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"Unforgiven Cheese"
Written by: Eve Forward
Produced and Directed by: Tom Tataranowicz
Executive Producers: Rick Ungar and Tom Tataranowicz
INTRODUCTORY SUMMARY NOTE
Like "Steelfinger" and "A Mouse and His Motorcycle" in Season One, "Unforgiven Cheese" is a character-centric episode revolving around everyone's favorite big gray-furred momma's boy, Modo. But there's a crucial differences between today's adventure and its predecessors. The facet of Modo's character explored in this episode--his chivalric nature and almost childish devotion to principle--will cause him to come into conflict with his bros, with annoyance building to anger and then to full-on fisticuffs (fisticuffs!). Which will win out--Modo's conscience or his commitment to his bros?
EPISODE SYNOPSIS
Our story begins with a green comet streaking through space toward Earth. Yes, a green comet. I know, I thought they were supposed to be white, too. Being such an unusual object, it naturally draws the attention of the Biker Mice, who are following it as it zips across the Chicago skyline.
"Don't lose it, bros!" Throttle shouts, turning on his helmet's tracking feature. "Don't know where it came from, but that's definitely a spaceship!"
Okay, so it's not a green comet. My mistake.
"Still trackin' it, Charley-girl?" Vinnie asks.
On the roof of the Last Chance Garage, we see Charley following the object with a pair of binoculars.
"It's headed for the Meatpacker's Bank!" she shouts as it flies past. Viewers may remember that this is where Charley does her banking, and was the scene of a robbery in "The Pits".
The ship, still glowing bright green, lands on the bank's roof. The light fades, and out of the car-sized craft steps a birdlike female alien with a red comb and purple and black plumage. Her wings (black on top, red inside) fall behind her like a cape and rustle in the night wind. As this is a boy's action cartoon, it goes without saying that she's wearing a black bikini-type outfit, right? She also wears gunbelts on both hips.
After a moment, she begins dictating into a small recording device.
"Bounty hunter's log, uh, local time 10:21 PM. Bounty hunter Billie Monnie reporting. Have landed in the Earth city of Chicago. Target: the Plutarkian known as Lawrence Limburger."
She looks out over the city.
"Hmmm. City is larger than expected. Finding the target may be difficult without local assistance."
The computer screen on Billie's recorder shows the outline of the stairway building behind her, and two shadowy figures approaching.
"There also may be some hostile natives to deal with," Billie notes, never looking away from the city skyline. Slowly, she reaches for her pistol.
Suddenly, a pair of security guards burst out of the building, guns drawn.
"Hold it right there, lady!" one shouts.
Billie turns and fires, hitting the ground directly in front of the guards. The blast knocks them off their feet and almost back into the building. They stare at Billie, bewildered. The avian bounty hunter turns away, indifferent.
"However," she concludes, "I do not anticipate any major difficulties."
Suddenly, she notices something on her device.
"Hold the--"
At that, the Biker Mice suddenly shoot up over the side of the building (took 'em a hell of a long time to get up there).
"Whoah!" Modo laughs, surveying the scene.
Throttle whistles appreciatively.
"Looks like quite a party up here!"
"Yeah! Let's crash it!" Vinnie cries, leveling his pistol. Abruptly, though, Modo knocks his arm out of the way.
"Hey!"
"Behave yourself when a lady's involved, bro!" Modo says sternly. "Besides, she doesn't seem dangerous."
Billie looks at the mice thoughtfully.
"You may have the gender right, bro…" Throttle mumbles.
Suddenly, Billie whips out a very large gun and points it straight at our heroes.
"…but your grasp of the situation leaves a lot to be desired!"
Both Billie and the Biker Mice watch the other side tensely, waiting for the slightest sign of movement. Finally, Throttle decides to act.
"Now just hang cool, bros," he whispers, reaching for one of his pistols. "We'll try to hit her with a stun ray."
"Don't you dare!" Modo snaps.
"This is no time to argue chivalry, Big Fella!" Throttle hisses. "The lady is armed to the teeth!"
