Slick’s Nit-Picks: ThunderCats, Episode 113 – “Between Brothers”

The rivalry between Lion-O and Tygra is at its boiling point. Inside the astral plane, something will have to give. Mumm-Ra is in there with them as well, so they have that to deal with on top of their family issues. Outside, the rest of the ThunderCats must defend the hut from Grune and the lizards. They will have regrouped since their defeat and will surely have greater numbers. A race against time begins on both sides of the portal. The brothers must resolve their differences before they destroy each other and find the spirit stone before Mumm-Ra does. In the Elephant village, the rest of the team must defend the hut long enough for Lion-O and Tygra to succeed or lose them forever.

^{TYGRA, THE SPARTAN?} The brothers continue to quarrel as they search for the spirit stone. The astral plane seems to feel their animosity and starts to re-create bitter memories. Lion-O gets a full view of what he thought was an accident. Years ago, he fell into a well and thought it was due to the tree he was on giving way to his weight. He was able to see that it was in fact Tygra who broke it. Lion-O jumps to conclusions and verbally assaults Tygra. Sensing his anger, the astral plane provides Tygra with a mock Sword of Omens. Being the better swordsman, Tygra easily defeats Lion-O and kicks him into the same well he fell into as a child, a la 300. It would seem that Anet was right and that Tygra has betrayed his brother. But Lion-O himself said that one has to look at the big picture and it would not be the first time that he was mistaken about Tygra at this well.

^{NO SACRIFICE TOO GREAT} Panthro tells the ‘Kittens of how Grune lost his saber tooth in a battle with Spidera. A self inflicted wound where he broke off his own tooth as his only remaining weapon to defeat Spidera. The point of the story as the lizard army advances on them is that Grune will go to any lengths to win. He wants them to be afraid because he wants them to survive the battle. Panthro however, is not afraid , and is just as determined to win as his former friend. This becomes apparent when the astral plane collapses and sucks Grune in. Panthro sacrifices his own arms to get his revenge on Grune. I feel that he may have taken Grune’s words too far, but what is done is done.

^{CHEETARA’S CHOICE} This was easily the best and most messed up part of the episode, considering past events. This is also why it was pointless from the start for Lion-O and Tygra to fight over Cheetara. Cheetara says that she had chosen to be with Tygra from back when he helped her become a cleric. My confusion is why she was always kissing Lion-O and paying him so much more attention. She could easily have encouraged him without being all up in his face. So I would understand him feeling betrayed by her, but not by Tygra. Tygra did not do anything wrong and as I said before, he saw her first. Why should he back off? It is because of Cheetara’s misleading behavior that the big fight in the astral plane even happened. I would say she may owe Lion-O an apology even more so than the one she gave Tygra.

This episode was full of bad decisions on the part of our heroes. Tygra should never have raised a sword against his brother in anger and Lion-O should have refused to fight. The whole thing was over Cheetara really and the two idiots could have just brought it to her, separately or together. Panthro’s sacrifice to me was unnecessary. Yes, Grune was pulling him into the astral plane with him, but he could have pulled Grune out enough to save his limbs which would have left Grune with no lower half. Odds are that Grune is still alive in some shape or form but Panthro cannot use his nunchaku, he cannot fix things and he cannot drive his beloved ThunderTank. Overall a dumb sacrifice. But we shall see how this plays out. Lion-O will confront the new couple and something will have to be done to help Panthro. Toys have been seen where he has robot arms, so the Berbils will probably help him. Now that Lion-O has two of the four stones, things can only get more difficult in the future. I look forward to more surprises and hopefully better episodes in the future.