Episode 65 – Strength of the Bear

In which BraveStarr fails to perform.

On their way back to town, BraveStarr, Thirty/Thirty and Fuzz hear the sound of a rockslide, followed by someone calling, “Help! Help!” BraveStarr’s prescient assessment of this is, “Sounds like somebody’s in trouble.” Is that right, BraveStarr? How on earth can you tell? It’s bloody lucky you’re around to decipher coded messages like this, isn’t it?

BraveStarr: “It’s our final episode, so here we all are. Are you going to miss us?”

It turns out that the rockslide has trapped a miner inside a cave, and with all the strutting arrogance of a rugger bugger, BraveStarr confidently prances up to the boulders and shrieks, “Strength of the Bear”. Exceedingly pleasingly, it doesn’t work. BraveStarr’s bear strength has deserted him, along with all his other powers. It’s up to Thirty/Thirty to get the miner out, which he does with surprisingly minimal violence. Once that’s accomplished, it’s time for BraveStarr to put in his inevitable visit to the Shaman for a good whinge.

The Shaman reveals that BraveStarr has reached a time when he must renew his bond with the animal spirits. BraveStarr says great, what sort of spirits do the animals drink? God, I wish I wrote for this programme. I’d pepper it full of hilarious jokes like that. In actual fact, BraveStarr simply looks a bit baffled, paving the way for the Shaman to tell one of those tedious stories of BraveStarr’s youth.

BraveStarr: “Say that again, Shaman. I’m confused.”

The upshot of the conversation is that BraveStarr must go into the wilderness without his weapons and powers, and weather whatever dangers come his way. BraveStarr complains that he will be defenceless without his weapons, to which the Shaman replies, “You will have your greatest powers: your courage, and your intelligence.” He’s blatantly taking the piss.

Well of course, BraveStarr decides that he needs his powers back, so off he goes into the desert. He does not go unobserved: Cactus Head has learned that BraveStarr is powerless and weaponless, so reports back to Stampede, who hatches a cunning plan to lure BraveStarr into the Badlands. I’m not sure what will happen once BraveStarr’s in the Badlands, but no doubt I’ll find out shortly.

Vipra is recruited to give BraveStarr a dose of snake venom which fogs his mind, after which Sandstorm blows a wind behind him to direct his path into the Badlands. So far, so good, but BraveStarr manages to find his way to a cave inhabited by an old blind Native American man called Ursian. Ursian takes BraveStarr in, shelters him, and gives him water, allowing him to recover from the effects of Vipra’s venom.

BraveStarr: “Ursian, Ursian… nothing to do with bears, then.”

When BraveStarr and Ursian come under attack from Sandstorm, Thunderstick, and a pair of dingoes, BraveStarr exhibits willingness to sacrifice himself to save Ursian. BraveStarr may have the moral high ground, but he’s completely incapable of actually winning, and in no time at all, Sandstorm gets him trussed up tighter than a character in an EL James novel.

It’s at this point that Thirty/Thirty, Judge JB, Fuzz and Handlebar all rock up to the rescue, which gives BraveStarr mixed feelings. On the one hand, he’s quite pleased to be saved, but on the other, he was supposed to complete his vision quest alone, and getting assistance from four of Fort Kerium’s loopiest inmates definitely doesn’t count as doing it alone.

As he’s standing there debating the situation with his would-be rescuers, Sandstorm gets fed up and fires his gun, causing a boulder to begin falling towards Ursian’s head. BraveStarr is so upset at this prospect that his animal powers return to him, and he uses the strength of the bear to break himself free of his bonds and prevent the rock from hitting Ursian. Predictably enough, it emerges that Ursian is the spirit of the animals, and he’s been testing BraveStarr, a test which BraveStarr has passed with flying colours. He’s so pleased at this outcome that he turns to the camera, winks and gives us a thumbs up. Yeah, congratulations, BraveStarr. My fan mail is as good as in the post.

Ursian: “Here you go, have this tacky light show back.”

In today’s adventure…

BraveStarr and the Shaman have clearly been drinking heavily following this episode’s conclusion, since their take home message is that if we are frightened, we should look inside ourselves where we will find a person who isn’t frightened. That person will be ourselves. So … if we’re frightened, we need to look inside ourselves where we’ll discover that we’re not actually frightened? That’s useful. And not insane. Definitely not insane.

Character checklist

For this grand finale, we get the entire kitchen sink of characters thrown at us. On the side of our heroes, there’s BraveStarr, Thirty/Thirty, Fuzz, the Shaman, Ursian, Judge JB, Handlebar, Diamondback, and Diamondback’s partner, who if I recall correctly is called Billy Bob. The villains oddly omit Tex Hex, but otherwise everyone’s here: Stampede, Sandstorm, Vipra, Cactus Head, Skuzz, Thunderstick, Hog Tie, and a selection of the finest dingoes money can buy.

Vipra: “I had a lot of potential, and I think this series squandered it.”

Insults

There’s not a hint of unpleasantness until the nineteenth minute, when Sandstorm suddenly erupts with “cowards” as a fitting description for his dingoes. This is followed by the truly surprising moment when Thirty/Thirty appears to call Sandstorm a “pussy”.

Strength of the Bear

As noted above, BraveStarr unsuccessfully attempts to use the strength of the bear to release Diamondback’s friend from the cave, and then triumphantly unleashes it at the end of the episode to save Ursian from becoming a large and unappetising pancake.

Starr Rating

Despite being plagued with numerous insane moments and some easily misinterpreted dialogue, this is a very pleasing final instalment of the series. It seems fitting that the last episode features an exploration, however cursory, of how BraveStarr got his powers, and though it’s obvious to an adult observer that Ursian is something to do with the strength of the bear, it probably came as a good last-minute twist for children. The threat level is believable as well: Sandstorm is by some distance the most credible of the bad guys, and it’s a bit of a shame we didn’t see more of him over the series. All in all, this one is a good solid episode which will leave us all with fond memories of the BraveStarr series.

Next time, we’ll be looking at the BraveStarr movie – The Legend. Unless when I watch it, it turns out to be just a bunch of episodes edited together, in which case we’ll be skipping it and moving straight on to our series summary.