Written by: Ian Weinreich and Clayton Sakoda
Now when Strykore has been released back into Skylands, the Skylanders' greatest battle is underfoot. Strykore immediately enacts his master plan, and the first part involves sending Dark Spyro (and Kaos) to kidnap King Pen to learn the location of the Map to Arkus. At the academy, Kaossandra is trying to fit in, and while Stealth Elf accepts her pretty quickly, she still needs to prove herself to the other Skylanders as someone they can trust and work together with.
This episode provide examples of:
- The Cameo: Silhouettes of Thumpback, Eye-Brawl, Swarm and Wash Buckler appears in Eon's flashback. And interestingly, Wash Buckler seems to be on Strykore's side.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Despite the last knowledge we have of him being that he still lives with King Pen, Cy never appears in this episode despite King Pen being an integral part in it.
- Distressed Dude: For the second time, King Pen finds himself captured by a villain.
- Electric Torture: Kaos uses his lightning as his way of torturing King Pen into talking. It doesn’t work at all.
- Epic Fail: King Pen impressively defends himself against Dark Spyro and Kaos while blindfolded… only to then knock himself out by accident because he walked right into an icicle.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: During the battle, Pop Fizz tries to throw one of his potions at Strykore. Strykore grabs the potion via telekinesis and fires it back at Pop Fizz who gets hit by it. The effect causes him to start floating, which puts him out of the fight.
- Infodump:
- The biggest one in the show's history gets dropped at the start of the episode, where Eon tells everyone of Strykore’s origins.
- Strykore also gives one out himself, all about the background of the Iron Fist of Arkus.
- Literal-Minded: Strykore tells Kaos and Dark Spyro to "bring him King Pen’s head on a platter". When the duo arrive at King Pen's arctic isle, Kaos reveals he actually brought a platter. Both Spyro and Strykore tell him that it's a figure of speech.
- The Main Characters Do Everything: In the cold open, Eon tells the team along with a group of side characters that the fate of Skylands is in their hands. After the intro, all the side characters leave not only the story of the episode, but also the story of the season in general, allowing it to focus on exclusively Team Spyro, Eon, Kaossandra and later Dark Spyro. And few side characters are lucky to have any role at all in any following episodes. Even Sprocket gets side-lined, even though she is the new team member who's filling in for Spyro's absence. Instead, that role is taken up by Kaossandra for this episode.
- Noodle Incident: If the team's reaction to King Pen's capture is any indication, him being kidnapped is a pretty common occurrence.
- Pass the Popcorn: Kaos brought popcorn to eat while Strykore tells him and the other minions about his evil plan.
- Pet the Dog: After threatening King Pen into revealing the information about the Map to Arkus, Dark Spyro get a concerned look on his face for what he just did.
- Reformed, but Rejected: Kaossandra starts off as this. Even after turning over to the Skylanders' side and Eon explaining her situation and why she had previously turned to the dark side, everyone who isn't named Eon or Stealth Elf has a hard time trusting her, especially Eruptor, Jet-Vac and Pop Fizz, who all agree to tell Eon that they did not want Kaossandra on the team. After Kaossandra helps them escape with King Pen from Strykore's castle, they see the good in her and gets their views on her softened.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: A Running Gag in the episode is Kaossandra being able to appear suddenly without anyone noticing.Eruptor: See?! That was totally an evil entrance and exit!
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
- Kaos and Dark Spyro clearly do not get along during their mission, which stems from resentment for each other in regards to their different loyalties to Strykore.
- Eruptor, Jet-Vac and Pop Fizz are not happy with Kaossandra becoming a new member of the team, since they have issues with trusting her after she has been one of the biggest villains in Skylands. They even agreed to ask Eon to not include her in the team, but unfortunately, Eon sent them all to rescue King Pen before they could voice it.
- This Is Unforgivable!: When Kaossandra tries to get Kaos to leave Strykore, he refuses, citing that he is never gonna forgive her for what she did to Strykore.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Strykore and Kaos come out on top in their fight against the Skylanders, who only managed to escape because Kaossandra bought them time to do so. After this, the best Strykore can say to Kaos is that "he didn't mess up too much", even though Kaos saved him from being sucked into Jet-Vac's vac gun and was even the one who took out the most Skylanders.
