In which the new baddy in town goes overboard.
It’s performance appraisal time in the Hex-Agon, and Stampede is not pleased with Tex Hex’s recent efforts. So much so, in fact, that he has gone to the lengths of firing Tex Hex and replacing him with a guy called Moribund, who comes equipped with a heavy Russian accent and a metallic demon creature called Grox. With Tex Hex dismissed, Stampede sends Moribund and Grox out to make life difficult for the settlers of Fort Kerium. I don’t know why, exactly. Stampede’s diction isn’t great.
Moribund’s first effort in this direction is to use a robot snake to destroy a bridge, but BraveStarr deals with this with consummate ease. Moribund’s response is to go completely overboard: he proposes to Stampede that they nick two of the three suns of New Texas’ solar system. Dementedly, they will leave one of the suns in place, “as a warning”. Stampede seems a little puzzled by this overreaction, but he agrees to go along with the notion, possibly just to find out exactly how Moribund intends to carry out this insane plan.
Moribund begins by riding Grox into Fort Kerium and advising the populace to leave by noon the following day, or face the consequences. He doesn’t specify what the consequences are, and since frankly he isn’t all that imposing, everyone ignores him. When the deadline ticks around, however, Moribund shoots an arrow into space and – thanks to Stampede’s magic powers – this somehow makes the yellow and red suns disappear.
Left with only the cold light of the blue sun, the people of Fort Kerium begin to panic. The Mayor demands that BraveStarr do something about it, and it’s to BraveStarr’s credit that he doesn’t say something like, “I’m not NASA, mate.” Instead, he simply accepts that keeping the suns in position is now part of his job, and gallops off to get some no doubt stupid advice from the Shaman.
The Shaman does not disappoint, indulging in one of his trademarked crazy flashbacks to events from BraveStarr’s youth that are now barely relevant. In this particular case, he suggests that it is possible to find things – such as the suns – even without using your eyes. BraveStarr gets up and leaves without saying thank you, because even by the Shaman’s standards, this is singularly unhelpful.
The next scene depicts BraveStarr and Thirty/Thirty standing around searching for the suns, bemoaning the fact that they haven’t seen, heard or smelt them. Are you guys seriously trying to say that you’ve spent your time sniffing and cupping your hands over your ears in the belief that you’d find the suns that way? Jesus. These two aren’t just incompetent, they’re mad.
After a brief conversation with Fuzz, BraveStarr opts to abandon all pretence at logic and sanity by announcing that Stampede must have hidden the suns in an abandoned kerium mine. No, BraveStarr. No. That’s just stupid. You cannot fit a sun into a mine, and even if you could, you couldn’t fit two of them down there. Surely the writers wouldn’t come up with something quite this mental?
Oh. Well. Seems they would. At the mine, BraveStarr gets in a tussle with Moribund, and thanks to Judge JB, arrests him. BraveStarr then locates the tunnel in which the suns are hid, but – in the slightest nod to sanity – points out that the suns have made the tunnel unbearably hot. He concludes solemnly that their only chance “is to let the suns out a little at a time.” Fine, BraveStarr. You do that. Go on. We’re all watching.
Okay, so BraveStarr’s clever plan is to cut a hairline fracture in the rock at the top of the tunnel, so that presumably the two suns can kind of ooze out. There’s literally no point in me trying to summarise this excursion into lunacy any further, so suffice it to say that BraveStarr’s crazy plan works and the two suns fly out of the tunnel and resume their rightful positions in space. Then BraveStarr gets a cuddle from Judge JB and spouts some profound claptrap about not missing things until they’re gone, which he’ll almost certainly repeat in a second in the moral.
In today’s adventure…
Well, gosh, what did I tell you? BraveStarr, Judge JB and Thirty/Thirty hang out in BraveStarr’s office, promising not to complain about anything anymore, in case it disappears. Fine, fine, fine, but they then go the extra mile and start listing all the things they often complain about, which include the weather, friends, mums, dads, flowers, rain and horses. Who – and I mean who the hell – complains about flowers and horses? No one, that’s who. Shut up, BraveStarr.
Character checklist
Not too many people to concern ourselves with today, just BraveStarr, Thirty/Thirty, Judge JB, the Mayor, Fuzz, Stampede, Moribund, Grox, and Tex Hex. Incidentally, Tex Hex’s appearance in the episode came to an abrupt end with him apparently being disintegrated by Stampede. I assume he’s all right, but for all we know, he’s dead.
Unnecessarily Violent Horse
At one point, BraveStarr is seated in Thirty/Thirty’s saddle, and Thirty/Thirty is trying to talk to him. BraveStarr isn’t listening, because he’s occupied trying to resolve the crisis and doesn’t have the time or inclination to pay attention to the rantings of a crazed horse. Thirty/Thirty’s immediate and proportionate response is to deliberately throw BraveStarr from the saddle, forcing him to land heavily on the ground. I think BraveStarr should sue him.
Insults
I think I must have misheard, but it definitely sounded as though Fuzz called BraveStarr a “pussy”. This seems unlikely.
Strength of the Bear
16 and a half minutes in, BraveStarr finally calls on his favourite animal power to punch a hole in a rock, in order to get past one of Moribund’s stupid traps.
Speed of the Puma
Judge JB contrives to fall off a cliff towards the end of the episode, requiring BraveStarr to call on his puma speed to be at the bottom of the cliff in time to catch her. Predictably, he then grins cheesily, and one might even say creepily.
Starr Rating
When you’ve watched as many episodes of He-Man, She-Ra and BraveStarr as I have over the last few years, you build up a kind of immunity to insanity. These cartoons are utterly implausible even on their most lucid days, so you either quickly stop thinking about it or go completely mad. Sometimes, however, the writers pull out all the stops to achieve something that’s so screamingly demented that it has to be viewed as a desperate cry for urgent psychiatric attention, and that’s what this episode is. It’s totally out of its head from start to finish, and as such it’s pretty much impossible to critique. It’s 100% loopy and has to be accepted as such. Unplug your head from reality and enjoy the ride.
BraveStarr Episode Review Site 