Billie watches the disagreement, interest piqued.
"Hmm," she muses. "Males. Big. Strong. With machismo ratings practically off the Richter scale. Could be useful." She eyes Modo and adds, "Especially that one."
The bird grins wickedly.
"Time to play the 'helpless female' role."
Despite Modo's moral objections, Throttle and Vinnie opt to go ahead with the plan. They ride up a few feet and level their guns at Billie (who has her back turned) while Modo seethes.
"On three," Throttle whispers. "One…two…"
Before he can get to three, though, a pair of blasts from Billie knocks the pistols out of the mice's hands. Throttle and Vinnie yelp in pain.
"Oh my goodness!" Billie cries, launching into her act. She tosses the gun away and begins wringing her hands contritely. "I'm sorry! I mean, I don't know what happened! It's just that that silly thing went off in my hand!"
Modo coasts over and steps off his bike.
"That's all right, ma'am; accidents happen. And nobody got hurt-right, bros?"
Throttle rubs his sore wrist and grumbles, "Easy for you to say."
"Nobody's gonna mistake me for Cool Hand Luke tonight," Vinnie quips, blowing on his smoking palm.
Modo retrieves Billie's pistol and hands it to her.
"Here ya go, ma'am. But you better put it away. Those things can be dangerous."
Billie takes her gun nervously, seemingly surprised and a little scared by Modo's sheer size. When she sees one of the guards near the door about to fire, she "accidentally" shoots again. Both guards are knocked off their feet once more. They take one good look at Modo and Billie and run down the stairs, screaming.
"Oooh, my goodness!" Billie whimpers, holding the gun out as if it reeked. "It did it again! I'm afraid I'm just not very good with weapons!"
With that, she spins the pistol expertly back into its holster.
"Yeah, right," Throttle mutters.
"So why ya packin' all those heaters, sweetheart?" Vinnie asks. "It ain't that cold tonight."
"Oh, well, I didn't know what else to do!" Billie cries innocently. "I mean, I was just so scared! Have you guys ever heard of someone called-Lawrence Limburger?"
"What?" Throttle asks.
"The Big Stink Cheese?" Vinnie laughs. "You bet we have, sweetheart!"
"An' we hate him from his scummy rind to his moldy core," Modo adds firmly.
"Excellent," Billie murmurs, momentarily returning to her normal, smoldering voice before jumping back into her scared little girl mode.
"Well, he's why I'm here. My name's Billie, Billie Monnie. I was hired by a bunch of Limburger's ex-employees to blast him. You know, 'Lectromag, Tunnel Rat, and a few others. I was all they could afford! Well, gosh, I'm--I'm new at this, and it's my first job, and those two men with guns, well, they frightened me! I mean, I'm so sorry if I caused trouble."
As Billie talks, Throttle and Vinnie listen skeptically. Finally, they approach.
"Hmm. Yeah, well, maybe this was all a misunderstandin'," Throttle says thoughtfully. He eyes her holsters and adds, "Maybe."
Modo, who's been eating up Billie's act with a spoon, puts a hand on her shoulder.
"Well, of course it was, ma'am," he says gently. "You come on with us."
"Yeah, might be best," Throttle agrees. "It seems we got a mutual goal."
Cue large explosion nearby (for five minutes into an episode of "Biker Mice," there haven't been nearly enough of those!).
"Well, speak of the devil!"
"Anything that big has gotta have Limburger behind it," Vinnie coos, turning on his helmet's screen.
"Those were Plutarkian M-65 thermite grenades," Billie says thoughtfully.
"M-65…" Throttle murmurs. "You know, for a beginner, you seem to know a lot about weapons."
"Oh, they're sort of a…passion of mine," she coos. Quickly, though, she corrects herself, adding, "Oh, um, even though I'm not, like, very good with them, y'know?" Billie then spins one of her guns out and says firmly, "So come on, guys, let's fry that cheese!"
Throttle and Vinnie watch Billie closely, but have to keep their doubts quiet, as Modo rides up and extends a hand.
