Just finished watching them.
Between Brothers - fantastic. One of the series’ very best. Lion-O and Tygra in the Astral Plane, with Mumm-Ra manipulating their emotions, pitting them against each other. This exploration of the relationship between Lion-O and Tygra has been long overdue - perhaps it was saved deliberately for the climax to the first half of the season. In any event, it is very well handled.
Grune and Panthro’s final battle is also nicely done, where Panthro uses Grune’s own words against him. “The defeat of your enemy is worth any sacrifice.” - and then he looks down at where his arms used to be, and says “worth it.” That shows us just how ruthless Panthro can be. Then again, to be a general, you have to have that capability. The Spidera reference works very well here.
One thing that doesn’t work for me, I remember the first time round, I allowed the whole “your brother will betray you” thing to make me wonder, but as I said last week, it struck a jarring note this time round. Tygra was far too open and honest about his rivalry with Lion-O, and understanding of the importance of the mission, for such a betrayal to be plausible. And indeed he doesn’t betray him. He takes a swing at him, but he doesn’t betray Lion-O or the mission. He just wins Cheetara’s heart, making Lion-O insanely jealous. If anyone betrayed him in that sense, it was Cheetara, not Tygra.
New Alliances - a good solid start to the second half of the season. With Grune gone, and the second stone in the hands of the cats, the lizards have lost morale, which makes sense. They’re fighting a battle they don’t feel they can win, for a leader who they don’t really like.
And so Mumm-Ra now recruits Addicus (Monkian) and Kaynar (Jackalman) to help lead his armies. Like most original fans, I was wondering where they were at the beginning of the series, and had got used to the idea that they weren’t going to be there . . . until now! It’s good that in this series they got proper names - but does anyone know why those were the names chosen? I can see Kaynar as sounding close to canine etc, jackals being dogs, but Addicus is a mystery to me. In any event, these newer versions are a lot more dangerous than their comic relief counterparts from the original series. Credit to them for that.
Panthro’s new arms, well, it could be argued that we should have seen him without arms for a whole episode, but that aside, the development of their construction is again done to perfection. Of course the Berbils would naturally make Berbil arms for him at first, simply because that’s what they’re used to making. So equally naturally, when they make him arms that do fit, there would be a few teething problems.
And yes, now that the second stone is in the claw gauntlet, Lion-O’s powers are that much stronger, which again makes sense. The kittens finally have their hover boards, made this time by the Berbils as opposed to Panthro in the originals. And the Berbils also do some more tinkering with the tank - and make it twice the vehicle it was before. Literally!
The jarring note in this episode is in the fight when it’s three on three. Kaynar defeats Tygra and has Lion-O and Cheetara surrender. Cheetara does this unconditionally, without even stopping to weigh up the consequences. I know they’ve just got together, but come on - can’t she guess that they’re going to be killed anyway if they surrender? And then Tygra actually smiles to himself at her decision - rubbing Lion-O’s nose in it! Once again, she’s the one who’s really betraying him here.
