Captives of Cobra, Part II

A recap sets the stakes: Cobra has kidnapped the families of several Joes, the Baroness has brainwashed them, and the team is hauling a truck of unstable crystals across the desert. Scarlett and the others find their own relatives marching down the road in white suits with glowing eyes, and the Joes must stop them without hurting them. Duke, Lady Jaye, Gung-Ho and Tollbooth keep the crystals rolling along a dirt road where any jolt could set them off, while Scarlett and Spirit hunt for the source of the mind control. They wreck the machine, the Baroness sends the boy Jesse Delgado at the crystals, and a Cobra airship grapples the truck before the crystals blow.

A stolen file shows that Gung-Ho has a large family in Louisiana, so the Joes head for the bayou, where the Baroness walks into the clearing and meets a very different welcome.

Voice talents, as credited on this episode's closing titles. The Sunbow credit crawl lists the company of voice actors and does not assign roles, so no role attributions are given here.

Liz Aubrey Jackson Beck Michael Bell Gregg Berger Arthur Burghardt Corey Burton Darlene Carr Francois Chau Peter Cullen Christian Czingland Pat Fraley Barbara Goodson Dave Hall Johnny Haymer Zack Hoffman Kene Holliday Michael Horton John Hostetter Buster Jones Stan Jones Jimmy Keegan Christopher Latta Hap Lawrence Pat Lentz Loren Lester Ketty Lester Mary McDonald Lewis Morgan Lofting Mona Marshall Bill Morey Rob Paulsen Bill Ratner Hal Rayle Neil Ross Dan Roth Will Ryan Marilyn Schreffler John Stephenson B.J. Ward Lee Weaver Frank Welker Michael Yama Keone Young

"It's our families. Cobra's sent our own families against us." -- Scarlett

"Do not argue with me, doctor. Do it now!" -- The Baroness

"I warned you! The increased power of the transmission stops all creative thought. You will have to think for them." -- Dr. Marks

"No! You must free their minds before you can free their bodies." -- Spirit

"Keep the 10 bucks, pal. You just earned them."

"It's worth losing the crystals to destroy you!" -- The Baroness

"I am not a brat!" -- Jesse Delgado

"Revenge is just her style."

"Have some gumbo, lady." -- One of Gung-Ho's relatives

"I think she do not like gumbo." -- One of Gung-Ho's relatives

Transcribed from the episode's closed-caption subtitle track and converted from capitals to sentence case. Speakers are named only where the track or the picture makes them clear.

The Joes spend this half of the story fighting with their hands tied, and Christy Marx knows which knot to pull. After a recap that rebuilds Part I in about a minute [1], the action opens on the team looking down a mountain road at its own relatives, marching in white suits with glowing pink eyes. Every tactic tried from there is chosen for what it will not do to the person on the other end: knockout gas, a net slung under Wild Bill's helicopter, a shouted plea to put the gun down. It is a hostage story in which the hostages are the army, and the Baroness, with no help from Cobra Commander (he does not appear at all), has grasped that the Joes will always hesitate.

Her cruelty is administrative. When she tells Dr. Marks to increase the power and he objects that it could destroy the captives' minds, she tells him not to argue and to do it now. Minutes later the captives stop moving and she wants to know what is wrong with them, and the doctor, who has every right to say so, replies that the increase stops all creative thought and that she will have to think for them. She wants an army that obeys without any idea of what obedience costs, and the one person at her console who understands the price is the man she shouts at.

The Joes' side comes from Spirit, who stops another Joe from running down to haul the captives out of the net with the best-judged sentence in the half: you must free their minds before you can free their bodies. The sentence is the spine. Nothing can be done for these people until the thing controlling them is found, so the search becomes a chase. A truck of crystals threads a dirt road where any bad bump could set them off, while Scarlett and Spirit comb the hills for an antenna. The truck scenes hold real tension, helped by a danger gauge with its needle in the red and by one small human beat: Gung-Ho, about to try a gap, remarks that if he fails Duke can kiss the ten dollars he owes goodbye, and is told to keep the money, he has earned it!

The Baroness then changes weapons. She orders Jesse Delgado to drop his weapon and pick up a rock, sends him running at the crystals, and offers Duke a trade, with the threat that it is worth losing the crystals to destroy the Joes. The scene earns its tension and then gives it away. We have been told the machine will destroy the captives' minds if anyone tampers with it. One voice calls that a bluff, another asks what if it is not, and a third says there is no time to argue and gives the order to fire; a moment later the machine is wrecked and Jesse is complaining that he is not a brat. No mind is damaged. The episode builds its moral weight on Dr. Marks and then spends it for nothing. The likeliest reason is a children's slot that needs every family back in one piece for the coda, but a gamble that costs nothing makes the decision to take it hollow.

