Episode 02 – Fallen Idol

In which BraveStarr’s former mentor lets the side down.

A spaceship arrives at New Texas, bringing a figure from BraveStarr’s past: his commanding officer at the Marshal’s Academy, Jingles Morgan. Without even knowing that Jingles is on the planet, BraveStarr indulges in a brief little flashback for the audience, explaining that Jingles was an outstanding trainer and a good man; he is now BraveStarr’s hero. Given the title of this episode, I think we can all see where this is going.

Still before BraveStarr is aware of Jingles’ presence, he receives a fax informing him that Jingles is wanted for murder. It seems that Jingles lost at some kind of game at the Academy, and was a sufficiently sore loser that he opted to disintegrate his opponent. Now he’s on the run, and he’s come to New Texas for no particular reason.

Fuzz: “If only there was a way of receiving information without needing all this dot matrix printer paper.”

Jingles goes to a bar, where he doesn’t pay for his drink and shoots a hole in the wall, seemingly only to demonstrate to the audience that he’s really properly evil. He hammers in the point by nicking off with a vehicle of some kind. The barman – a green dude called Handlebar – calls in BraveStarr, who swiftly assesses that Jingles is present on New Texas, thus bringing him up to speed with the viewers, who’ve known this for the last seven minutes.

Jingles, meanwhile, has vroomed off to an establishment called the Hex-agon, where he meets up with the series’ main baddy, Tex Hex, to offer up his services. Tex Hex is only too willing to accept Jingles onto the team, on the condition that he a) change his name to something a little less stupid, and b) more importantly, dispose of BraveStarr. The camera zooms in disconcertingly on Jingles’ face as he appears to have some kind of spasm, though what this is supposed to signify, I couldn’t say.

Tex Hex: “Yes yes, this episode’s about Jingles, but let’s not forget it’s also your introduction to me, your main villain.”

BraveStarr considers that he must deal with Jingles alone, and sets off to the Hex-agon to arrest his former idol. I should probably mention that Thirty/Thirty and that dreadful Fuzz individual follow to lend a hand, but their contribution is limited at best. Instead, it’s all down to BraveStarr, who tries appealing to Jingles’ better side, and when that doesn’t work, shoots the gun from his hand and arrests him.

 

In today’s adventure…

BraveStarr pops up to tell us about how it can be difficult when someone you admire does something bad, but adds that it doesn’t mean we have to follow in their footsteps. He specifically mentions taking drugs as a bad thing to do, so it’s nice to see that popular motif springing back into life so early in the series.

BraveStarr: “Me and my mates and Filmation feel you can never mention drugs too often.”

 

Character checklist

This week, we get BraveStarr, Thirty/Thirty, Fuzz, Jingles Morgan, Handlebar, Tex Hex, Tex Hex’s annoying little sidekick who doesn’t get a name, and another of Tex Hex’s dudes called Thunderstick.

 

Unnecessarily Violent Horse

Thirty/Thirty reinforces his position as a violent lunatic by bellowing, “I like fighting!” pretty much as soon as we see him this week. He compounds this by trying to use his gun to dig a tunnel, with the predictable result of a cave-in.

Thirty/Thirty: “What do you mean, a danger to myself and society?”

 

Insults

It’s pretty quiet on this score today, except for Tex Hex, who describes Jingles as a “jingling tin-horn”, whatever the hell that means.

 

Eyes of the Hawk

BraveStarr uses this power to gaze through the walls of the Hex-agon and establish that Jingles is inside having a nice chat with Tex Hex. I didn’t realise BraveStarr could look through walls, and it’s an unsettling prospect. It wouldn’t surprise me if he was often to be heard shouting, “Eyes of the hawk!” on Judge JB’s bath night.

 

Speed of the Puma

BraveStarr uses the speed of the puma to run up to the Hex-agon. He also probably uses it to run away if he gets discovered lurking around on Judge JB’s bath night.

 

Strength of the Bear

This one comes into play when BraveStarr needs to battle a fire demon. Sadly, I can’t think of any snide related comments about Judge JB’s bath night.

BraveStarr: “Give me strength to sit through all this stock footage.”

 

Starr Rating

I think this episode was much stronger than last week’s. It’s a surprisingly mature meditation on the downfall of a father figure, and it’s interesting that it offers up no easy, pithy answers. At the end, BraveStarr confronts Jingles to ask how he could let him down; Jingles simply replies that he never set out to be anyone’s hero. There’s no redemption here for Jingles, leaving BraveStarr with the rather bleak realisation that he’s been hero-worshipping a very flawed individual.

On the downside, Fuzz is quickly taking the Orko role as most infuriating person in the series, largely because of his really weird and indecipherable voice, but so long as he keeps to the sidelines, we should be able to get on just fine. It’s good to meet Tex Hex this week, and he seems like a fine villain – though exactly what his motives are remain unclear. In short, I can very much recommend this episode. Enjoy.