"May ah have the pleasure of escorting you, ma'am?" he asks.
"You got it, Big Guy," Billie coos, sitting down behind him.
"Ooh, first date," Vinnie chuckles, turning his bike around and leading the foursome as they jump off the rooftop with a hearty "Let's rock--AND RIDE!"
The source of the explosion is the propane storage yards halfway across the city, where we find the Big Cheese preparing for a major league heist. As Greasepit and his goons charge between the huge storage tanks, gleefully shooting at whatever catches their eyes, Limburger, Karbunkle, and Fred the Mutant hover overhead in Limburger's helicopter.
"Be careful, you petroleum-based poltroon!" the Plutarkian barks through a walkie-talkie. "Don't destroy the propane tanks! We must procure that propane for Plutark!"
"Procure?" Fred asks, puzzled, from the controls (why does Limburger let this guy fly/drive him all the time? Does he have a death wish?). "Oh, yeah! Oh, I got ya--burn 'em! Whooh!" He spots a flaming tank on the ground and cackles, "And looky-looky! There's one about to blow!"
Fred banks the helicopter directly at the tank, but Limburger pulls them out of the dive just in time. He wipes the sweat from his brow.
"Close, but nonetheless necessary. By the time I'm done here, the damage will look just like an accidental explosion!"
"And won't the Plutarkian High Chairman enjoy all that lovely natural gas?" Karbunkle asks.
"As if he doesn't have enough of his own," Limburger chuckles under his breath.
As explosions continue to rock the field, we see the two security guards from the building Billie landed on hiding in the checkpoint building.
"You had to take a shortcut through the gas plant?!" one shouts at the other, just before Limburger's goons nearly total the shack. When the Biker Mice shoot past, the last wall falls down, and the frightened men flee once more.
"DUN-DA-DA-DUN!" Vinnie laughs. "Banzai biker to the rescue!"
"Watch those propane tanks, bros!" Throttle shouts. "One hit on those babies and the curtain's gonna fall on this show real quick!"
The mice ride to a short, isolated tank, where goons quickly surround them. Throttle uses his grappling line to pull one goon off his ride, allowing it to careen into a wall and explode. Vinnie tosses one of exploding flares into another, barely giving the rider time to escape before it goes off.
"AOOOW!" he cries. "Better than the best!"
"Fie!" Limburger shouts, making him perhaps the only animated supervillain to use the word "fie" in the last five years. "Those furry flea factories are foiling me again!" He grabs the controls from Fred and screams, "Get us out of here!"
The helicopter swoops past erratically over the mice's heads.
"Looks like someone's callin' my number," Billie says as she climbs off Modo's bike and takes off after Limburger. She opens fire on the helicopter, striking Fred squarely in the noggin. His brain pops out and lands in his lap (I can't see this resulting in any permanent damage).
"Someone's trying to change my mind!" he giggles.
"What in the name of all little fishes…?" Limburger snaps.
"Be careful, Billie!" Modo shouts from the ground. "Don't want ya gettin' hurt!"
"Well, she better be careful where she's aiming," Throttle observes, "or-"
With a set-up like that, you know what happens next. Billie's next shot misses the helicopter wide, and instead strikes the propane tank directly behind the Biker Mice, causing a massive explosion. Not to worry--our heroes manage to escape by jumping their bikes high into the air at the last possible second (they also catch the security guards, who were also sent aloft by the blast). Technically, Limburger has achieved the "accidental explosion" look he was going for, albeit with a real one. With the propane theft a bust and Billie hot on his tail, the Big Cheese orders his goons to destroy the refinery to conceal their activity there while he escapes.
Naturally, our heroes aren't about to let that happen. Modo uses an impromptu seesaw to help get Vinnie to the refinery's fire station, where the white-furred mouse grabs a foam hose and flicks it on.
"Time to put a damper on this party--big time!"
Vinnie begins shooting through between the tanks and putting out the fires. His bros, meanwhile, herd Greasepit and his remaining goons right out of the place and into an adjacent lake. They high-five each other just before they're covered in wet, sloppy foam.
