After witnessing the Kraang in action, Karai realizes the seriousness of the alien threat and proposes an alliance with the Turtles.
This episode provides examples of:
- All There in the Script: The Russian arms dealer working with The Shredder is named Steranko, according to the Credits.
- Betrayal Insurance: You can't exactly blame Leo for initially turning down Karai's proposal to team-up considering how her encounter with the Turtles ended last time. But since Karai genuinely believes it is vital to form a truce with the Turtles to deal with the Kraang, she had to earn their trust first by willingly throwing herself into danger by leading the Kraang ship away from the Shellraiser, proving there won't be any double-crosses on her part this time.
- Bring My Brown Pants: Michelangelo when they first see the Kraang ship. "Uh, guys. I think I need to change my shell".
- Call-Back: Karai is back from "The Alien Agenda".
- Cloaking Device: The Kraang ship can become invisible to eyesight. Fortunately radar can still detect it.
- Combat Tentacles: The Kraang Ship has three dangling from its underside.
- Deadpan Snarker: Karai gets a notable moment:Raphael: You brought her inside?! Dude! She'll see all our gear.Karai: Yeah, 'cause if Shredder finds out you have an ice cream lamp, it is over.
- Digging Yourself Deeper
- Early-Bird Cameo: Ivan Steranko makes his first appearance here, with not much known about him, besides being an arms dealer for Shredder. Come Season 3, he becomes this incarnation's version of Rocksteady.
- Enemy Mine: Karai wants to team up with the Turtles against the Kraang. After what she did in "The Alien Agenda", she has a hard time convincing them. Interestingly, they are the ones who double-cross her.
- Foreshadowing: The Kraang ship doesn't explode after being shot down, just sinks into the harbor. Shredder also manages to capture one of the Kraang.
- He Knows Too Much: The Kraang ship goes after the Turtles because of their knowledge of the Kraang.
- Hypocrite: When Karai approaches the Turtles to make an Enemy Mine against the Kraang, they all make a big deal over whether or not she's trustworthy, since the last time they trusted her, she meddled with Kraang tech, ended up creating a super-mutant, and happily abandoned the Turtles to clean up her mess. In the end, the Turtles are the ones who end up betraying Karai this time, not the other way around, by using the alliance as an opportunity to make an assassination attempt on the Shredder.
- Hypocrite Has a Point: While Karai has little room to talk when she calls Leo out on the double-cross, she's not wrong to be angry. Karai was nothing but honest about being untrustworthy in "The Alien Agenda", agreeing with Raph rather than Leo about being "bad news". She never made Leo any promises not to betray their alliance, while Leo did with her. Also, it should be noted that after all of the discussion about whether or not to trust Karai, the Turtles are the ones who double-crossed her this time, not the other way around.
- Made of Iron: While everything else that gets hit by the Kraang ship's beam immediately explodes, the Shellraiser stands up to a prolonged shot and can still operate after (though dialogue indicates it was heavily damaged).
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: The Turtles' attempt to take advantage of their deal with Karai to assassinate the Shredder ruins any chance of getting her on their side. Though as Raph points out, given that she's his daughter (which she neglected to tell the Turtles) there was no guarantee that she wouldn't have turned on them anyways.
- "Not So Different" Remark: Karai accuses Leo for being just as short sighted and obsessive as Shredder.
- Power Creep, Power Seep: The Turtles fare a lot better against Shredder this time. While they don't actually land a blow, they also manage to avoid any serious injury.
- Granted this time they did what they could to avoid getting too close to him for too long.
- Revenge Before Reason: Once again we see Shredder showing shades of this. Karai claims Leo is no better when he goes back on their deal by trying to defeat Shredder.
- Shout-Out: "And I'm not scrawny! I'm svelte!" Gee, does that sound familiar?
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Due to belonging to Feuding Families, Leo's romantic hopes are dashed when Karai reveals she is Shredder's daughter.
- Took a Level in Jerkass: This happens to Karai once she finds out that the Turtles attempted to attack the Shredder (whom at the time she believed was her father), to the point that she doesn't even care about stopping the Kraang anymore. Also the Turtles themselves, who double-cross Karai after making a deal.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Karai's reaction when the Turtles double-cross her for an opportunity to take out Shredder, disregarding their shaky alliance to defeat the Kraang (who were the bigger threat at the time).
