Darkwing's new SHUSH weapon hits Gosalyn and creates three clones of her that represent her temper (red), her ego (green), and her irresponsibility (yellow). Darkwing teams up with Megavolt to stop them from wreaking havoc upon the city.
This episode contains examples of the following tropes:
- Analogy Backfire:Megavolt: I know the electromagnetic spectrum like the back of my hand. [sees the back of his hand] Whoa, what the heck is that!?
- In the Russian and German dub it became a Fourth Wall Breaking, as their version of "like the back of my hand" would be "like my own five fingers". And then Megavolt sees his own hand with only four fingers on it.
- Chekhov's Gun: The video game that Gosalyn was playing at the beginning of the episode ends up being useful in stopping the clones.
- Dark Is Evil: Downplayed, but the reason Darkwing refused to go with negative polarity in the energy clone trap was that he saw negative as bad and positive as good. Turns out he was wrong.
- Didn't Think This Through: In order to put out a fire, Megavolt sets off the sprinkler system. Darkwing then wondered out loud if the water would short Megavolt out. Three seconds later, they're both electrocuted.
- Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: Megavolt sings the series' theme song to himself while flying a kite in a thunderstorm in an attempt to clear his sinuses. After a few seconds, he grumbles, "I just can't get that stupid tune out of my head!"
- Enemy Mine: Megavolt teams up with Darkwing in order to stop the Gosalyn-shaped representations of radio, light, and heat waves from wreaking havoc upon the city. His excuse for the team up this time? The physical representations of the electromagnetic spectrum hurt his feelings. (Darkwing was willing to work with him because he was an expert in the field - well, the best one that was available, at least.)
- Enemy Without: The episode is centered around Gosalyn's worst personality traits (her temper, her ego, and her irresponsibility) being given form as energy beings.
- Energy Being: The Fiends are each derived from a frequency on the electromagnetic spectrum: heat, light, and radio.
- Fourth-Wall Observer:
- Megavolt complains that the show's theme song is stuck in his head.
- When Megavolt goes flying out of his car after slamming the brakes, he tells the viewers to always wear their seatbelts.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: Megavolt eventually captures and traps the evil Gosalyn clones, and warns the protagonists that they could come back if they wanted - all they'd need was a particular device. The screen fades to black, and then the clones appear onscreen, the leader saying "Hey, kid...we need you to get something for us." All three of them suddenly lean forward, giggling "Pretty pleeeaaase?" The device in question is a Particle Accelerator, which becomes doubly funny when you get older and realize that CRTs, found in every television set in the world back then, are particle accelerators.
- Friendly Enemy: Megavolt proves to be very affable to the heroes once he and Darkwing team up. He's visibly moved when Darkwing calls him his archenemy, and praises his ability to thwart his schemes when he sees the masked mallard's secret headquarters.
- Hypocritical Humor: The entire opening is filled with this.
- While Gosalyn's plays her video game, Darkwing tells her to knock off the play-by-play commentary. This despite the fact that he himself frequently narrates his own exploits aloud when he's on the case.
- When Gosalyn loses her temper and starts stomping on the TV in frustration, Darkwing tells her to stop doing that for it's no way to treat "a complicated piece of equipment." He then threatens to throw his weapon into the trash compactor if it doesn't work, and beats it senseless when it doesn't.
- And then there's Gosalyn's entire rant about how she's in no way like the Fiends.Gosalyn: No way, Dad, you can't blame this on me! Those guys couldn't have come from my brain! I'm nothing like them, I'm way too cool to have a big ego and I never get mad, NEVER! NE...um, heh, heh, I'll just get to work cleaning up the mess my brain made.
- I Warned You: Despite Megavolt stating that negative polarity must be used in the trap for the energy clones, Darkwing uses positive polarity. When he blasts the clones, he ends up turning them into a three-headed giant. Megavolt's response:
- Darkwing: What do we do?!Megavolt: (buffing his nails, apparently unconcerned) Hmm... well, we could zap it with negative polarity... LIKE I SAID IN THE FIRST PLACE!!!
- Multiple Head Case: The clones end up getting fused together into a three-headed giant.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If Darkwing had just listened to Megavolt and zapped the Frequency Fiends using negative polarity, the episode would have likely ended earlier. But alas, he insists the polarity be positive, which ends up turning the Fiends into a three-headed giant, making an already bad situation worse.
- Noodle Incident:
- Gosalyn mentions a time when Darkwing was brainwashed by aliens, which was never shown in any episode prior.
- Dr. Slug is mentioned and it's implied he and Darkwing have clashed so many times in the past that they're widely considered archenemies. But since he's The Ghost of the series, we've never seen any of them.
- Reverse Polarity: Subverted. Megavolt wants to use the negative polarity of a magnet in order to destroy the Frequency Fiends. However, Darkwing argues that the magnet should be set to positive polarity, because negative always means something bad. Darkwing gets his way, but the positive polarity only makes things worse.
- Villains Out Shopping: Before the Frequency Fiends show up, Megavolt is trying to get himself struck by lightning, just so that it will clear his sinuses.
