In the highly rated two-part season finale "There's No Place Like Springfield", Shipwreck and Lady Jaye rescue Professor Mullaney from Cobra. The scientist informs them of a formula he has been working on and a missing ingredient that will complete it. As a backup plan, Mullaney implants the formula into Shipwreck's brain via a neural transceiver (as seen in Star Trek) and reveals he is only able to remember it by hearing a code word, which he tells Lady Jaye. A following battle leaves Shipwreck unconscious from sinking in water. Upon waking up (purportedly) six years later, his emotions and mental state would be toyed with when he is trapped in a town filled with synthoid copies of his friends and loved ones, including Mara and another synthoid called Althea, who was posing as his daughter from his false marriage to Mara. During the two-parter, Shipwreck is tormented by a recurring nightmare of Cobra interrogating him for Mullaney's formula, as well as visions of many of his long-term Joe friends. He would perceive them as normal, then they would melt away in front of him. In part 2 of the episode, Shipwreck's origins are revealed when a female Crimson Guard named Cadet Deming interrogates him, by using a hazardous psychedelic mind control program, a reference to the 1975 film Inside Out. After discovering he has not aged, Shipwreck realizes his surroundings are not what they seem. He additionally learns about the synthoids and discovers he is actually in a secret Cobra base. In a laboratory, he finds Mullaney's work. Polly helps him recall the formula and he creates it with the secret ingredient. Shipwreck pours the formula down the drain before Cobra can obtain it. Gunfire from the Dreadnoks ignites the formula, causing explosions that signal the USS Flagg and lead the Joes to rescue Shipwreck. Shipwreck goes to save his supposed wife and child and is devastated upon the revelation that they are synthoids.
