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Leonard Starr Reviewed by Prokopis Email: propanag@hotmail.com  Foreword: This episode pretty much revolves around a single plotline, namely Snarfer's quirk-ridden arrival on Third Earth and the Cats' subsequent attempt to save him from the Lunatacs. As such, it's definitely not up to par with any of the other parts of this adventure, portraying the opposition as quite inane, taking no advantage of the dynamics it creates and featuring no Mutants and only half the heroes' cast, i.e. Lion-O, the ThunderNewbs and the snarfy duo (the rest might as well be out on another pervy picnic with Dr. Dometone or shootin' a home video or something). What's worse nobody gives a rat's ass about the lil' squirt's fate anyway, much less be willing to sit through a whole episode devoted to him - especially one placed in a 5-parter adventure widely acknowledged as the best in the show, such as this is. Okay done ranting now, just had to get it out of me. Let's look at the sterile story now. It all started one not-so-fine day (actually, the same one from the previous part, but meh) with Mumm-Ra deciding to take the risk and beg the ASOE to restore his powers. The shrewd red-caped dude plays the best card for the occasion (Third Earth will turn gay if the 'Cats prevail and no evil exists) and gets the spirits to comply in a pretty colorful fashion. Mumm-Ra is powerful once more. Taking a brief break from his gloating, he and Ma-Mutt tune in to Cauldron Vision to see if anything good is on, but instead see Snarfer's spaceship approaching the planet. In his dorky helmet, Snarfer contacts the Tower of Omens, where his friends are monitoring his flight trajectory. His entry seems good, if only momentarily, but it is soon revealed the ship's on the wrong course after all due to a malfunctioning part. Snarfer switches to manual and, for a start, saves himself from roasting in his own ship without the proper gravy, but Lynx-O fears things may get worse yet. Also tracking the vessel - out of boredom probably - are the Lunatacs. Most of the crooked crew couldn't care less what happens to the pesky wretch, but Luna reminds them of the ThunderCats' and snarfs' age-old alliance. If seized, Snarfer could be used as leverage against the felines. For that reason she has RedEye continue keeping an eye on the ship's descent. With a little luck, Snarfer manages to keep it together and pilot through the upper atmosphere, but he's not out of the woods just yet; Lynx-O realizes he's headed for the Dark Side. The Lunatacs have figured that much too and decide to go grab the young college boy. Sky Tomb lifts off and heads for the LZ. There are a few things in life that are inevitable and one of those things is a snarf doing its own thing even if it's damn well been told otherwise. Case and point, Lion-O informs the unsuspecting nephew he'll be landing in enemy territory and should seek a hiding spot the moment he touches ground, but does he take the warning to heart? Hell no. Instead, the kid prefers to explore the great outdoors and scout around, which couldn't make it any easier for his predators to spot him and steer their fortress in his direction. Seeing the floating monstrosity closing in, it finally dawns on boy genius that maybe its time to get the duck out of fodge and crawl into a hole or something to wait for the cavalry. Fearing the worst, our heroes jump into the ThunderStrike and speed to the rescue through the canyon of mists. But as the Loonies set their home down and go out to search, RedEye (still in the control chamber) starts receiving some funky signals, he determines to be coming from the Cats' aircraft. Deducing it's Lynx-O and his Braille Board "feeling" their way through the canyon, he decides to try and jam the signal and see if it makes the ThunderCats go splat. Lynx-O does get freaked out a short way before the exit, but thanks to Lion-O's swift adjustments, they make it out in one piece. With the board shorted out, it looks like they're gonna have to find some other way to locate Snarfer. Meanwhile, the Lunatacs' Search & Snatch-U mission isn't doing too well either, as Snarfer ends up playing Bugs and Elmer Fudd with TugMug. Alluro's approach is more intellectualistic, but since his psyche club doesn't seem to have any effect on the furball (need more proof Snarfer's brain works different than everyone else's?), he's forced to do things the old-fashioned way. With the aid of the sword's second sight, Lion-O sees Alluro chasing Snarfer up a tree and along with Pumyra, Bengali and Snarf, they set out to save him. Little do his friends know that Snarfer needs no help with defeating Alluro though, which he achieves by making a hole in a giant beehive on the tree, allowing for the honey to pour down on the unfortunate mind bender. The pissed off giant bees take it from there and Alluro eventually falls down. Content with himself, the diabolic snarf takes off. Eventually, Chilla finds the elusive runt and stops him cold. Lion-O again sees this through the sword and puts up the signal before rushing off to kick some ass. Just outside Sky Tomb, he catches up to the ice queen and her excess baggage and lets the SoO do the work. Snarfer's freed, but the two of them won't be havin' it any easier now, being surrounded by all the Lunatacs and Lion-O taking Chilla's hits one after another. Luckily Pumyra, Bengali and Snarf show up to help fend off the attack just as their leader's lying down, unable to defend himself anymore. The still unfair fight soon gets interrupted by Lynx-O, who lands the ThunderStrike and quickly picks the team up, much to Luna's anger and TugMug's pointless hopping. The ThunderCats take off and head for home while their pilot explains that rewiring the Braille Board to ignore the jamming signals took him some time. Once again, Mumm-Ra - who's been watching it all in his magic bathtub - isn't happy the way things turned out. Thinking along the lines of "if you want something done, ...", he proceeds to put his evil scheme in motion now that he's stronger than ever before. Quick preview of Part 5 concludes the episode. - Apparently Red-Eye and Lynx-O share the ability to pick up signals outside everyone else's spectrum of perception (the first with his eyes and the latter with his ears and Braille Board). That is what allows Lynx-O to navigate like a bat, emitting sound waves and interpreting the response and it's also what helps Red-Eye discover the old cat's vulnerability - signal jamming. "ThunderCats, my debut will be your final curtain!" (Mumm-Ra) "Dang, I knew the kid would goof!" (Snarf) "Any landing you can walk away from [trips and falls face first] ...is a good landing." (Snarfer) "Impressive all that jumping about, but primitive. Now me, I'm different; I'm Alluro. And you don't stand a chance against me!" (everyone's favorite Lunatac) "No one can escape me, no one can beat me. You don't stand a chance!" (Alluro, in his usual tune) "Is everyone on Third Earth incompetent, Ma-Mutt? Do we have to do everything ourselves?" (Mumm-Ra) - Quite interesting how the "incapable of evil" Snarfer (being a snarf) decides to deal with Alluro, who's chasing him up a treetop beehive: the lil' wretch pours honey over the unfortunate Lunatac and lets the bees take care of him. Now if that's not diabolic, I don't know what is. Incapable of evil my beak.. . - So why is Snarfer immune to Alluro's psychic powers anyway, when Panthro was a cakewalk to bend? Was counter-interrogation tactics a major in his university or something? What's the freakin' point introducing a threat element if you're going to nullify it in the same minute? Oh man, I give this travesty one insignia...Snarfer overload is one thing, but he defeats this new threat the Lunataks, single handed? Puh-lease!! Ugh...I don't know what's sadder...that Snarfer defeated them so easily or that the other Thundercats actually percieved them as worthy opponents. For that matter, Lion-O should just chuck the Sword in favor of carrying around Snarfer. Damn. No comments yet.
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The Show
