When the Meekrob crystal is rediscovered, Team Save Earth and the two Irken factions race to its location, only to find themselves having to fight an underground civilization of hobos.
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The sewers under Doomsville are large enough for people to comfortably walk around in, and even for the homeless population to build an entire makeshift city in. The former is justified as it being an old system, while the latter is lampshaded as ridiculous and nonsensical.
- Black Cloak: Norlock suggests that Zim wear one of these, along with a red mask, to create a mystique for his new rebellious persona.
- Call-Back: Zim still thinks that Norlock's ceremonial robe from Episode 16 was a dress.
- Chekhov's Gun: The card Norlock gives Gaz in Episode 8 finally comes into play here, when she uses it to call him and give Zim the coordinates of Project Domination.
- Combat by Champion: When the Meekrob crystal is found in the possession of the sewer-dwelling homeless people, Team Save Earth and the two Irken teams are told they have to send champions to fight each other for the right to it. This results in Zim, Tak, and Dib facing each other and the hobo champion Hobo Joe, with Dib winning.
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: Zim threatens to sew a live ferret into Norlock's stomach when he feels the vampire's being insolent.
- Crazy Homeless People: The hobos living in the sewers all seem fairly deranged and delusional, having put together an ad hoc society that takes itself far too seriously for its situation.
- Destination Defenestration: When Zim is smashing up his house in a rage over Tak retrieving the crystal before him, it's mentioned that he threw the Robo-Parents out a window. They don't seem to mind it much.
- Evil Is Petty: Gaz gives Zim the location of Project Domination, to spite Dib and try to get Viera killed.
- Face–Heel Turn: While never a good person, Gaz decides she's Neutral No Longer in the worst way when she gives Zim the location of Project Domination to spite Dib and in the hope that Viera will get killed in the process.
- Gilded Cage: Zim promises Gaz one in exchange for selling Dib out to him.
- Gladiator Games: The Trial by Combat for ownership of the Meekrob crystal is treated as this by the hobos of Hobo Town.
- Hypocrite: Gaz wants nothing to do with her brother's mission to save Earth and is annoyed when he bothers her by asking for help. But when he finally leaves her alone, she's still petty enough to consider sabotaging Dib's ship and ends up selling his team out to Zim even though she finally got what she wanted.
- I Hate Past Me: Zim shows disgust towards his previous habit of blindly trying to please the Tallest.
- King of the Homeless: The Hobo King of Hobo Town.
- Lazy Alias: Zim's choice of name for his new masked rebel persona is just his name backwards as "Miz". When Norlock calls him out on how obvious this is, Zim counters by saying that no one will expect him to go with the obvious.
- Multipart Episode
- Mythology Gag: At one point, GIR finds a rat which is wearing a tiny sombrero, which has appeared as a brief gag in several issues of the comic series.
- Named by the Adaptation: The hobo from "Gaz, Taster of Pork" is named as Hobo Joe.
- Neutral No Longer: Gaz ditches her apathy towards Dib's fight with the Irkens by giving Zim Project Domination's location in order to spite Dib and hopefully kill Viera.
- New Powers as the Plot Demands: Norlock being able to walk on ceilings. When Tenn calls BS on this, he justifies it by saying that he always could, he just didn’t before now.
- Pet the Dog:
- Tak giving Tenn the honor of activating the transponder codes.
- Gaz asking Zim to spare Dib, if only so their father won't be upset.
- Place Worse Than Death: During the fight in Hobo Town, Norlock banishes an attacking group of hobos by sending them through a portal that he says is supposed to send them to a hellish nightmare world, but instead sends them to Newark. He then shrugs and states that this is the same end result.
- Power Fist: This is the chapter where Dib finally gets his own weapon, a pair of plasma-powered gauntlets.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Zim gives one to Tak about being a washout desperately trying to please the Tallest, who don't care about her.
- Shout-Out: When Team Save Earth and the two Irken factions are about to have a Combat by Champion for the Meekrob crystal, the Hobo King declares "Two men enter, one man leaves!".
- Trial by Combat: The Hobo King makes Team Save Earth and the two Irken teams face off this way for the crystal.
- Wham Episode: The three groups all relocate the Meekrob crystal and fight over it. Ultimately, Tak and Tenn retrieve it and locate Project Domination's location, but thanks to a bug planted on MIMI, Team Save Earth hack the information and go after it as well. And then Gaz sends the information to Zim out of spite.
