Spell of the Siren

Flint, Lady Jaye and the Joes follow Cobra to a base on the floor of the Adriatic, where Destro has found the legendary Conch of the Sirens. The Joes capture Destro, and the Baroness escapes with the shell. Dr. Blackstone explains that its music robs men of their will. After Cobra Commander throws her out, the Baroness takes the shell to the Alaska pipeline, turns a Crimson Guard Commander against him, frees Destro and enslaves the Joe men, leaving Scarlett, Cover Girl and Lady Jaye to fight on. Xamot changes sides, a sonic pulsar breaks the spell, and the shell is smashed.

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

"You can't say I never take you anywhere, Lady Jaye." -- Flint

"If this is your idea of a vacation, Flint, I'd hate to see where you'd take me on business." -- Lady Jaye

"Cost effectiveness over the long run is achieved through careful management of short-term cash flow." -- A Crimson Guard Commander

"Spare me your business-school philosophy." -- Destro

"Its sound waves have a hypnotic effect on the male hormonal system."

"Slaves of the Sirens' song... now heed my voice." -- The Baroness

"Piracy on the land, in the air, on the sea." -- The Baroness

"Strange, isn't it? The Joes fight even more efficiently under the Sirens' spell."

"Perhaps you will judge me by the company I don't keep." -- Xamot

"Just making the world safe for you men. Somebody has to." -- Lady Jaye

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.

A weapon that works only on men is a gift to a script with a mixed cast, because it clears the room. Dr. Blackstone explains the Conch of the Sirens in the Joe command centre in a handful of lines. We get the oilskin wrapping, the black reef in the Adriatic, the sound waves with their "hypnotic effect on the male hormonal system," and a man who hears the song "loses all willpower." By the time the Baroness blows it inside the Joe compound, with Flint and Roadblock walking the corridors with glowing white eyes, what remains of the team's resistance is Scarlett, Lady Jaye and Cover Girl and a locker of stun gas. The Baroness has ordered that "the Joe women are your enemies." Gerry and Carla Conway have noticed what the premise implies and built the second half around it. The episode asks what a team does when the half of it that usually leads is out of the building, and the answer is that it carries on without anyone needing to announce the difference.

The Cobra half is the better story, and it is a coup in three scenes. Cobra Commander has paid for Destro's undersea project and received a seashell for his trouble, so he throws the Baroness out of his office and tells her she can rot in prison with Destro. She takes a proposition to Major Bludd, tests the shell at the Alaska pipeline [1], then walks into the throne room and calls for a Crimson Guard Commander, who obeys her instead of his master. "Treason!" shouts Cobra Commander. "No, my former commander, not treason. It is destiny." He spends the rest of the episode on a bench in a cell crossed by red beams, a punishment the script plainly enjoys. [2]

Destro's rescue is the other well-built scene. He sits slumped on the bunk in his cell and, when the Baroness arrives, asks whether Cobra Commander has finally decided he was worth rescuing. She tells him it was nothing to do with the Commander and that she commands Cobra now, thanks to the shell, and he replies, "I always said you'd go far, my dear Baroness." A good villain exchange follows: one of the pair remarks that the Joes fight even more efficiently under the Sirens' spell, because their minds are not clouded by free will, and the other says she does their thinking for them. It is a throwaway, and a fair joke about the Joes' discipline. Destro then negotiates for his own mind, pointing out that if she puts him under the spell she will have no one to share her triumph.

The weak link is the cure. Xamot changes sides on the strength of "I have my reasons. Trust me," and the reasons are never given, and a sonic pulsar "designed to produce a musical counter-vibration" arrives at the moment the plot requires it. Xamot's turn is at least well staged: he offers a truce, Lady Jaye asks why she should believe a Crimson Guard Commander, and he answers, "Perhaps you will judge me by the company I don't keep."

The finale has two small pleasures. The first is the question put to Destro, "do you hear bells?", just after he has proposed that the two of them rule together; the bells turn out to be Xamot's attack on the outer defences. The second is at the Commander's cell, where he demands release and one twin murmurs, "Hmm, I suppose...", and the other finishes, "we should." It is a very reluctant act of loyalty, and it plays because nobody in the building has shown the slightest wish to rescue him.

The ending belongs to Lady Jaye. After the shell is destroyed someone asks Lady Jaye what she did that for, and the answer is "Just making the world safe for you men. Somebody has to." It is a silly premise, sharply cast, and we found it funnier in Cobra's offices than anywhere else!

1 ^ The story jumps from the Adriatic seabed to the Alaska pipeline without anyone travelling: the Joes watch a satellite feed from "the Alaskan security net" at 6:33 and are over the pipeline by 7:20.

2 ^ Asked who is in one of the cells, the Baroness says it is one of the Crimson Guard Commanders, Tomax she thinks, and adds that she can never keep their names straight (14:12 to 14:18).

1. JoeGuide points out how close this story is to the animated Star Trek episode "The Lorelei Signal", which aired in 1973. In both, a signal enslaves the male crew and the women left behind must rescue them. JoeGuide adds that the conch is modeled on the legendary horn that bewitched Ulysses.
2. Cobra Commander ends up a prisoner of his own side, which echoes the story where the Crimson Twins overthrow him in [Knotting Cobra's Coils](/cartoons/1985/episodes/knotting-cobras-coils/). This time it is said to be "better to keep him imprisoned" and "out of mischief."
3. Xamot, loose and fighting alongside the Joes, answers suspicion about trusting a Crimson Guard Commander with "Perhaps you will judge me by the company I don't keep." JoeGuide singles the line out as a highlight of the episode.
4. The Baroness tells Cobra Commander that the members of her family "have been bred as rulers for centuries," and fans on the G.I. Joe wiki take that as support for her title.
5. Destro is held in a cell at Joe headquarters when the Baroness plays the siren song, and the G.I. Joe wiki notes that he should have been affected too, yet he just walks out unharmed.
6. The hypnosis effects are patchy. According to the G.I. Joe wiki, Duke, Gung-Ho and the others look normal in Alaska, then have glowing white eyes when they attack Joe headquarters, then normal eyes again when the women fight Cobra.
7. Dr. Blackstone, who explains the conch and its effect on the "male hormonal system," appears only in this episode, and so does the conch itself, which ends the episode smashed. Before that, the Joes' only counter is a sonic pulsar made to produce "a musical counter-vibration."