Episode 010 – Mandora: the Evil Chaser
New characters introduced:
Mandora – Evil Chaser First Class Inter-Planetary Control Force Officer.
Plutarr – From a dark planet called Unex, everything he touches dies.
Burnout – A robotic rocket powered dragster creature.
Quickpick – A thief.
The Living Ooze – A living ooze that stays in a marsh and spreads decay and rot.
Mud Hogs – A race of boar-people, they have a striking resemblance to one of the statues of the Ancient Spirits of Evil.
The episode starts off with Lion-O and Snarf exploring their new home planet. The come across a container with “DANGER” and a star with “IPCF” on it. At this point, an oddity with the Sword of Omens occurs. The Sword doesn’t alert Lion-O to a need for help from those inside, but at the same time, it does not warn him of the dangers inside.
When Quickpic steals the Sword, it does not attempt to warn Lion-O, or defend itself from a criminal. As we will learn/confirm in a later episode, the Sword can sense the intentions and character of living beings, but not robots and other non-living beings (like Quickpick’s metal pincher hands).
Sword Rule #11 – The Sword cannot detect the intentions of non-living beings.
For a seasoned police officer, Mandora makes a very dumb move by trying to land on the edge of something called “The Living Ooze”. As a result they get sucked into the middle and trapped.
Big Words of the Episode: Enzyme Catalyzer – Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions, Catalysis is the change in rate of a chemical reaction due to the participation of a substance called a catalyst. Thus, an Enzyme Catalyzer takes proteins and uses them to speed up chemical reactions, in this case making the suds from the soap.
Soap is an ancient formula that is now a closely guarded secret? That is an interesting weapon of choice for a cop…
Burnout is the only evil-doer in the episode that we don’t get a backstory of somekind for. What could be worse than killing creatures and entire planets?
Mandora’s list of gadgets and weapons is quite interesting, the Electrocharger and her boomerang appear to be quite the technological feats.
Quickpick also doesn’t get an actual story, but it is obvious that his crimes are in the theft department. But luckily he gives a sense of not being evil, but maybe just really mischievous. Whether it be due to his personality or the fact he is trying to save himself, he does seem to have a nicer relationship with Mandora than Plutarr. His assistance in the escape of Lion-O, Snarf, and Mandora will come up in a later episode.
At first glance, the ending doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t Snarf get his purse back? But when Quickpick retrieved the Sword, he didn’t get the purse. Then the mud hog king escaped into a small hole. This leads to the realization that Mandora must have stayed behind to look for it. Most kids probably would not think about that fact, but it goes to show the character of Mandora and to try to relay a message that cops are good people and can be trusted.
For a short moral up to this point (not including later episodes), it shows that not all bad guys are pure evil and likewise, they aren’t all one catastrophe from turning over a new leaf.