The Guild targets Rusty for assassination, while Rusty throws a party for his new best friend.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The episode ends with The Monarch completely on top of everyone in terms of schemes.
- Bullying a Dragon: Turnbuckle thinking he could tangle with the Venture crew (A 7-foot-tall super-scientist, an unstable gun-nut on go-juice, a highly trained RAF soldier, etc.) is most assuredly this. He was so out of his league that the Guild created their level system to keep it from happening again.
- Continuity Nod:
- In 21's/Gary's flashback, The Monarch and his Henchmen have the same outfits as they did in the pilot.
- In the same flashback, 21 previously mentioned the Monarch's henchmen kidnapped him when he was a teenager in Home Insecurity. In this episode, he is captured but only by mistake.
- Continuity Snarl: Zigzagged. The Monarch says the Turnbuckle incident happened 50 years ago. Despite this, Rusty (who is in his mid 40s at the start of the show) is portrayed as an adolescent in the flashback. Though he might just be being generic about the timeframe, references to chronology around Rusty's childhood are pretty consistently inconsistent. For example, the Vendata incident apparently took place about ten years after Rusty first went to Spanakos, despite him looking the same age both times. There might be a reason for that, which is revealed in "The Inamorata Consequence". So maybe it really was 50 years ago.
- Crapsack World: What does it say about the world the Ventures and others live in when the Guild was the one to install a system to prevent one-sided Hero-Villain skirmishes rather than the O.S.I. or other "heroic" organizations? Though, to be fair, the Guild is responsible for managing the antagonists' actions and Villains Act, Heroes React is in full effect in this series when it comes to the O.S.I. and the Guild. Also, they did it mostly to protect other villains (aka, themselves), rather than out of any sense of fairness or decency.
- Curb-Stomp Battle:
- It was cause of one, via Action Man pistol-whipping and putting a bullet through the head of a low-tier boxer villain named Turnbuckle, that made the Guild decide to create it current rank system.
- 21/Kano and Monarch had virtually no problem taking care of their respective targets, although it is unclear whether 21 actually went through with offing the "Wandering Spider" or simply let him go with the caveat that he give up his mechanical spider legs to be buried. Either way, neither the Spider nor Dr. Heinie put up any sort of fight.
- Foreshadowing: After Dr. Venture is shot, H.e.L.P.E.R is seen staring longingly at the "Problem Light." The next season premiere gives an explanation why.
- Homage: To Martin Scorsese's movies.
- How We Got Here: Parodied several times.
- Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Turnbuckle, in his brief appearance, exhibits no powers aside from owning boxing gloves (he suggests he's a Badass Normal, but he whiffs his only onscreen punch) and having a nice mustache. You have to applaud his bravery, but he really should have backed down when he saw he was going up against a guy with a gun.
- Mundane Made Awesome: Everyone instantly recognizes and treats Christopher Lambert, a minor action movie star who has barely acted in a film for decades, with the reverence of a major A-list celebrity. Everyone is also awed at him having once played Tarzan despite the film where he played that role in real life being almost completely forgotten.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Christopher Lambert actually does show up to the Venture building, but apparently everyone forgot to inform security to unlock the door for him.
- Shaming the Mob: Dr. Mrs. The Monarch lets the other Council members have it for convincing her to try and assassinate Dr. Venture for supposedly offing Wale's sub-arches under the guise of the "Blue Morpho", only for it to turn out that "Morpho" (21/Kano) was offing the "Wandering Spider" at the same time Dr. Venture was on the rooftop of VenTech, clearing Rusty's name.
- Sleep Cute: Billy, completely shitfaced after four drinks, dozes with his head on White's shoulder at Rusty's failure of a party.
- Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness: How the Guild system works.
- Speak of the Devil: Played with, as The Monarch in his early years tried to have it so that the Venture name would be outlawed from ever being used, which normally would sound stupid, but #21 assured us that his plan was Crazy Enough to Work and inconvenience Rusty at best, basically summing up Monarch's M.O. when it comes to arching Venture.
- Too Dumb to Live: Turnbuckle kidnapping a young Rusty on the Venture compound, right in front of Jonas, Sr. and Action Man, who we know at the time was hopped up on "Go Juice." Safe to say, it did not end well for Turnbuckle.
