The Vines of Evil

A recap of the previous episode sets up the Weather Dominator. In the swamp of vines, Flint, Mutt and Junkyard repair a wrecked jet and lift off, while Roadblock, left pinned by the vines, is freed when they wither in sunlight. In the Cobra Arena of Sport, Duke and Snake Eyes resist their neural controllers and use a console to send a coded message that Washington is next.

Doc invents energy mirrors to absorb and redirect Cobra's storm. Over Destro's objections, Cobra Commander drives the Dominator to full power; hail breaks the first mirrors, but once the redirection mirror is in place the Dominator is blasted into orbit and falls in three pieces, sending the world's weather haywire. Flint and Mutt end up in a brawl in a Cobra cafe and meet Shipwreck, whose sand ship heads off across the desert and into a storm.

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.

Jackson Beck Mike Bell Gregg Berger Arthur Burghardt Dave Hall Zack Hoffman Kene Holliday Buster Jones Sally Julian Chris Latta Mary McDonald Lewis Morgan Lofting Bill Morey Rob Paulsen Bill Ratner Neil Ross Will Ryan B.J. Ward Frank Welker Michael Yama Keone Young

"Get back, you predatory vegetable!"

"Man, am I glad to find a friendly face in this homicidal salad bowl."

"Welcome to the Cobra Arena of Sport." -- Cobra Commander

"I protest most strongly, my dear Cobra Commander!" -- Destro

"Give me no buts!"

"I'll throw in a tornado before the final lightning strike."

"Hello, sunshine, what is new?"

"I'm with myself, and anybody who can pay my price." -- Shipwreck

"Or hang around and pray for urban renewal?" -- 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.

Destro is right about the Weather Dominator all episode, and it does him no good at all. Each time Cobra Commander pushes the machine harder Destro objects, and each time he is overruled. The last time, the Commander is demanding a report of his triumph when Destro's answer is "Look out!" Everything the Joes do, from building mirrors to escaping a swamp of strangler vines, is an improvised fix for a problem that Cobra's own boss keeps making worse.

It opens, after the recap [1], with the Joes at their most resourceful. Mutt and his dog have turned the jets of their wrecked SkyStriker on the vines, which dislike it. The escape is a salvage job: scrounged fuel, a damp engine that will not turn over, and a plane that lifts clear only because Roadblock will not let a vine drag both of them down with him. He stays behind, pinned to a rock wall, and his patience is rewarded in an unexpected way. The Commander lowers the Dominator, someone yelps "No, not sunlight!", Destro laughs, and about half a minute later Roadblock says "Hello, sunshine, what is new?" while the vines wither around him. Cobra's own weather machine has killed the plant Destro grew. The episode does not say so outright, which is in its favour.

The standout scene is the argument. Destro protests "most strongly" that using the full power of the laser core on Washington could leave them open to counterattack. The Commander replies that there is no possible way for G.I. Joe to resist, and when Destro starts to say that lightning alone might be too much he is cut off with "Give me no buts!" The Commander's idea of a concession is to throw in a tornado. Destro, ever the courtier, answers "A brilliant plan, leader." Later, with the Joes still alive, he objects again, "it is too dangerous, Commander. There could be dire consequences," and is told there will be dire consequences for him if he does not obey. The Commander is wrong and loud, Destro is right and polite, and the friction between them is the best thing in the episode.

Against that, the Joes' side is an inventor's corner. Doc has an energy mirror that will "absorb, reflect, and redirect" the Dominator's energy, Blowtorch tests it, and Doc announces that he is wearing his asbestos underwear. Clutch looks into the mirror and says he needs a shave, and the scene is quick and pleasing [2]. The first mirrors in Washington shatter under giant hailstones, and the Joes are in trouble for a moment. Then the redirection mirror is in position, the energy flow is turned, and the Dominator is shot into orbit and comes down in three pieces, starting a chain reaction of strange weather. Cobra loses the machine because it insisted on using all of it.

The weak spot is the arena. The Commander's "Arena of Sport" is introduced with a taunt and a promise that this will be Duke and Snake Eyes's last battle, neural controllers forcing them to fight to the finish. The episode disposes of it in barely a scene. Duke says they can resist the controllers if they concentrate, and they do. What follows is clever: a utility-belt communicator, a console with enough energy to beam a message to Mars, and Snake Eyes tapping out a warning in Joe code ultra. But it asks us to take the arena on the authority of one sentence. Duke is seized again almost at once, and the episode does not go back to either prisoner.

Shipwreck's cafe is a small pleasure to close on: a sign that says "Cobr Cafe," a newspaper called Cobra News, and a stranger who turns out to be Shipwreck offering his services to anyone who can pay. As the second part of The Revenge of Cobra it is a middling instalment with one great argument in it. It ends on Mutt lost overboard in a sandstorm, a better cliffhanger than we expected!

1 ^ The recap runs from 1:01 to 1:48 and covers the previous episode, In the Cobra's Pit. It names the stolen laser core, Blackwater Prison, and the Dreadnoks and Baroness who free the Commander.

2 ^ The woman at the mirror, whom the dialogue calls Scarlett (7:27), is drawn with brown hair, as Lady Jaye was in the previous part.

1. Shipwreck debuts here, and he is not a Joe yet. He turns up in the cafe as a freelance sailor, telling Flint and Mutt he is "with myself, and anybody who can pay my price." There is also no parrot on his shoulder: Polly does not show up until [The Further Adventures of G.I. Joe](/cartoons/1985/episodes/the-further-adventures-of-g-i-joe/) in September 1985.
2. The Weather Dominator is shot into orbit at the end and comes back down "in three pieces", which sets up the whole scavenger hunt that carries through [The Palace of Doom](/cartoons/1985/episodes/the-palace-of-doom/) and the episodes after it.
3. Duke and Snake Eyes shake off Cobra Commander's neural controllers by concentrating, then tap out a warning on a utility-belt communicator in "Joe code ultra": next target, Washington. Fans on the G.I. Joe wiki have fun with this one, asking why nobody searched Snake Eyes for a communicator and how the two could overhear the plan from an arena hundreds of feet from Cobra Commander's booth.
4. Look closely at the cafe door and the sign reads "Cobr Cafe", with the final A missing. The Joe wiki also logs it as a goof.
5. Doc's energy mirrors save Washington from the lightning, but the Joe wiki points out that Doc is a physician, not a physicist, and that the Joes build dozens of mirrors before anyone has seen the prototype pass its test.
6. Flint and Mutt spend the cafe scenes in blue Cobra shirts. Hasbro liked the look enough to release a "Flint in Cobra Disguise" figure in 2008, according to the Joe fan wiki.
7. Mutt's trick of firing up the jets of their wrecked SkyStriker is what starts killing the vines. The Joe wiki notes that Flint and Roadblock are standing right in the thruster path and never get so much as singed.
8. The opening recap calls this "our second episode" of "G.I. Joe: The Revenge of Cobra", and it aired on September 11, 1984. The recap itself fills in the Blackwater Prison escape from [In the Cobra's Pit](/cartoons/1985/episodes/in-the-cobras-pit/).