Chief Cruz and the police get the upper hand in their battle with both villains and Big Hero 6 when they begin using Buddy Guardians, powerful new robots produced by Krei Tech.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Bait-and-Switch Boss: The final boss turns out not to be Chief Cruz, but rather Trina, who wants to finish her father Obake's legacy and eliminate all humanity.
- Big Damn Heroes: Just as one of the Buddy Guardians is about to subdue Hiro, Globby suddenly shows up just in time to disable the bot.
- The Bus Came Back: After spending the entirety of the second arc not appearing in the show (save for a photo on Megan's conspiracy wall), Karmi makes a cameo at the end of the episode, watching Hiro accept Tadashi's degree on the computer in her room.
- Chekhov's Boomerang: Obake's chip. Trina finds it in the wreckage of his lair, makes copies of it, and puts them into the robots she sells to the police.
- Chekhov's Gun: The automated garbage trucks that Krei mentions to Hiro early on turn out to be part of Trina's plan.
- Convection, Schmonvection: Trina's induction devices create heat waves strong enough to vaporize plants and melt cars, yet our heroes in metal armor never even show any reaction to the heat, despite Honey standing right next to the aforementioned melting car. The only one who shows any reaction is Globby, who starts dripping as a gag.
- Disproportionate Retribution: First, Chief Cruz grounds his daughter for one week. Megan barging in and yelling at him to let them go is technically obstruction of police work, so that's fair enough. But, grounding Megan another week for taking that punishment in defense of Big Hero 6 is outright petty.
- End of an Era: While Go Go, Honey Lemon, and Wasabi are still Hiro's friends and teammates, their graduation from SFIT marks the end of them being schoolmates, which they've been since the film.
- Epic Fail: Krei's password is "Password" and he can't remember it.
- Face Palm: Trina does one after NBB relish attack does absolutely nothing.
- Foreshadowing: After Big Hero 6 get away again, Cruz talks about implementing the plan to finally catch them. The plan is later revealed to use the sinking ship as bait.
- Heel Realization: Chief Cruz finally realizes he was wrong to think of Big Hero 6 as criminals and that in his zeal he took things too far.
- Horrible Judge of Character: Krei made Trina the head of the Top Secret Robotics Division after a single meeting with her.
- Humongous Mecha: Hiro has Mini-Max and Roddy build MegaMax, a giant version of Baymax, to help out in the battle.
- I Have Your Daughter: Trina takes Megan hostage to make Cruz let her pass.
- Internal Reveal: Big Hero 6 reveal their identities to Cruz.
- Kick the Dog: Chief Cruz does two, the former of which would be considered illegal:
- Sets up a sting operation using a sinking cargo ship as bait, knowing Big Hero 6 wouldn't be able to resist saving people in danger. Wasabi points out that Chief Cruz is arresting them for responding to the supposed people in distress especially when they haven't even done anything illegal prior to them showing up.
- Technically, Big Hero 6 (and Fred in particular) have caused tons of property damage and have regularly interfered with police in the performance of their duties, both of which are crimes. Also, an unsympathetic prosecutor could charge them with counts of reckless endangerment for the damage resulting from their "heroics" (also Fred in particular). But for this particular moment, there were zero grounds to arrest them on, and it's worth noting at no point does Chief Cruz mention any specific crime Big Hero 6 is guilty of.
- Grounds his daughter Megan for insisting that Big Hero 6 aren't bad guys and that they need to be released.
- Sets up a sting operation using a sinking cargo ship as bait, knowing Big Hero 6 wouldn't be able to resist saving people in danger. Wasabi points out that Chief Cruz is arresting them for responding to the supposed people in distress especially when they haven't even done anything illegal prior to them showing up.
- Mangst: Wasabi is visibly upset and mournful after his car is sent into the bay (again) by a Buddy Guardian.
- Morality Chip: Hiro defeats the Buddy Guardians by having his Megabots replace their Obake chips with copies of Tadashi's original Baymax chip.
- Never Say "Die": This episode goes out of its way to make sure they don't outright state Obake is dead.Honey: I was so sure that he was... you know, gone.
- Older Alter Ego: Trina makes herself an adult body so she can get a contract with Krei Tech to build new police robots as part of her plan.
- The Password Is Always "Swordfish":
- Megan is able to enter the vault where the Buddy Guardians are kept because Chief Cruz uses the same password for everything: her birthday.
- Krei's password is..."Password". Leads to a Who's on First? joke when he loses the sticky note on his monitor where he had it written and asks Judy for his password.
- Pet the Dog: On the way to his car, Chief Cruz kindly allows an old lady (actually Globby in disguise) to pass him.
- Right Behind Me: When sneaking into Krei's office, Hiro sees Judy is not at her desk and assumes he'll be able to walk in without having to make up an excuse. Then Baymax points out she's sitting in a chair right behind him, and he moves a bit to reveal this fact.
- Running Gag: Krei's cow costume makes a return.
- Series Fauxnale: Even though Season 3 was confirmed before Season 2 and the ending of this episode does leave plot points (Hardlight and Sirque, Aunt Cass not knowing Hiro is in Big Hero 6, Hiro having located the original Baymax) unresolved, there is still a lot of finality to this episode, to the point where it could serve as a satisfactory Grand Finale and one could be forgiven if they thought it was. Wasabi, GoGo, and Honey Lemon graduate from SFIT, Hiro accepts Tadashi's honorary degree, Chief Cruz exonerates Big Hero 6 and Globby and is allowed to know their secret identities, and the threat that was started in the beginning of the series is completely neutralized.
- Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Chief Cruz starts doing more and more questionable actions to arrest Big Hero 6.
- Shout-Out:
- The Buddy Guardians are clearly based on the ED-209 from Robocop.
- Globby swings through the town like Spider-Man, even making a similar sound.
- "I can do this all day!'' is said once again, this time by Mini-Max.
- Take That!: Fred replies to Honey Lemon saying she thought Obake was gone by saying that no one is ever truly gone in the multiverse (i.e. the Marvel Multiverse, which the movie and the series are a part of as Earth-14123). Unless the company sells their license.note
- Turned Against Their Masters: The Buddy Guardians get their Obake chips activated by Trina and turn evil, so Big Hero 6 and the police have to team up to take them down.
- Villainous Legacy: Trina wants to triumph where her father failed: taking over San Fransokyo.
- We Can Rule Together: Trina offers Baymax a chance to join her robot revolution, but immediately orders him destroyed when he refuses.
- Wham Episode: Go Go, Honey Lemon, and Wasabi graduate SFIT, which they've attended since before the film.
- What the Hell, Hero?:
- El Fuego calls out the heroes for not helping him escape the new Buddy Guardians after he came back to fight them on their behalf.
- Megan gives her father one for wrongfully treating Big Hero 6 like criminals, telling him she's not leaving until he releases them, and in response, he grounds her for it.
- You Are Grounded!: After Chief Cruz apprehends Big Hero 6, Megan rushes to the police station and gives him a piece of her mind. His response is this trope.
- Zerg Rush: MegaMax carries an army of Megabots, each of which carries a Baymax chip to place into the Buddy Guardians. There are more than enough of them to overwhelm the Buddy Guardians and swap their chips.
