It's one of those days.
Guess for some aliens "getting a cold" is not just an expression.
A man with the ability to control arthropods decides to attack a councilwoman to stop the demolition of his building. Ben is there to stop him but, after catching a cold, all of his alien forms are also sick.
Tropes:
- 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The black widow spiders climbing up the councilwoman's body are clearly CGI.
- Bee-Bee Gun: Clancy uses wasps as his main attack force as shown when he used them to kidnap the councilwoman or when he made them pursue Gwen and Max.
- Cassandra Truth: The robber that Upgrade stops at the beginning of the episode tells the police officers arresting him that a pilotless motorbike made him crash. Of course, he's describing Upgrade's abilities but no one believes him.
- Cool Bike: At the beginning of the episode, Upgrade turns a regular motorcycle into a bike worthy of TRON.
- Delicious Distraction: Ben uses the medicine Max gave him to distract Clancy's swarm away from the RV.
- Foreshadowing: Gwen says that insects are extremely resilent and their only options would be waiting for another ice age, a tank full of pesticide or burning them. Given that they can't use the first two, Heatblast will have to do, but because he's sick he gets ice powers.
- Friend to Bugs: Clancy clearly cares about arthropods and is extremely angry when Four Arms kills most of his friends by destroying the building they live in.
- Going Critical: Clancy's plan of destroying the city involves tampering with a nuclear reactor and somehow turning it into a nuclear bomb.
- Here We Go Again!: Gwen ends up catching Ben's cold at the end of the episode, much to her dismay but to the delight of Ben, who recovered from it.
- An Ice Person: Heatblast's powers reverse completely and become ice-based when he has a cold.
- If It Tastes Bad, It Must Be Good for You: The medicine Max gives to Ben naturally has an awful smell, though Max assures Ben that the taste is not as bad.Grandpa Max: Don't worry, it smells worse than it tastes. Or was it the other way around?
- Kill It with Fire: Given their toughness, Gwen says that the only reliable option for getting rid of insects is burning them. It's never actually followed upon because Heatblast obtains ice powers when sick.
- Logical Weakness: Because Wildmutt relies entirely on his sense of smell to percieve his environment, the congestion from Ben's cold leaves him completely blind.
- Malfunction Malady: Ben's alien forms react differently to the common cold. Wildmutt is essentially blind because the mucus clogging his nostrils prevents him from smelling anything, Fourarms turns slightly paler and gets cysts under his armpits, and Heatblast gains ice-based powers.
- Not Quite Flight: Clancy uses his wasp swarm to float and escape the collapse of his building. He also uses it when kidnapping the councilwoman.
- Red Alert: After Clancy destroys the controls of the nuclear reactor, an alarm goes off with the corresponding red lights. Ben innocently asks if that's a good thing but Gwen simply answers that a red alert in a nuclear plant obviously means something's wrong.
- Sick Episode: The main plot of the episode is Ben having to deal with a cold (that also affects his alien forms) while having to stop Clancy and his swarm.
- Sneeze of Doom: Four Arms accidentally sneezes a huge amount of mucus over the councilwoman he is trying to save but that turns out to be a good thing as his snot kills the spiders crawling on her body.
- Spider Swarm: Hundreds of spiders are seen living on Clancy's building and they apparently get along with each other just fine, though that may be because of Clancy's control.
- Termite Trouble: A group of termites destroy in a matter of seconds the wooden floor that Gwen is standing in.
- The Worm That Walks: In a variation, Clancy makes an armor with cockroaches.