"Whoah!" Vinnie laughs, tossing away the dripping hose. "I think you guys used too much mouse mousse this morning!"
One of the security guards crawls out from under their makeshift shelter.
"Is--is it over?" he asks nervously.
Throttle suddenly appears beside him.
"Not by a long shot, citizen!"
"Yeah, we got more stink fish to fry!" Vinnie chimes in.
"Plus, we gotta make sure Miss Billie's okay," Modo adds.
The guards watch as the mice ride away.
"Maybe what we need is one of those nice, soft government jobs," one mutters as he walks away.
Meanwhile, Limburger is NOT having an easy time of it. Billie is still pursuing him, and only a combination of rotten luck and desperate maneuverings on Limburger's part have kept her shots from connecting. Well, connecting with Limburger's helicopter, anyway. Her blasts ARE connecting with a number of other things throughout the city. A building here, a car there…It all adds up to massive property damage. And all this before she gets out the bazooka, with which she accidentally takes out a radio antenna.
"Blast!" Billie snaps as she gets rid of the spent shell. "That slippery fish is costing me a fortune on ammo!"
"Our avian adversary appears to be gaining, Karbunkle," Limburger murmurs nervously as Billie's fire rocks the helicopter. "DO SOMETHING!"
"Right away, your stunning stilton-ness!" Karbunkle hisses.
A pair of laser cannons pop out of the bottom of the craft, with which the mad scientist begins returning fire. Billie narrowly avoids a blast (which strikes a skyscraper behind her), and fires her own round. All in all, Chicago is starting to look like a war zone, which Throttle quickly notes as they follow the trail of damage.
"You know, bros, that lady's a lot handier with weapons than she claimed to be!"
"Hey, she's just doin' her job!" Modo says, seconds before the ground is rocked by another massive concussion. Part of a building collapses right in front of the mice. They blast it into tiny pieces.
"Oh yeah? Is destroyin' half the city in that job description of hers?" Vinnie snaps.
"We gotta bring that birdy babe to roost, bros!" Throttle shouts.
"Now, wait a minute--" Modo protests.
"Let's rock and ride!"
Throttle and Vinnie shoot ahead, and Modo follows a few yards behind reluctantly. A bad idea, as it turns out. If he had kept up with his bros, he wouldn't have been under the water tower Limburger's laser cannons took out. He narrowly avoids getting hit square on the head by the thing, but gets caught in the massive wave of water released when it strikes the ground.
"Oh Momma!" he groans. "What're they doin' to your son?"
Up ahead, Throttle notes Modo's absence, and asks Vinnie where he is.
"Aw, the big fella hung back," Vinnie answers, rather sympathetically. "Don't think his heart's in this one."
"Yeah, well, the heart of Chicago is what concerns me now. I mean, if she brings that chopper down on a building, it could hurt a lot of people."
"Airborne Rangers Six?" Vinnie suggests.
"You got it!"
Throttle agreeing with one of Vinnie's maneuver ideas? This is one for the record books!
The two mice fire up their bike's jets and shoot off into the sky. As Billie lines up a perfect shot (she's got Limburger right in her sights, although the fish-face tries to use Karbunkle for a shield), Throttle and Vinnie shoot a pair of grappling lines around her feet.
"Sorry to bring you down, bird-lady!" Throttle shouts.
"But your flyin' license has been re-voked!" Vinnie concludes.
Billie struggles, but the weight of the mice's bikes quickly drags her back down to Earth. Throttle catches her before she hits pavement, and Vinnie quickly uses the excess line to tie her up, wings and all.
"Ta daa! One trussed turkey!"
"Kudos, Vincent!" Throttle laughs.
"You expected less?" Vinnie asks, grinning.
Suddenly, Limburger calls out to them from overhead.
"Excellent job, indeed, rodent! Thank you so much for taking care of that bothersome buzzard for me! Your kindness is as appreciated as it is unexpected! Farewell, Biker Mice!"
Limburger's cackles can still be heard even after his helicopter disappears from view.