The coda pays everything back. A stolen file lists Gung-Ho as Etienne R. LaFitte of Fer-de-Lance, Louisiana, with a clan of surviving relatives, and he asks whether the Baroness would really bother his family. Revenge, comes the answer, is just her style, so the Joes go. The Baroness, whose party has walked for hours to find the family and who announces that she is taking them prisoner in the name of Cobra, is laughed at, offered gumbo and sent running while her troopers hang in ropes against a tree. [2] Her plan rests on a family being a soldier's soft spot, and Gung-Ho's turns out to be big enough, and loud enough, to turn that around.

The families come home unharmed, and the last laugh goes to Gung-Ho's relatives and their gumbo.

1 ^ The recap says the Pentagon file Storm Shadow stole held the identities of seven Joes and their families. The hostages it lists are Quick Kick's parents, Scarlett's father and brothers, Thunder's family, Shipwreck's cousin, Spirit's grandfather and cousin, and Barbecue's father, which is six households. The seventh arrives only in the last scene, when Gung-Ho's entry is called up on a wall screen.

2 ^ The relatives are never named on screen, though Gung-Ho greets one of them with what the closed captions render as "Grand-mre," and the Baroness is warned not to step on a "little Chou-Chou." The stolen file's own count of surviving relatives is 137.

1. The recap says the stolen Pentagon file held the true identities of seven Joes, but only six families are listed as kidnapped: Quick Kick's parents, Scarlett's brothers and father, Thunder's family, Shipwreck's cousin, Spirit's grandfather and cousin, and Barbecue's father. The seventh is Gung-Ho, and the episode saves his family for the final scene.
2. Real names get a workout in this two-parter. Part I put up files for Quick Kick (Macarthur S. Ito) and Shipwreck (Hector X. Delgado), so the Joe who pleads, "Jesse, it's Uncle Hector," is Shipwreck. Here Gung-Ho's file lists him as Etienne R. LaFitte with "137 members of LaFitte clan" in Louisiana.
3. Gumbo is the gag that pays off. In [Captives of Cobra, Part I](/cartoons/1985/episodes/captives-of-cobra-part-i/) Gung-Ho complains, "But my mama's making gumbo!" when he is called away, and it was already a joke in [Countdown for Zartan](/cartoons/1985/episodes/countdown-for-zartan/), where Joes dread being made to eat a teammate's homemade Cajun gumbo. In the last scene his Cajun family ties up the Baroness's troopers, serves them gumbo, and one relative concludes, "I think she do not like gumbo."
4. Mid-chase, Gung-Ho promises that if he does not get the truck across, Duke can "kiss that 10 bucks I owe you goodbye." The reply, which the Joe Guide site gives to Duke, is "Keep the 10 bucks, pal. You just earned them." The Joe Guide site connects it to the past-due car payment in [Skeletons in the Closet](/cartoons/1985/episodes/skeletons-in-the-closet/) and jokes that Gung-Ho's finances may be shaky.
5. The Baroness's mind-control machine has a built-in flaw. Dr. Marks warns that the increased power "stops all creative thought," so the captives will do only what she tells them. That fits her very specific orders to Jesse Delgado: "Drop your weapon and pick up a rock." When she barks, "Smash them, you little brat!", he snaps back, "I am not a brat!" and a Joe answers, "You most certainly aren't."
6. The Joes spend the episode refusing to hurt their own relatives, a note struck again two weeks later in [Flint's Vacation](/cartoons/1985/episodes/flints-vacation/), where Lady Jaye orders, "Don't use your weapons! They're innocent civilians," and then asks if anybody knows a good comedy routine. Here the answers include a net and knockout gas.
7. Tomax and Xamot spend this one as the Baroness's bridge crew, answering her in unison with "Yes, Baroness." Tomax is the one who announces visual contact with the Joe vehicle. Their twin bond, with Xamot able to feel where his brother is, is established in [Chaos in the Sea of Lost Souls](/cartoons/1985/episodes/chaos-in-the-sea-of-lost-souls/).
8. The Joe Guide site says Sunbow's synopsis for this episode exists in two versions, one of which explains why Joes use code names. It also records that USA Network cut Dr. Marks's objection and the Baroness's reply, and the two fathers urging their sons to take cover. The G.I. Joe wiki and Joe Guide both flag a shot in which Scarlett's glove turns the wrong color, and the wiki adds that Barbecue wears a gas mask over his firefighter's gas mask.