The Traitor, Part 1

The Joes raid a Cobra harbor operation in Texas City, and their new armor treatment shrugs off Cobra's lasers, which makes the formula Cobra's next target. Dusty takes leave to care for his sick mother, where a loan collector points him to two businessmen from Extensive Enterprises, the Crimson Twins' company, who offer to pay her medical bills in return for information about the armor. Dusty refuses, then phones them with the Joes' ambush plan.

Cobra decoys the Joes away from the Dylkon 98 plant with dummies and takes the chemical. Duke, sure there is a traitor, lets Dusty overhear a raid on an oil rig; Cobra has wired it, and Duke is hit and left in a coma. Shipwreck catches Dusty photographing the armor formula, a court-martial sentences him to life, and Cobra troopers break him out of the prison bus after Deep Six has wondered whether it is all too neat.

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

"I may be hard up, but I'm no traitor!" -- Dusty

"Why burden her with funeral expenses, as well?" -- One of the Crimson Twins

"Wouldn't your mother be proud to see her son on trial as a traitor?" -- Cobra Commander

"Nobody in his right mind would drop paratroopers into trees."

"I'll murderize the bum!" -- Shipwreck

"I'll dip him in honey and stake him on an anthill!" -- Shipwreck

"Hey, they even got a medical plan!"

"Funny. You didn't mind nearly killing Duke and putting him in a coma!" -- Shipwreck

"I have nothing to say." -- Dusty

"It's all a little too pat, you know? A real traitor wouldn't be so easy to catch." -- Deep Six

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 traitor story usually opens with the betrayal and spends its length on the hunt. This one, after the raid, starts with the bills. Nobody in "The Traitor, Part 1" tempts Dusty with a payday; what is on offer is his mother's medicine, and that is a much harder offer to refuse.

The writing is careful about how the squeeze is applied. Duke sends him home on leave with an order to take as much time as he needs. His mother has an asthma attack in front of the loan collector, Mr. Smiler, who has come about the delinquent payments on a loan Dusty co-signed. The same Smiler mentions two businessmen who admire G.I. Joe and will be at the Stumble Inn tonight. At the inn the Crimson Twins open with a threat dressed as concern: does he think his mother has enough medical bills, and would he like to burden her with funeral expenses as well? The offer comes second, her bills paid in return for information about the armor. Dusty's answer is the right one: he may be hard up, but he is no traitor. He keeps the card anyway, and a finger slides it into his shirt pocket while the Joes' next briefing is under way. [1]

The episode is about how a man can be moved into treachery one reasonable favour at a time, and the favour is what traps him. His first call to the Twins is for less than the Twins want. He does not have the formula, but he knows where the Joes will ambush Cobra, and says that should be worth something. The first check arrives, and Mrs. Vasquez reports that more bills keep coming in. By the time the Commander himself is on the line, the favour has become a leash: give me the armor formula, or the Joes will learn you betrayed them, and "wouldn't your mother be proud to see her son on trial as a traitor?"

Shipwreck supplies the other half of the argument without meaning to. Once the Joes realise that Cobra must have had an inside source, Shipwreck rages through a menu of punishments (murderize the bum, keelhaul him at 20,000 fathoms, dip him in honey and stake him on an anthill) and then turns to ask Dusty what he would do with a traitor. Dusty has not been listening. It is the funniest scene in the episode, and we wince all the way through it.

The oil rig has its own small irony: Shipwreck finds a Cobra pamphlet, and a Joe cracks that they even got a medical plan, which lands hard in an episode about medical bills.

Where the episode is weaker is the trap. Duke tells Flint they will lay one for Dusty Rudat, on information from a source he cannot reveal, and the bait is a planned raid on that rig that the real team then goes out to execute. Cobra has wired the place; the rig goes up; and the person it hits is Duke. A commander sure enough of his intelligence to set a trap is not obliged to stand in it, and a plan that existed only on paper would have exposed the leak just as well without anyone in a diving suit. The script wants an explosion and a coma for its cliffhanger, but the choice is the Joes', and it makes Duke look careless. [2]

The last stretch is efficient. Shipwreck catches Dusty and fights him, calling him Benedict Arnold Rudat and asking how he could nearly kill Duke. The court-martial finds him guilty and sentences him to life at hard labor, and in the throne room the hooded Commander's first instinct, to let the buffoon suffer, gives way to someone at his elbow arguing that Dusty may yet be of use. Deep Six has the last word on the Joe side: it is all a little too pat, and a real traitor would not have been so easy to catch. [3]

It is a strong first half, and it ends with Dusty rescued by the wrong people. The second half has to say whether Deep Six is right.

1 ^ The Extensive Enterprises card is on screen at 8:15 and 8:28, after the Stumble Inn brawl that runs from about 6:53 to 7:30; the phone call that uses it comes at 8:53, so the show gives us the object before it gives us the decision.

2 ^ The only account of how Duke knows is the line at 11:52, "information from a source I can't reveal." Dylkon 98 is also described two ways: as "deadly poison" at 1:53 and, at 8:07, as a key ingredient in a mind-control gas.

3 ^ Duke gives Dusty's full name, Dusty Rudat, to Flint at 11:44; Shipwreck turns it into "Benedict Arnold Rudat" at 18:02.

1. This episode aired on November 25, 1985, three weeks after [Worlds Without End, Part I](/cartoons/1985/episodes/worlds-without-end-part-i/), but the Joe Guide argues it was made first. Sunbow's broadcast order and production order did not always line up, and this is one of the cases fans point to.
2. The Joe Guide notes that Dusty's civilian name, Ronald W. Rudat, is borrowed from the real designer who sculpted the first run of 3 3/4-inch figures, Ron Rudat. The back of Dusty's figure package spells it "Ronald W. Tadur." The name is heard in [Part 2](/cartoons/1985/episodes/the-traitor-part-2/) when he is announced as Specialist-4 Ronald W. "Dusty" Rudat.
3. Shipwreck's threats against the leak run from "I'll keelhaul him at 20,000 fathoms" to "I'll dip him in honey and stake him on an anthill," and when the evidence points at Dusty he calls him "Benedict Arnold Rudat."
4. Tomax and Xamot work this episode as Extensive Enterprises, offering to pay Dusty's mother's medical bills in return for information on the Joes' new armor. Dusty recognizes them at once: "You're with Extensive Enterprises." The front company comes back in [Cold Slither](/cartoons/1985/episodes/cold-slither/), where the twins give Cobra Commander 48 hours to find $200 million.
5. On the abandoned oil rig, a Joe finds something and cracks, "Hey, they even got a medical plan!" The Joe Guide notes the exchange about the medical plan was among three cuts made for the USA Network print, along with a Tomax and Xamot scene and a restaurant bit.
6. Dusty is sentenced to "life at hard labor at Fort Wadsworth Military Prison." The Joe Guide points out that the Marvel comic uses the name Fort Wadsworth for the Joes' underground base.
7. The Joes test their new armor in the opening raid on Texas City: Cobra's lasers do nothing, and one Joe jokes, "If it doesn't, I'm gonna sue." Cobra Commander declares the secret must be learned "at any and all costs."
8. The episode closes on "To be continued on tomorrow's G.I. Joe," and Deep Six voices the doubts about the case: "It's all a little too pat. A real traitor wouldn't be so easy to catch." The mind-control gas ingredient Dylkon 98 is named only in this episode; no other episode of the season mentions it.