The Further Adventures of G.I. Joe

A shuttle launch from a desert silo is the day's mission, and Cobra moves in to stop it. Tomax and Xamot wrap the orbiter in cable, but Flint has been expecting them, and Alpine, Bazooka and a jet-pack team cut it free while Cobra Commander flees into the river. Shipwreck and Snake Eyes dive after him and are swatted around the seabed by giant water robots, while Flint and Lady Jaye chase Destro into Enterprise City and lose him.

Cobra Commander then replays a tape: the whole attack was cover for a cargo pod clipped onto the shuttle. Aboard it, the crew open the pod and find the Fatal Fluffies, which turn on them. Cobra shells Joe headquarters, Shipwreck and Snake Eyes find a hidden subway under the city, and the Commander explains the Pyramid of Darkness and its control cubes.

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

"Nothing serpentine, Flint. So far, the launch looks W.O.C." -- Lady Jaye

"Wrong again, Chrome Cheeks! We've been expecting you!" -- Flint

"How dare they anticipate my strategy?!" -- Cobra Commander

"Sufferin' sushi! What were those?" -- Shipwreck

"Junkyard doesn't make mistakes, Breaker."

"These adorable creatures are called 'Fatal Fluffies.' I'm sure you will enjoy their deadly secret. Sincerely yours, the Cobra Commander." -- The card in the cargo pod

"I'm a parrot, not a duck!" -- Polly

"Sure, who'd notice a wet sailor with a parrot and a silent masked man with a timber wolf?" -- Shipwreck

"You see, nobody wants to know a subway philosopher." -- Shipwreck

"I don't know what those cubes are for, but I'm sure they're not dice for a giant crap game." -- Shipwreck

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 feint only works if the audience is made to believe in it, and the most interesting thing about this episode is how long it lets the Joes, and us, believe in it. For a long stretch the Joes fight the battle Cobra wants them to fight. We get a shuttle launch from a silo in the orange desert, a ring of Cobra vehicles closing in on the site, and a pair of Crimson Twins who wrap the orbiter in cable and congratulate each other on having caged quite a bird.

The Joes are good at their part of it. Lady Jaye calls the launch "W.O.C.", for "without Cobra", the sort of joke you only make when you think you are ahead [1]. For once the Joes are ahead: Flint has been expecting the attack, says so, and has Alpine and Bazooka in position for what he calls a little reptile removal. The jet-pack sortie that cuts the cables is quick and clean. Cobra Commander's response is to demand to know how anyone dared anticipate his strategy, and then to order a retreat while shouting at his own troopers to wait for him because he is their leader. The Twins, meanwhile, discover that one of them feels every blow that lands on the other. [2]

The diversion is the spine of the episode, and Ron Friedman plays it fair. Once the shuttle is safe the script keeps the Joes busy: Shipwreck and Snake Eyes go into the river after Cobra Commander and the Twins, Flint and Lady Jaye split up to squeeze Destro between them over Enterprise City. Every one of those chases feels like the main event until Cobra Commander replays a tape for his guests and explains that the attack on the shuttle was cover for a special cargo. The Joes were not outfought. They were occupied, which is worse, and the episode makes us feel it by having made the occupation so entertaining.

The cargo is the best joke in it, and the cruellest. When the pod is opened aboard the shuttle, two furry creatures with huge eyes peer out, the crew coo that they are adorable, and the one member of the party who is growling is the dog. Somebody observes that Junkyard does not make mistakes, and nobody acts on it. Then a card is found in the pod, signed "Sincerely yours, the Cobra Commander", a note sounds, and the Fatal Fluffies stop being cute. It lets us be as foolish as the Joes for a few seconds, and that beats a monster simply bursting out of a crate.