"Now that those mice have removed that feathered flying female, I can promptly proceed with my propane appropriation plan in a most time-honored tradition: piracy. I'll simply hijack the propane freighters at sea!"
"But your supreme spreadableness," Karbunkle interrupts, "to do that, you would require a-a-a battleship at least!"
Limburger looms over the tiny scientist menacingly.
"Well then, Karbunkle, find me one--or else…"
Karbunkle cowers.
Back on the street, Throttle and Modo are still struggling to keep Billie under control. Throttle turns to her and says firmly, "Now you listen up, lady. We know you wanna nail Limburger as bad as we do."
"But when you're on our turf, you gotta play by our rules!" Vinnie concludes. "No danger to civilians."
"Hmph!" Billie snorts. "You cost me my bounty! I don't forgive that--ever! Now let me loose!"
She kicks at Vinnie, and nearly cuts him to ribbons with her sharp talons.
"You heard the lady, bros. Let her go. Now."
Throttle, Vinnie, and Billie turn. Modo has finally caught up, and we can see why he took so long. He and his bike are soaking wet from the water tower collapse, and the gray-furred mouse is just about ready to collapse. Still, he's determined to protect the lady.
"No, Big Fella!" Throttle protests. "You don't know what you're saying!"
"This bird's a grade-A menace to society!" Vinnie adds.
Billie quickly reprises her 'helpless girl' routine for Modo.
"Oh, I can hardly breathe!" she moans. "I feel faint!"
Modo grimaces.
"I can't believe my ears. To think my two bros would treat a lady this way!"
"She's dangerous!" Vinnie snaps.
"She's after Limburger, same as us! Now let her go!"
Modo's eye begins glowing bright red. Throttle and Vinnie are silent for a moment, unsure of what to do. Billie's dangerous, but so's an angry Modo. Which would YOU rather deal with? Billie ups the ante when she pretends to swoon, falling into Vinnie's arms. Modo's eye, which had momentarily blinked off as he himself began to feel a little faint, once again glows scarlet.
Having had enough of this face, Throttle puts his foot down.
"She stays tied until we reach an understanding with her, Big Fella, and that's FINAL."
"Well, ah'm sorry to hear you say that, Throttle…"
Modo raises his arm cannon and points it squarely at Throttle. A tense moment, then--
PHOOM PHOOM!
--at the ropes binding Billie! They snap instantly, freeing her.
"…'cause it just isn't what gentlemen do," Modo concludes.
"YES!" Billie shouts. "I'm free--and on the trail again!"
She immediately leaps into the sky. Within seconds, she's gone. Throttle and Vinnie watch her fly away, aghast, before turning back to their bro. Throttle seems particularly incensed.
"Modo, I think you and me are gonna have to tangle on this one!" he growls.
"Anytime, Throttle!" the gray-furred mouse replies, equally furious. "I'll take you on right…now…"
Suddenly, Modo collapses. His horrified bros shout his name, and jump down beside him. Throttle checks his pulse, and pulls back, relieved.
"He's okay. Just out cold. He took quite a beating. We better not leave him."
"But What about Limburger?" Vinnie asks.
Throttle rises and looks toward Limburger Tower.
"I suspect the Big Cheese is gonna be plenty busy himself for a while."
As usual, Throttle is right on the money. Billie has easily located Limburger's skyscraper fortress. Silhouetted against the sun, she screams and dives toward the Tower. An unsuspecting Limburger calls on Karbunkle to activate the building's scanners ("I want to know where that bombastic bird is at all times!") a split second before Billie crashes through the window and rips him out of his chair. Upon landing, she shoves a rifle right up his nose.
"Well, hey, there! Looks like I've caught Lawrence Limburger, the no-good intergalactic deadbeat!" she crows. "Got anything to say for yourself before I take out all those debts out of your hide, huh?"
"Uh, yes, well, since you asked, I do indeed have a statement I wish to make," Limburger replies. "And that is--OH MERCY, PLEASE! I'LL PAY YOU ANYTHING!"
