and how deep the pearls are underwater, believing nobody would try it. But then Hydro-Man appears in to the tank to steal the pearls.
- This Cannot Be!:
- After her ex-boyfriend demonstrates mastery over water, Mary Jane questions how this is possible.
- Spider-Man tries to stop Hydro-Man from advancing on Mary Jane, only to be stunned to see him turn into water.
- Uncertain Doom: On the rooftop, Hydro-Man makes one final lunge at Spider-Man and comes completely apart. As the water evaporates, Mary Jane wonders if he's truly dead, though Spider-Man wonders if he will simply reform another day.
- You're Insane!: After Hydro-Man first displays his powers and says they can be together again, Mary Jane describes him as crazier than ever before.
