Three Cubes to Darkness

Safe inside an air bubble, Flint and Lady Jaye climb out of the red mud and go after Destro, who locks the first control cube into place, escapes a trap set for him and leaves the cube to hold off the arriving Joes. In Enterprise City, Shipwreck and Snake Eyes slip into the Snake Cafe with Polly and a wolf. Singer Satin hides them from Cobra troopers, sends Colonel Slash packing from her dressing room, and gives them dresses to escape in.

Elsewhere the Joes split into teams. Alpine and Bazooka climb an ice wall to stop Major Bludd raising a cube, while Roadblock, Airtight and Footloose chase Tomax and Xamot through the City of the Dead. The twins let the Joes wake the stone guardians for them. Roadblock's team captures Tomax, but Xamot energises the cube and a beam of darkness fires. An avalanche buries Alpine and Bazooka, and Storm Shadow watches the snow.

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

"Polly want a taxi!" -- Polly

"I ain't seating nobody with no parrot and no dog." -- A man at the club door

"Cobra that got away!" -- Polly

"I assigned placement of the first control cube to you, Destro, because I expected you to be quick about it. But all I've received are excuses!" -- Cobra Commander

"Well, we can't just sit down and send out for pizza."

"Each twin feels what happens to the other!" -- Airtight

"There's no biz like show biz." -- Polly

"Let's just say I have a soft spot in my head for weirdos." -- Satin

"Well, then you'll just have to use the Alpine taxi service."

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.

Show business is the best hiding place anybody finds in this episode. It is the discovery at the centre of the episode, and a better one than any of the cube business around it.

Shipwreck and Snake Eyes walk into the Snake Cafe with a parrot and a wolf, and a man at the door announces that he is not seating anybody with a parrot and a dog. Shipwreck asks what parrot, what dog, and for a few seconds the animals are gone from the argument. Then Satin comes on and sings a torch song about the Cobra that got away, with Destro having the first call, while the troopers are already coming through the door. Someone says to grab them as soon as the song ends, and it is the song that decides how long they have.

What follows turns the stage into the plot. Satin tells them to stay close and that the music will not play forever. She hustles the Joes into a chorus line where Snake Eyes ends up sprawled on the boards. The pursuit then runs into her dressing room, where she throws Colonel Slash out by threatening to report him to her biggest fan, the man who buys all her records. The portrait she holds up is of Cobra Commander. Slash leaves with apologies and a regard for the Commander; she calls him Slush, and he corrects her. In that scene Satin becomes a character! When Shipwreck asks why she is being so good to them, her answer is that she has a soft spot in her head for weirdos, which is as much explanation as the script needs [1].

Against that, the cube strand is workmanlike. The first cube locks into place, Cobra Commander scolds Destro for the delay, and Destro answers that the cube is locked and then sidesteps the trap Flint and Lady Jaye have laid for him. The twins in the City of the Dead have the more interesting premise: they plan to let the Joes wake the ancient guardians for them, and then plant their own cube once the Joes have been destroyed. Airtight's remark that each twin feels what happens to the other is the best use of the gimmick, because it puts the pain on screen and the plot at once uses it. Xamot energises the cube, and the Joes are left holding Tomax and a lit cube [2].

The snow plot is the weakest of the three. It keeps Major Bludd busy while his cube is aligned, and Alpine's yodel, offered as the answer to the ice wall, is a lovely stupid moment, but the long climb and the avalanche feel like procedure. Storm Shadow arrives in the last minutes to strand Alpine and Bazooka on the ice with a farewell, and the episode finishes on leopard seals barking.

The structural problem is the split. Three teams share the running time, and the one thread with a character in it has to stop so the others can catch up. Satin's story halts at the moment Shipwreck and Snake Eyes are holding up dresses in her dressing room, with the wolf watching, and the preview afterwards promises more of her.

As a middle chapter of a larger serial, it is more a link than a story of its own. It sets three clocks ticking and leaves them all running, and the only person on screen who seems to be enjoying herself is Satin.

1 ^ The recap runs to 1:29 and the title card falls after it, at roughly 1:34, before the cold open.

2 ^ The next-episode preview at 21:17 says Destro and the Baroness will outsmart "Destro" and Lady Jaye, which can only be a slip for Flint. The captions also render the colonel's name as "Slush" in Satin's mouth and "Slash" in his own correction.

1. The scene fans bring up first is Snake Eyes, the silent ninja, sprawled on the club stage floor while the dancers kick above him. The Joe fan wiki calls him an accomplished break dancer and notes the episode jokes that the wolf at his side might be one too. A fan episode guide logs the old USA Network rerun print as cutting about 40 seconds of the dancing across two trims.
2. Each of the Crimson Twins feels what happens to the other, and Airtight is the one who spots it mid-fight: "Each twin feels what happens to the other!" It matters to the plot. The closing preview promises that Xamot will feel his brother's pain and use it to locate the U.S.S. Flagg, which plays out in [Chaos in the Sea of Lost Souls](/cartoons/1985/episodes/chaos-in-the-sea-of-lost-souls/).
3. Satin's club number is a breakup song about a man who tells her "Destro has the first call," and Polly the parrot joins in on the chorus. Fans on the Joe wiki point out that the song returns in the background of a club in "Joe's Night Out," and Satin herself turns up again in [Chaos in the Sea of Lost Souls](/cartoons/1985/episodes/chaos-in-the-sea-of-lost-souls/) and [Knotting Cobra's Coils](/cartoons/1985/episodes/knotting-cobras-coils/).
4. The goon who barges into Satin's dressing room asks her to say hello to the Cobra Commander and gives his name as Colonel Slash, and she answers "Get out, Slush!" His "T-that's Slash!" is cut off by another "Get out!"
5. The Joe wiki notes that Shipwreck gives his name as "Shipwreck Delgado" in a club full of Cobra agents. The surname sticks around: a computer file in [Captives of Cobra, Part I](/cartoons/1985/episodes/captives-of-cobra-part-i/) gives his full name as Hector X. Delgado, and hospital staff call him Mr. Delgado in [There's No Place Like Springfield, Part 1](/cartoons/1985/episodes/theres-no-place-like-springfield-part-1/).
6. The Joe wiki says the ranks of stone guardians in the City of the Dead are modeled on the terracotta warriors of Xi'an, China. Tomax and Xamot count on the Joes waking them up: "We'll let the Joes do that for us."
7. Polly is on a theatrical streak in this one, squawking "All the world's a stage!" with a quick "William Shakespeare!" and later "There's no biz like show biz." It also asks for a taxi.
8. A fan guide notes a continuity slip involving Lady Jaye's cold-weather parka.
9. This is part three of the five-part Pyramid of Darkness serial, and both the recap and the closing preview bill it under that name.