Shipwreck and Snake Eyes get the other good scene. Having swum out of an airlock into a hidden subway beneath Enterprise City, they board a car of gray-clad Cobra commuters, and Shipwreck, dripping, with a parrot on his shoulder, informs the car that nobody wants to know a subway philosopher. It is the right use of a man whose function in this show is to talk himself into trouble, and Polly's running commentary is worth more than the water robots that put the pair there!

Those robots are the weakness. Glassy blue giants with tiny craft visible inside their torsos arrive to swat the Joe submersibles around the seabed, and the sequence runs long to achieve what a closed hatch could have: two Joes out of reach while the pod does its work. It is handsome in places, with its columns of bubbles and its ribbed Cobra towers, but it stalls the story and gives the Joes nothing to do except lose.

By the close, Joe headquarters is rubble, Flint is promising to start biting back, and Cobra Commander has finally been allowed to lay out the Pyramid of Darkness over a hologram globe, with the Twins finishing his sentences. With no recap in front of it and a plan still being unveiled in the last minutes, this is plainly the first night of the story. It hands the Joes a victory only to take the ground out from under it. They win the fight they came for and lose the headquarters anyway.

1 ^ Flint asks what W.O.C. means at 2:18 and gets the answer at 2:19; the enemy readings Lady Jaye starts picking up arrive at 2:30, so the joke has about ten seconds to live.

2 ^ Tomax and Xamot go into battle in red, white and blue jet-pack suits and are back in navy double-breasted suits by the time Cobra Commander plays his tape (12:12). The shared-pain gag lands at 3:41 to 3:48, where Alpine protests that he never laid a glove on one twin and gets the answer "I feel what my brother feels"; it is a throwaway here, and "Chaos in the Sea of Lost Souls" puts it to work.

1. This is the opener of the 1985 run and the first chapter of the Pyramid of Darkness serial. The closing preview even calls the next installment "The Pyramid of Darkness", though the episode that actually follows the next night is [Rendezvous in the City of the Dead](/cartoons/1985/episodes/rendezvous-in-the-city-of-the-dead/).
2. Fans on the G.I. Joe wiki point out that Cobra Commander and Destro show up working together as if nothing had happened, even though the earlier miniseries left the Commander in custody and Destro having walked out on him. [In the Cobra's Pit](/cartoons/1985/episodes/in-the-cobras-pit/) shows Gung-Ho taking the Commander in for transfer to Blackwater Prison.
3. The cuddly Fatal Fluffies are the big debut here, and they keep the story going in [Three Cubes to Darkness](/cartoons/1985/episodes/three-cubes-to-darkness/) and [Knotting Cobra's Coils](/cartoons/1985/episodes/knotting-cobras-coils/). One fan wiki claims they were a late substitute for another Hasbro line's monsters once those rights went away, and describes the cute-then-nasty idea as Mogwai-esque.
4. When Tomax and Xamot get hit, a twin gasps that he feels what his brother feels, and Alpine promptly answers with "Terrific! Pass this on!" after landing a punch on the wrong twin. Joe Guide likes the joke.
5. A report that the launch looks "W.O.C." has to be explained: "Without Cobra." Flint keeps up the name-calling too, with "chrome cheeks" for Cobra Commander and "nickel-noggin bozo" for Destro.
6. The Dreadnoks answer to "Sergeant Popper" when the Joes inspect the mystery cargo pod, and the fan wiki identifies the sergeant as Zartan in disguise.
7. The chant Shipwreck and Snake Eyes overhear in the tunnel, "Hail, Cobra Commander. The Great Snake rules forever," is put to use at the start of [Rendezvous in the City of the Dead](/cartoons/1985/episodes/rendezvous-in-the-city-of-the-dead/), where a robot guard at the control cube factory entrance demands the right wording.
8. Quick Kick can be spotted in a wide shot of Joes soon after the headquarters attack, but fans note he is not officially recruited until [Chaos in the Sea of Lost Souls](/cartoons/1985/episodes/chaos-in-the-sea-of-lost-souls/), which they count as a continuity slip.