Billie drops him to the floor and puts the rifle right in Limburger's face.
"Hah! You think you can bribe me with your filthy money?"
"Well why not? It's standard Plutarkian practice."
Just then, Karbunkle shoots up through the floor, his back to Limburger's predicament.
"Oh, your cheddary churlishness, I found it!" he cries happily. "I found--"
Karbunkle turns to look for Limburger, and immediately gets a pistol in the snoot from Billie.
"So, tryin' to save your boss, eh?" she sneers.
"Oh, perish the thought!" Karbunkle laughs nervously. "So sorry to interrupt! But I merely came to report that I'd located a battleship for his cheesiness to steal!"
"A battleship, eh?" the bird woman asks, turning her gaze to Limburger.
"Oh, yes, um, nothing to worry about, my dear pinioned parakeet!" he answers quickly. "I was just planning to commandeer its cannons in order to hijack a few measly freighters of gas for Plutark!"
"Did you say--cannons?" Billy asks, almost moaning.
"Uh, yes."
"Big cannons?"
For a moment, Limburger is puzzled. Then realization dawns on his face and he smiles.
"The biggest on the planet."
Billie smiles and draws the gun away.
"Limburger, old boy, you just started talking my language."
"Well then, perhaps negotiations are in order to--huh-save my skin, so to speak, while perhaps also tanning the hides of those meddling mice."
Billy, who has been rubbing her pistol against her beak, nods, and Limburger smiles.
"I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship," he coos, the theme from "Casablanca" playing in the background.
"Oh, my head."
Back at street level, Modo has finally regained consciousness. He's still about half out of it, but coming around fast. As his bros help him to his feet, he turns to Throttle and mutters, "You must've clocked me good."
Throttle smiles.
"No way, bro. We're a team. Differences of opinion are allowed."
"'Cept on who's the coolest," Vinnie adds.
"Or the most egotistical," Charley corrects as she rides up on her bike.
"Charley-girl!" Throttle shouts.
"How'd you get here?" Vinnie asks.
"The usual," she replies, thumbing at the flaming buildings behind her. "Followed the trail of wreckage. Seems a little bit heavy today, though, even for you guys."
Almost reluctantly, Vinnie explains, "Sweetheart, it was a thorough job, but it wasn't us."
"Oh yeah? Then who was it, then?"
Throttle and Vinnie start to answer, but Modo covers their mouths and replies, "My Momma always told me a gentlemen doesn't speak poorly of a lady."
"A lady, huh? Which lady?"
Vinnie points skyward, where, as luck would have it, Billie happens to be flying away from Limburger Tower behind the Big Cheese's helicopter.
"That lady."
"What's she doin' ridin' shotgun for Limburger?" Modo wonders.
"I dunno, bro, but they're lookin' pretty cozy," Throttle replies. "We better ride!"
Now, since Limburger's target is a naval destroyer, does it surprise anyone that our unlucky security guards have become sailors? Yes, as the Big Cheese prepares for his next big heist, our boys are celebrating their supposed good fortune in finding such plum jobs in the armed services.
"Ha ha! Ahh, this is the life, ain't it, Chuck?" one of the guards, apparently named Ron, asks as he leans back in his lounge chair. The two of them have constructed a little island paradise on the flight deck, where they're sunning themselves.
"Oh sure, Ron," Chuck answers. "With the whole crew out on maneuvers, we got peace and quiet! At last!"
But before they can enjoy another sip of their fruity umbrella drinks, Billie lands on the deck.
"Why, hello again, boys," she coos before blasting their little beachscape into plastic splinters. Ron and Chuck fall overboard, and as they strike out for shore, they consider getting into yet another line of work.
The Biker Mice watch the scene unfold from the beach.
"We're no good standing here, bros," Throttle notes.
"Hey, I know we're cool, but bikin' over water is a little out of our know-how," Vinnie retorts.
Charley notices a group of surfboards lying against a nearby shack.
"Just leave it to me, guys."
On the ship, Limburger steps out of his helicopter and joins Billie and his goons.
