Original Airdate: September 29, 1990
Villain: Hoggish Greedly [2nd appearance]
In Thailand, villagers are being terrorized by a fire-breathing dragon, destroying both their rice paddies and causing fires throughout the jungle. The villagers believe it to be the evil spirit Phi Pok, a legendary dragon beast. Even Gia doesn't know the full extent to the misery going on, and sends the Planeteers to check the situation out.
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| Phi Pok |
The Planeteers, Wheeler especially, are skeptical of the existence of the dragon, but the villagers are scared, some even deserting their homes. We learn soon that somehow Greedly is behind this, and his plan is to scare off all of the villagers so he can surface mine the land for rubies. Sooner than they expect, the Planeteers face Phi Pok - the dragon starts a fire that, try as they might, they simply can't put out. Calling Captain Planet by combining their powers, the fire is soon dealt with, but the dragon got away.
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| Rigger and Greedly watching the environmental destruction |
And so they decide to split up into three groups, making Wheeler happy as he's teamed up with Linka. He's found her attractive for some time, and apparently Linka feels the same, as they almost kiss before being attacked by Phi Pok. Linka gets her foot stuck in tangled roots, and despite her telling Wheeler to go get help, he distracts the dragon, leading it to a patch of water. He gets caught in the beast's mouth, and the both of them are picked up via airship by Greedly.
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| Wheeler letting Linka know he's happy they have alone time |
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| Linka about to let Wheeler know she's happy also |
The Planeteers free Linka, but find no trace of Wheeler - the footprints of Phi Pok end in the water mysteriously, and Linka miserably blames herself. Ma-Ti tries to find Wheeler through his thoughts, and while he knows Wheeler's surrounded by evil, and he saw the temple in which he was being held, it's from a local they get the help they needed, as he leads them to the temple that Ma-Ti described.
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| The temple where Wheeler is held captive |
Meanwhile, Wheeler learns that Phi Pok is actually a strip-mining machine - made to both destroy the land and to ward off the villagers. Greedly plans to bring hundreds of these machines into Thailand and make the whole country a gravel pit, keeping the rubies for himself.
Gi is able to enter the temple through a secret, underground entrance. She frees Wheeler and floods out the base. After the Planeteers reunite with Wheeler, the robotic Phi Pok again begins to cause mayhem, and they must call Captain Planet a second time. He's able to destroy the creature, and with the mechanical parts left behind, form a plant-cropping machine to restore the lost paddies. The villagers thank them for their help - the Planeteers claim it's simply their job.
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| Linka and Wheeler's hug after reuniting |
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| The planting machine which Captain Planet is (somehow) able to contruct |
Of course, at the end, we're encouraged to recycle and bring attention to the potential environmental damages caused by some forms of mining. As the power is ours, we can make a change if we simply try.
This was a surprisingly good episode. Not surprising in that it was pretty decent, but surprising in that it was actually quite better than the first two episodes.
Greedly's the only problem with this episode, as far as I'm concerned - we were introduced to him back in the pilot, and two episodes later, he appears again. Don't get me wrong, he's a perfectly fine villain, but I feel this first season should introduce more than two enemies before bringing back repeat customers. It's like if there was a Spider-Man series, and they had Doctor Octopus as the first enemy, then Electro as the second. But instead of bringing in, say, Rhino or Kraven, they bring back Doctor Octopus. It just doesn't ring of high creativity.
But like I said, that's the only problem with this episode.
The idea to scare villagers away and strip mine the whole of Thailand is like the goals of a Scooby-Doo villain on steroids. Instead of scaring a few townsfolk away from an armored car containing money by dressing up as a witch and a zombie, Greedly built a dragon based off an old legend to scare away multiple villages for his own personal gain. The guy's a dick, in short. Still, as it was reminiscent of old Scooby-Doo episodes, especially the beginning, I rather enjoyed it.
We also see increased uses of Ma-Ti's powers. Before Gi dives into the water to check out the footprints of the dragon, Ma-Ti uses his power to ensure that no crocodiles are nearby in the water that could pose any harm. That seems a very useful power to possess, especially if he can use it to check for people nearby on more covert operations (if the Planeteers are ever given such an operation, of course).
Of course, the best portion of this episode in my eyes was the Linka/Wheeler romance. Despite Linka laughing it off at the end, leaving Wheeler rather consternated, the two of them do feel a spark, and had it not been for Phi Pok's untimely attack, would have shown each other they do care by sharing a kiss.
I said that last episode, Wheeler didn't seem to have much of a chance with Linka, but I've decided it's more that Linka's likely to keep her feelings close to her chest, especially since those feelings seem to be for a "capitalist pig," as she called Wheeler back in the first episode.
Truth be told, I have no idea if this cartoon would go the direction of having some of the Planeteers date. It's hard to tell. But I definitely didn't really think that anything above playful flirtations would occur, and it seems I was shown to be mistaken. Maybe this show will go in that direction, and if so, I can't say I wouldn't be pleased.
This episode was so close to getting a 'superb' rating. If not for Greedly appearing again as soon as he did, it definitely would have. Still, this has been the best episode so far, so I'm moderately interested to see where this show is going for the episodes to come.
Rating: Above Average
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