These are episodes of animated series (and the occasional muppet series?) that marked me, scarred me, helped the shaping of a literata and still pervade her dreams. But this time it's not about nightmare fuel; rather about excitement fuel or whatcanIcallit...
Pollyanna, ep. 20: "Pollyanna, Pollyanna!"
What happens?
The titular little girl, a sunny Southern US orphan who doesn't give a hoot about losing her parents and living with a curmudgeonly aunt, and whose optimism has spread to the rest of her local community, is accidentally hit by the local toff's horseless carriage and subsequently bedridden.
For the first time in forever, she is physically and emotionally broken.
I was in a state of shock myself after watching this episode...
Digimon 02, ep. 23: "The Time the Digivice was Stained in Darkness"
What happens?
Ken Ichijoji's start of darkness as a flashback episode that induces the death of Ken's Kaiser persona and his rebirth as the show's resident Atoner. Turns out the Kaiser was modelled upon Ken's Ace older brother Osamu, for whose untimely death the poor boy, his parents' and family friends' unfavourite, was blamed. Also, we saw a Dark Seed lodging in the nape of a preschool Ken's neck, entering his spinal cord... these Dark Seeds are like Mirror of Reason shards in that they make the host an emotionless, ruthless perfectionist... But at last Ken reconciles himself with the past, bursts into manly tears, and crushes his Kaiser goggles as the Seed lapses back into dormancy (though it's still inside his CNS and will later on be spread to other tweens).
The Kaiser is dead. Long live the Atoner!
Stop the Smoggies, ep. 32: "Off to the Races"
What happens?
They target Princess Lila... though accidentally... through ingesting poison... ***heart racing*** Seriously, this made my blood pressure rise. A radioactive chemical called tweakonium is absorbed by a wiggle fruit, that grows larger and teal-coloured (while other wiggle fruits are orange or blue). Lila, wondering what the unusually-looking fruit will taste like, puts it to her lips... and gulp! Then she falls dangerously ill, febrile and bedridden.
Thankfully, she was healed thanks to some rather strong tea made from a special bush. But I was still shocked when she picked up the fruit and I had these Snow White vibes that it would end up under her belt and make her ill...
This was decades before Litvinenko, and the poisoned person was a young female leader I looked up to as a role model, which made me even more impressed.
ReBoot, ep. 1.10 (10): "The Great Brain Robbery."
What happens?
The villains shrink a starship with the badass action girl for a captain and those two bad guys on board, then stow it into a cup of quantum shake using a dropper. "Can I have a sip?" ten-year-old Enzo asks. And thus, gulp! Down the thirsty tween's throat and into his gut, then into his bloodstream, the starship goes (everything looks extremely lifelike inside Enzo, from the incisors and the uvula to the vena cava... if it weren't because Enzo's endothelium is dark green, his skin being teal! Those realistic internal settings are, IMOHO, the only saving grace of the episode), heading for his brain and the crew thinking they're inside the twentyish leader --whose brain they are planning to probe for information-- until they finally get to Enzo's CNS and probe his synapses, discovering that their host is not the right one... but still deciding to make out the best of the situation by controlling their far younger unexpected host from within.
It's up to Enzo's older teammates to get inside the lad's head and expel the invaders. They enter through an ear and exit through a nostril, in quite a comical manner.
But already the opening scene is iconic, especially from the moment Enzo asks for a sip to the one that the invaders get to his cerebrum.
It makes an excellent metaphor for the way a psychotropic drug, an intoxicant, enters and acts within the system.
It also shows that Enzo's species, sprites, are far more humanoid than it already appears from outside... and it also introduces a possible scenario of which I have often daydreamt during long cross-Scandinavian trips. That there was a badass female starship captain with her little crew in my cordial, and that I would down them sooner or later, and, after two or three hours, they would exit... either through perspiration or in a golden shower...
Captain Planet, ep. 2.10 (36): "An Inside Job"
What happens?
Die Hard inside a young person.
Yes, indeed, the way it sounds. This episode has also got a lot of implications relating to ensemble dynamics, anxieties, and trust. It's also a story that branches off in two parallel directions, that diverge right from the start and reunite at the end of the day.
So, shall we start when the plot strands diverge?
Five special young people, you know the drill, chasing this ice-queen hottie of a ruthless one-eyed mad scientist. Or rather four special young people, for the leader has detached himself from his teammates after an argument, deciding to find the villainess on his own.
So now the second-in-command is in the leader's seat and having to deal with the implications of his own stubbornness, though the leader will also have to face the same issue on his own...
And so the four crew members get in their starship, along with the scientist's right-hand man, who merely joined them to save his skin. Even though she goes "once a traitor, always a traitor" and resolvs to punish him as well, Right then, quite unexpectedly, the villainess, voiced by Meg Ryan, turns a shrink ray on the starship and keeps it first in her palm ("kawaii!"), then reduces it further to the point that it cannot be seen, and pours it into the leader's drink of water as she says: "I'll hide you in the last place he'll ever find you..."
So at length the young leader, voiced by this actor who did Commander LaForge, arrives on the scene, exhausted, gasping, wiping the perspiration off his face. In spite of his usual sang-froid, his foremost concern now being to quench his thirst... gulp! LaForge drains his container at one fell swoop (the reactions of his crew upon seeing his open mouth closing in on them are priceless!), before pinning Ryan to the wall.