"Excellent work, my feather-strewn fire-fowl. This entire battleship is now all mine!"
"Not all of it, pal," Billie reminds him. "There's still the little matter of my payment." She motions toward the boat's big guns and moans, "A fifty-inch MegaBang 2000 with explosive shells!"
Limburger notices something approaching the boat at high speed.
"Uh, enough crowing, my dear canary," he says quickly, interrupting Billie's reverie. "Time to get busy."
What did Limburger notice? Why, the Biker Mice, of course! Charley managed to rig the surfboards to the bottom of their bikes, allowing them to shoot across the water. How exactly are they being propelled, with their tires above the water? How can tiny little surfboards support massively heavy motorcycles? Why don't our heroes use the waterski things their bikes are equipped with? Stop being so logical, you nit. This is a cartoon.
"I hate to say it, bros, but--COWABUNGA!" Vinnie howls.
"Cowa-what?" Throttle asks.
"Where'd he pick that up?" Modo wonders.
"Get rid of them!" Limburger orders Billie as he heads for the navigation room. "I must get this battleship navigated out to open seas!"
Billie picks up one of the giant shells for the MegaBang 2000 and flies toward it.
"Right you are! Three lumps of fish-bait, coming up!"
Inside the ship, Limburger pushes Greasepit away from the controls.
"Stand aside, you oily idiot! I must get this ship moving!"
He pushes forward on a lever, which instantly breaks off in his hand. Worse, it sends the ship backward, then hopelessly out of control. Before allowing himself to sink into complete and total panic, Limburger scowls at the lever and tosses it over his shoulder, mumbling, "Blasted government parts."
"Ahoy, there, Captain Blight!" Vinnie shouts.
"We've come to clean your clock!" Modo adds.
"AOOOOW! Mamajammer mutiny!"
The mice ride up alongside of the ship and leap onto it, leaving their surfboards and that bothersome logic hole in the surf. As they reach the crest their jump, they open fire on the waiting goons, and quickly take out most of them.
"Scramble, bros!" Throttle shouts. "We gotta put the brakes to this boat!"
Vinnie and Throttle race off, but Modo hangs behind.
"And I gotta find Billie," he says firmly.
A shadow falls over Modo, and another water tank falls on him. Just kidding on the last part. He looks up and sees Billie at the controls of the MegaBang. As Modo watches, puzzled, she tosses a giant shell into the cannon--and aims it right at his bros.
"Hold it right there, mice," Billie calls out. "Sorry to have to do this, guys, but every bounty hunter has a price. And Limburger just met mine."
She squeezes the trigger.
BKAM!
Luckily, Billie just misses (again). Instead of hitting Throttle and Vinnie directly, the shell punches a giant hole in the deck right behind them. But neither mouse can get away fast enough, and they both fall into the hole. The cannon ejects its shell, which lands behind Billie, who's already lining up her next shot.
"BILLIE! NO!" Modo screams.
He goes around the rear of the platform and lands his bike directly behind the frightened bird. He dismounts and lunges toward her, his eye as bright and glowing as it's ever been.
"You hurt my bros…" the gray-furred mouse growls.
"Whoah, now, take it easy, big guy," Billie says quickly as Modo's gargantuan shadow falls over her. "Remember: you'd never hurt a lady!"
Modo straightens.
"Ma'am, one thing has become obvious to me-you ain't no lady!"
He picks up the empty shell casing and slams it down on top of Billie like a giant trash can. She wobbles around for a moment, and then falls to the ground.
On the beach, Charley watches as the destroyer continues chugging toward the city at top speed.
"That ship's gonna hit the shore! I've gotta stop it!" the mechanic shouts. Then she faces the reality of the situation and grins. "Right, who am I kidding?" she asks before screaming and running as fast as her legs will carry her in the opposite direction.
Back on the ship, the mice have regrouped. Throttle is unconscious, so Modo and Vinnie situate him on his bike between the two of them for a tandem ride.
"Mice always bail a doomed ship," Vinnie observes.
