Chris gives the contestants gifts sent to them from home, and later sends them right into a space-themed movies challenge. His prime saboteur Owen however is finding it increasingly hard to maintain his cover.
Tropes:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Beth for Harold.
- Adding Insult to Injury: Owen's care package is a trophy from his school saying much of a selfless Nice Guy he is, right when he's really forced to be the saboteur of the season. He runs off crying because of it.
- Artificial Gravity: Or rather, artificial zero gravity, which is part of the contestants' first challenge, where they have to spend the night in zero-G.
- Bait-and-Switch Comparison: Courtney asks Duncan for his pillow when she loses hers. He has to tell her no because he already has his pillow in use to keep his pet tarantula safe. Courtney airs her annoyance over Duncan picking Scruffy over her in the confessional, slyly noting that she hates that gross hairy creature and his pet spider too.
- Being Evil Sucks: Owen plays this trope throughout the entire episode.
- Cat Fight: In the evening, Beth and Courtney get into a huge fight in the girls' trailer over Beth taking the day's final challenge while Courtney wanted the both of them to refuse it. Duncan and Harold can hear everything while seated at the campfire, which prompts Duncan to state that he loves a good cat fight. Harold agrees, but specifies that his idea of a cat fight involves actual cats that wear tiny boxing gloves. Duncan doesn't know how to respond to that.
- Continuity Nod: Chris and Chef wear caveman costumes from the episode "One Million Bucks B.C.", which Harold lampshades.
- Everyone Has Standards: Chef looks particularly concerned when Chris quips that the contestants might not survive the night.
- Forceful Kiss: Beth wrongly gets the idea that Harold is into her, but as she just received a ring from Brady she considers herself off the market. However, after acing a particularly harrowing challenge, she reconsiders if she wants to settle for Brady. Before Harold realizes it, she's already hauled him in by the chin and is planting a vomit-covered kiss on his lips.
- Friendly Neighborhood Spider: Duncan has a pet tarantula. While he acknowledges the thing could've easily killed him in his sleep (which is why he kept a bat under his pillow), he loves the little guy and is devastated when he dies.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Courtney is really jealous of the amount of attention Duncan gives to his pet tarantula Scruffy.
- Hand Gagging: As the ones who solved the previous challenge, Beth and Courtney get to decide the order in which the contestants will attempt the next challenge. Beth wants to say that they'll go first, but Courtney has a better idea and shoves her hand in Beth's face. Courtney makes the order guys first, then Beth, and she'll be the last one so she can learn from the others' efforts.
- He Knows Too Much: Knowing that Owen was Chris's spy gets Harold voted off.
- It's All About Me: Courtney, in order:
- Rather annoyed that she didn't get a trophy similar to Owen's from her school.
- A care package that is a picture of her standing alone for a debate at her school because she wasn't a team player.
- Couldn't care less about Duncan's pet tarantula Scruffy being killed, because he'll pay more attention to her now.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Duncan admits he had it coming after he calls Harold Doris and gets pantsed because of it.
- No, Except Yes: Harold at first denies that he put rocks in Duncan's mattress, before joyfully admitting that it was indeed him.
- Non-Indicative Title: The title is an oddity, because assuming that Island occurs in its year of release, 2007, than Action also takes place in 2007 because there's only two days between the seasons. On the other end, the original airdate of the episode occurred in 2009. 2008 was the year it likely was produced in, but as is it has nothing to do with either the episode's content or its reception.
- Ow, My Body Part!: Duncan complains about his back throughout the challenge after Harold put rocks in his mattress.
- Pants-Pulling Prank: Harold gets voted off and as he walks to the Lame-o-sine, Duncan tells him to hurry up and calls him "Doris", Harold's loathed middle name. With nothing more to lose, Harold runs back and pulls down his long-suffered bully's pants. Duncan acknowledges he deserved that.
- Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: The title is a play on the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- Sarcasm-Blind: Beth isn't really aware that Courtney calling her a genius was sarcastic, rather than a complement.
- Shout-Out:
- The opening scene of the episode, with the giant black monolith and Chris and Chef dressed as cavemen is a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
- The moment when Chef mistakes Owen's butt for pillows is based on a similar mistake in Planes, Trains and Automobiles.
- The scene in which the castmates slowly walk out while accompanied by dramatic music is a parody of a scene from Armageddon (1998).
- The way the Lame-o-sine pulls away from the Walk of Shame is a direct reference to the way a certain DeLorean travels through time.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Duncan complains about the "stabbing pain in [his] back" from sleeping on a faulty mattress. The moment the sentence leaves his mouth, Owen, who secretly works for Chris, blurts out: "Who stabbed you in the back? It wasn't me. I'm a good guy. Not some dirty backstabber, I swear! You've gotta believe me!" No one knows what he's talking about, but it does get Harold thinking.
- Team Power Walk: Parodied. The five remaining contestants stand side by side in front of the gate of a studio. As it opens and daylight pours in, they begin walking in slow-motion while the camera goes from behind them to their feet, to a low sideways view, to a panning frontal shot. At this point, Chris hastily walks past them and tells them to get a move on.
- Uncatty Resemblance: Duncan get his pet spider, Scruffy, sent to him. Scruffy has a mean-looking face that goes with Duncan's bad boy face and sports the colors green and black just like Duncan's hair.
- Why Are You Looking at Me Like That?: The contestants have ten minutes to plug a hole in their space shuttle. Harold calls out for them to find something "big and form-fitting, hefty yet pliable", prompting all eyes to take aim at Owen. Owen wants to know why they're looking at him like that. He gets no choice in being used as a plug, but doesn't mind it.