"Let me go, or you'll never see your friends again!"
"And why?"
"Because you've just drunk them! (Noblewoman's laugh.)"
"Gasp!"
At this point, the two plot strands are clear:
On one hand, the other young people, washed down their thirsty leader's throat and into his gut, then absorbed into the bloodstream, try to get out of his system as soon as possible. However, they realise that their presence is a blessing in disguise, since they encounter, at various points in their journey, endoparasites that had entered LaForge's system with a previous drink and are literally threatening to cut his life short at 16-17. But there is also a traitor on board (the henchman, obviously)... Finally, after healing the fatally ailing leader from within, they exit through the airways, being sneezed and coughed out. (The innards of the host are again pretty realistic, from the rapids of that deep draught surging past the incisors and under the uvula, down the gullet... to the complex little airways in the right lung up the trachea... as realistic as such settings can get.)
On the other hand, LaForge must rely only on himself now that the others are gone forever, and trapped in an inner world where everything is trying to kill them (HCl dissolving their hull, lymphocytes perceiving them at first as a threat, and of course the endoparasites themselves!) to protect the young man's own health, as he blackmails the one-eyed iron lady into setting her free and trying to make her free his nakamatachi, all while struggling on his own with a searing fever, sharp colics, shallow breathing, tachycardia, and finally a deep coma caused by the endoparasites in his brain. While Ryan tries to take advantage of her captor's ostensibly lethal illness to break free from the prison in which he has confined her, but her plans are foiled at the end of the day.
This is a Fantastic Voyage Plot episode in which the parallels with its ReBoot counterpart are clear, but there are differences, most notably:
- the disagreements on both factions that cause the initial ensemble member swap;
- the endonauts being not the antiheroine and those two bad guys, but the heroes sans the leader and plus the villainess's henchman;
- the endonauts are not sipped, but quaffed at a deep draught by a far thirstier and more stressed host, slightly older (than Enzo) but still young;
- said host was already incubating a fatal illness upon their entrance, and was healed by them from within, making their presence an ironic blessing in disguise;
- the female antagonist is no cool antiheroine, but a baroness/ice queen figure to be reckoned with
- said female antagonist is taunting the lonely, ailing endonaut host, on the outside
- there's far wittier, "British" humour, and the plot is far more serious.
All of this makes An Inside Job a far more exciting episode of its formula kind. In fact, I've had a few bunnies involving both the cast of favourite series and my own OCs retelling the premise of this episode. It's a plot, like those of Othello or The Snow Queen, I have daydreamed about left and right, because of the tests of character it poses to those involves.
Maybe the most poignant example of one retelling of this episode is The Ides of August, a Marauders steampunk AU scenario which references the episode - on the outer side, Bellatrix Lestrange vs. James Potter in the same stalemate (a scrumptiously psycho Trix, noblewoman's laugh and all!); on the inside, the faithful Marauders plus Lily (here a Marauder as well) and Seve (in the turncoat's role), on board the Phlegethon, trying to find a way out from the last place their leader will ever find them. Not to mention it all started with an argument that has thrust Padfoot into a leadership role...
The ending is of course priceless. Seve and Lily get coughed out, while the others (in steampunk frogmen suits) leave their leader's system through a drop of perspiration on his forehead. After which, it's up to them to catch James's attention without either Trix or Prongs himself unwittingly crushing them.
But of course the descriptions are lavish, especially those of what happens "in there", inside someone recovering from intense exertion, after that person has refreshed himself. And of course the whiplash: after a much welcome drink and rest, and having besides cornered the enemy... she tells you right in the face that you have just downed your own friends. Shock ensues and the fight-or-flight response is triggered again.
So this is a real rabbit hole of a plot to follow... from the initial argument that started it all -the usual confrontation between leader and second in command, here drawn to extreme lengths by the stubbornness of both- to the finale.
The Ides of August shows what it's like to be drunk by the one to end all meganekko bishies -the description of the fuzz on his upper lip, and so forth, into a twilit, throbbing, flesh and blood underworld- while stuck on a tardigrade-sized ovoid shuttle pod (similar to the pods in Artemis Fowl) with a crew of various bishies and a ginger action girl whose POV we follow mainly. And yes, there are even some tardigrades in there, but they die quite graphically in James Potter's gut (as they would do inside anyone else). Various ways out are discussed and ruled out, including through the derrière and in a golden shower, as the journey progresses.
The steampunk universe -think Treasure Planet or Miyazaki; also, the Marauders are a military unit in uniform!- is fascinating, also from the stark contrast you get from clanking steel and whirring cogwheels and dazzling rays into the pulsating, soft penumbra of a healthy (?) young system. Light filters through uniform and skin and flesh, while the heart and arteries throb now steadily, now pounding feverishly. The voices of both contenders on the outside can be heard quite loudly from within one of them.
The two strands branch off quite early, already in the first-second chapter... There's also a Jily/Snily love triangle, giving full potential to the scenario of the hypotenuse unwittingly drinking his fiancée and rival.
The theme of making a wish too rashly -Sirius wishes for leadership, Seve for Lily, and James for being left on his own; all three wishes come true in unexpected ways- also permeates the story.
In a reference to the Fantastic Voyage novel, each chapter also takes its title from its setting (most settings being the host's insides).
