Shiro, Lance and Pidge go the Beta Traz in order to free the prisoner Slav so he could assist them in creating the teladuv. While Shiro and Lance go off to find him, Pidge uses the opportunity to find any information on where her family is being held.
Tropes for this episode include the following:
- The Alcatraz: The prison Shiro and the others go to.
- Alternate Universe: Slav's reasoning for doing and not doing certain activities, and how there are alternate realities where he dies which becomes a bit of a Running Gag.
- Blessed with Suck: Slav can see infinite possibilities and quantum realities, and this causes him to exhibit obsessiveness and severe thanatophobia. This also means that he gets tortured for the use of his intelligence. The warden gloats about this.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Slav's intelligence is forcefully ripped from his head and used to make weapons against his will. By the time Shiro finds him, he is a wreck.
- Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: At a crucial point, Slav manages to handle his crippling phobias to open the airlock, so that he and the Paladins can escape.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: When given a choice to save his pet or recapture Slav, the warden chooses his pet without hesitation.
- Faux Horrific: Slav is afraid if he doesn't arrange his blankets a certain way the ship will crash and burn, or if he goes near a puddle he'll drown or if he steps on a crack he'll break an alternate reality of his mother's back.
- Friendly Sniper: Lance shoots the warden's arm so he releases Slav just as the doors to the Beta Traz were closing.
- I Just Want to Be Special: This becomes a major point for Lance in the episode. Lance begins to bring up how he's the sharpshooter of the team and saying how that was his "thing". Pidge lampshades this by shouting, "Since when?!"
- Improbable Aiming Skills: Lance manages to shoot a comparatively tiny part of the warden's arm while the airlock door is closing between them, the warden is flailing Slav back and forth in front of the vulnerable spot, and Lance is being sucked into space.
- It Amused Me: Laika, being the alien equivalent of a dog, goes with Lance after he mistakes her for Slav, helps him fight off the guards, and nearly escapes with the team if not for the warden's timely grip. She then cuddles with the warden who chides her affectionately for being bad.
- The Load: Lance asks what he believes is Slav if he's actually just holding his team back since he doesn't have any special qualities of his own. This gets subverted when Lance fires a crucial shot at the warden, and Shiro praises him for his sharpshooting skills.
- Meaningful Name: Laika the Yupper is named for the first dog in space. Unlike her Yupper counterpart, Laika didn't survive the trip.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Subverted; Lance mistaking Laika for Slav ends up paving the way to the Paladins' escape. The warden focuses on saving her from being sucked out into space.
- Offing the Annoyance: The Druids momentarily cease giving Zarkon energy to search for the Black Lion and he angrily demands why they stopped. One Druid makes the wrong choice of explaining that Haggar instructed them to not push themselves further and Zarkon immediately kills him with his Bayard before growling, "Remember who your master is". The rest of the Druids obediently continue.
- Pokémon Speak: The warden's pet Laika is a Yupper, so of course all she says is, "Yup". This causes lots of confusion for Lance.
- Power-Strain Blackout: One of the Druids can be seen collapsing on their platform from using their energy to help Zarkon find the Black Lion.
- Rage Breaking Point: Shiro is so fed up with Slav despite the fact that he's supposed to rescue him. No matter what he does Slav always brings them two steps back.
- Running Gag: Lance talks to the warden's pet and asks her questions, and she answers all of them with a simple "yup".
- Slav's fear of everything and how it would kill him or the group in an alternate reality, much to Shiro's irritation.
- Techno Babble: Slav does this a lot when explaining his fears and how there are alternate realities.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Pidge finds out that Matt's alive, and that he escaped with a separate rebel unit.
- Who's on First?: Laika is a Yupper and the only word she can say is "yup", which initially leads Lance to believe she's Slav when he asks her if that's true. He also thinks she's actually answering his questions when all she says is "yup".
