As Yugi and the Mind Slave Joey continue their Duel as Tea watches from where she is being guarded by Marik's Rare Hunter, it is not long before Mai Valentine arrives with Duke Devlin, Tristan, and Serenity. However, knowing that she can't let Serenity see Joey in his current state, she is able to convince Serenity to keep the bandages on her eyes on for the time being.
Meanwhile, Seto Kaiba is able to summon help to rescue Tea, as a Kaibacorp helicopter under remote control arrives. When the Rare Hunter guarding Tea attempts to carry out his orders from Marik, Kaiba is able to disarm him using his Blue Eyes White Dragon, while the helicopter knocks the crane and the container it was holding over Tea into the sea, saving her.
Meanwhile, as Joey struggles to fight off Marik's influence, Marik orders him to play Meteor of Destruction to finish off Yugi's Life Points. When Joey continues to hesitate to play it, indicating his willpower is overruling his Millennium Rod's control of his mind, Marik is forced to have to take full control of Joey and force him to play it, taunting Yugi that Joey's willpower was not strong enough to overcome his mind control. However, as the meteor hurtles towards Yugi, horrified by what's about to happen, Joey is able to break free of Marik's control completely, as the eye on his forehead indicating he's under Marik's control changes from glowing yellow to white hot, before shattering completely. Inside Joey's mind, Marik is in disbelief and shock, unable to comprehend that Joey's willpower was stronger than he thought and he broke free of the Millennium Rod's influence, before being banished from Joey's mind for good, disintegrating from his extremities inward to his torso and head, while being represented as purple lightning surging from Joey's body as Marik's dark influence is exorcised completely.
Joey comes to shortly afterwards, fully back to normal and free of Marik's influence, before Yugi plays his Trap Card to stop Meteor of Destruction, but with the timer on the explosives attached to the anchor nearing zero, Yugi decides to save Joey from a watery grave, and tells his Trap Card to fire Meteor of Destruction at him, wiping out his Life Points. Sensing that one of them lost, the timer resets to give Joey enough time to escape, but instead of doing that, remembering that Yugi's Trap Card had another effect, Joey has his Red Eyes Black Dragon attack him, finishing off his Life Points, so the Duel ends in a Draw.
Hearing her brother rushing to Yugi's aid, Serenity takes off her bandages and opens her eyes, watching as Joey swings across to Yugi, but before he can remove the shackle on Yugi's ankle, the timer runs out, the explosives detonate, and the anchor drops, taking Joey and Yugi with it. Underwater, Joey frees Yugi and allows him to swim to the surface, being brought back up by Tristan, but before anyone can go after Joey, they are all caught off-guard when Serenity jumps in to save her big brother. Joey is caught off-guard when he sees his little sister coming down to save him.
After Serenity helps Joey back to the surface, everyone is relieved, while Kaiba plans for his victory in the Battle City finals. However, Joey is disgusted with himself over what Marik did to him, guilt-ridden over nearly destroying his friendship with Yugi as a result of it. Mai manages to convince him to get over it by reminding him of what she saw in him back in Duelist Kingdom when he dueled for Serenity to win the prize money to save her eyesight, and Tristan reveals that Serenity had refused to remove her bandages until she could see Joey again. When Joey confronts Serenity on this, she explains that Joey gave her courage, and when she saw him risk his life to save Yugi's, she just had to jump in to save him.
That night, as everyone prepares to head back to Domino City for the rest of Battle City, the Kaiba Brothers take their leave, but not without Yugi thanking Seto again for his help, only for Kaiba to retort that he did what he had to do, and he'll see Yugi in the finals. Despite Seto's showing of gratitude, Yugi realizes that Kaiba is right, the finals are probably where Marik will strike next, and when he does, Yugi, Yami, and their friends will be ready for him.
This episode contains examples of the following:
- Adaptational Explanation: In the manga, Joey simply begs Red-Eyes to attack him to reduce his life points to 0 and in a heart of the cards moment, it obliges despite the fact that the duel had already been resolved. The anime version adds the ability to have an opponent's monster attack you to the effect of Meteor of Destruction, which due to the rules of the game at the time, Joey would legally be able to do as a duel could not officially end in the middle of a card's effect being resolved. This explanation also qualifies as a Voodoo Shark because it begs the question of why the card would have an effect like that or what benefit it could possibly offer its user, and it naturally does not show up on the OCG / TCG card.
- Big Damn Heroes: Joey risking his life to save Yugi after ending the duel in a draw, and then his sister Serenity coming to his rescue thanks to the courage she saw in him.
- Big "NO!": Marik has one when Joey breaks the Millennium Rod's influence over him completely, and Marik's avatar inside Joey's mind is exorcised through being disintegrated by Joey's willpower breaking through the mind control.
- Bowdlerize: The scene in which Kaiba throws a card at the Ghoul controlling the crane is slightly shortened in the dub to remove the shot of the card embedding itself in the guy's hand, and the card is painted out of the shot when he tries to reclaim the controls. The scene in which Kaiba retrieves the card afterwards (and grimaces when he notices that the card thrown was one of his Blue-Eyes White Dragon cards) is removed as well.
- When Mai runs up to Joey to talk sense into him, the scene of her slapping him across the face is removed from the dub. Joey can still be seen holding a hand to his face in the following shot, however.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Marik was confident that his Millennium Rod's power over Joey was unbreakable, but Joey's willpower proved more stronger than it, breaking the mind control completely, much to Marik's disbelief that he had underestimated Yugi and Joey's powerful bond of friendship.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Yugi decides to have his Trap Card resume unleashing Meteor of Destruction on him, sacrificing himself so Joey can escape before the anchor drags both of them to a watery grave. Joey returns the favor when he decides to free Yugi from the shackle connecting him to the anchor chain first before saving himself.
- Tempting Fate: Once Marik forces Joey to play Meteor of Destruction, he taunts Yugi that he could never break Marik's hold over Joey. Joey forces Marik to swallow his own words when his own willpower breaks the mind control and severs Marik's link to Joey for good. Marik should not have tried to destroy The Power of Friendship between Yugi and Joey.
- This Cannot Be!: Marik's reaction when his initial belief of his Near-Villain Victory over Yugi is shattered when Joey breaks completely free of his mind control, exorcising Marik from Joey's mind with a Big "NO!" as he is evicted from Yugi's best friend for good.
- Wham Shot: After Tristan saves Yugi, he tells Mokuba to hurry up and get Joey's key so Tristan can dive down and save Joey. Mokuba nods and prepares to go...when the group sees Serenity, key in hand, leaping into the water!
- Tristan: Serenity!
Tea: She's got the key!
*Everyone gasps as Serenity dives in
