In which we learn that blind people can have jobs and everything.
As we open today, a blind lady called Ally Kingston from the Galactic Vision Laboratory Institute is getting ready to leave New Texas with a large consignment of kerium. The Institute is hoping to use the kerium to develop a cure for blindness, but BraveStarr is worried that some baddies will try to nick the kerium for their own nefarious purposes. And what do you know, he’s right. Admittedly, it would be a fairly dull episode if he was wrong, but I wish BraveStarr wasn’t right all the time.
Tex Hex and his team make an initial attempt to nick the kerium from the bank in a frontal assault, but because they’re all idiots, BraveStarr and Thirty/Thirty send them packing. Tex Hex’s next plan is a tad subtler, though still massively formulaic: he kidnaps Ally Kingston with the intention of exchanging her for the kerium.
Surprisingly, though, Tex Hex finds himself coming to like Ally, and we even get a bit of back story for Tex: once upon a time, there was a woman whom he loved, but he left her behind in his greed for kerium and thirst for power. There’s a definite indication that he has at least some degree of regret, making him an unexpectedly complex character. At any rate, he risks his life to save Ally’s, and who knows what might have happened if BraveStarr hadn’t blundered along at this point?
Realising BraveStarr is approaching, Tex Hex does a runner, and Ally is recovered. They all return to town, preparing for a potential further attempt on the kerium, and this necessitates a repeat performance of that lengthy animation from last week of all the walls going up around the town, though it doesn’t go on quite as long this time, thank Christ.
Even so, the baddies still manage to get into the town, and there’s an exciting confrontation at the bank which ends, not entirely surprisingly, with Tex Hex and his gang running away. The following morning, as Ally sets off back to the Institute with her kerium, Tex Hex sneaks along to say goodbye, and she reminds him that he doesn’t have to be evil. It goes unspoken, but I got the distinct impression that Tex Hex has nothing left other than being evil, which is a strangely bleak outlook. Or maybe I’m just reading too much into this.
In today’s adventure…
Judge JB and BraveStarr deliver a well-intentioned but massively patronising lesson, informing us that “just because blind people can’t see doesn’t mean they can’t hold down a job. In fact, there are some jobs they can do even better than people with sight.” They don’t make any effort to tell us what said jobs might be, instead moving on to a weird bit where Judge JB tells her father McBride that she’s really proud of him. I don’t know what relevance this has to anything, seeing as McBride isn’t blind.
Character checklist
Once again, we’re completely inundated with characters. This week features BraveStarr, Thirty/Thirty, Judge JB, Fuzz, Handlebar, Ally Kingston, Tex Hex, Skuzz, Cactus Head, Sandstorm, Thunderstick, Vipra, a dingo outlaw, and three weird flailing things all apparently called Sandor. McBride also shows up for a non-speaking appearance in the moral segment, though as noted above, I haven’t got a clue why.
Unnecessarily Violent Horse
“We like trouble!” Thirty/Thirty exclaims enthusiastically, thus provoking a little set-to with Tex Hex and his crowd that could perhaps otherwise have been avoided. Later in the episode, he bends Cactus Head’s body until it acts as a pair of handcuffs for Thunderstick, an act which has got to be some considerable distance the wrong side of the Geneva Convention.
Insults
For a long time, the only insult in the episode was Fuzz telling himself that he is “foolish”, an assessment with which I’m not inclined to disagree. In the last five minutes, however, all hell suddenly breaks loose when Thunderstick addresses Thirty/Thirty as “mechanical mule”, BraveStarr calls Skuzz a “Skuzz-ball”, Sandstorm calls Tex Hex a “rat”, and Thirty/Thirty describes Tex Hex as a “chicken-livered coward” and “good-for-nothing”.
Eyes of the Hawk
While out searching for the missing Ally Kingston, BraveStarr indulges in some hawk eyes to investigate a rockslide, which is lucky, because naturally Ally is in danger from said rockslide.
Strength of the Bear
BraveStarr all too predictably calls on the strength of the bear to free himself from the grasp of the weird Sandor thing. Frankly, Sandor looks stronger than a bear, and wouldn’t it be funny if even with his added bear strength, BraveStarr was still unable to escape? Well, I’d laugh anyway, but maybe that’s because watching all this BraveStarr recently has driven me mental.
Speed of the Puma
Blink and you’d miss it, because it isn’t actually announced, but BraveStarr pumas his way into town after his confrontation with the Sandors. He also uses the puma speed to rescue Ally from the rockslide, and yet again right at the end of the episode to do some unnecessary bouncing about.
Starr Rating
Now, this is more like it. This one feels like the first episode in absolute yonks that’s been anywhere near a success. I really enjoyed Tex Hex being painted as a far more nuanced character; his behaviour towards Ally felt realistic and grew organically out of the story, and the flashback to his youth was both interesting and unexpectedly poignant. His behaviour during the bank raid seemed genuinely conflicted, and it was nice to see that though he ultimately couldn’t change his evil ways, he still cared enough about Ally to come and say goodbye. I’m not sure the blindness angle was quite so good, especially given the heavy-handed moral, but all in all, this is a very enjoyable episode that’s a far cry from some of the tedious drivel we’ve been faced with lately.
BraveStarr Episode Review Site 