Just as our heroes are fleeing, Billie manages to push up the bottom lip of the shell casing. She gets an excellent view of the ship about to crash into the shore.
"Oooh," she mumbles. "I should've just taken the cash!"
She lowers the lid and braces for impact.
The impact doesn't happen in the expected fashion, however. The part of the beach the ship beaches on is a natural rock ramp. Combined with the ship's high speed, it sends the vessel flying overhead, sirens blaring.
"Yow! Even by my standards, that's impressive!" Vinnie cries as water from the hull rains down on them.
"Love to see how the Navy explains this expense!" Modo laughs.
The ship continues sailing through the sky--right into the middle of Limburger Tower. It crunches the whole way through, so that both port and bow protrude from the building.
"So much for freelance," Billie mutters.
The force of the impact causes a rather unexpected side effect: it sets off every gun on the ship. The shells sail up a few hundred yards, then come crashing back down, turning Limburger Tower into one big fireworks display.
"Guess you could say the Tower was decked!" Vinnie laughs as the mice pull to a stop.
"Oh please, spare me the puns, bro," Throttle groans. "My head hurts enough already."
"Yeah, what we all need is some dogs and a couple of root beers to fix us up, bros," Modo agrees. "And there's a stand right there!"
He points to a small wheeled stand across the street. And guess who the attendants are! That's right, our former sailors/former security guards, Ron and Chuck (who are wearing amusing hot dog-shaped hats). They see the Biker Mice coming and, quite naturally, flee in terror. In psychology, this is what we call a conditioned response. Modo catches the two hot dogs they were preparing.
"So, what do we do now?" Vinnie asks.
"Ah'll tell ya, bros. As my dear-old gray-furred Momma used t'say…" Modo begins.
"Yeah?"
"'Eat, eat! You're a growing mouse!'" he laughs with a half-Yiddish accent. Throttle joins him (in the laughing, not the Yiddish thing) while Vinnie grumbles something through a mouthful of hot dog.
MY FEELINGS ON THE EPISODE
In my introduction to the Extremely Thorough Biker Mice Episode Guide, I basically devoted the thing to everyone who's ever taped over an episode, thinking they'd see it again, and never did, leaving them bereft of a copy. "Unforgiven Cheese" was one of those episodes for me. I spent years pining over it, wanting to see it SO BAD. Then, thanks to the kindness of a bro who will remain nameless lest she get mobbed for tape requests, I got to see it again, praise god brothers and sisters hallelujah. Did it live up to my expectations, or had I so puffed up my expectations so much in the waiting that I'd forgotten how bad the episode sucked?
Number one, yay!
"Unforgiven Cheese" is one of my favorite episodes in terms of character development, specifically Modo's. Twice during the Second Season--in this episode and in "Modo Hangs It Up")--we see the big gray-furred mouse at odds with his ethics and his duty to his bros because some black-hearted fiend manipulates his good nature. "Unforgiven" is the better of the two by far, mostly because it's less conventional (you'll see what I mean when I get to "Hangs"), but also because the conflict goes beyond Modo and into the bros as a trio, throwing off their cozy group dynamic. Sure, everything's back to square one at the end of the episode, essentially, with the threesome getting along as if nothing had happened, but it's interesting while it happens. That moment when Modo and Throttle are ready to engage in fisticuffs (fisticuffs!) over the big guy's behavior is unlike everything else we've seen till then. I don't know, maybe I'm puffing this up too much, but I thought it was a really unusual moment, and definitely a defining one.
This ep is also interesting because of the potential romantic entanglement of Monnie and Modo. Now, lemme preface this: I thought Billy was butt-ugly. Nice eyes, but her beak was way too big. What about a little cute parakeet beak? I thought the character designers could've done a lot better job with her. Okay. That said, I did like the lovey-dovey aspect of this episode. Usually, when we think of romantic side of "Biker Mice," we don't think about Modo (witness--my "Biker Mice in Love" page has two major sections devoted to Vinnie and one to Throttle, while Modo gets a few incidental mentions in the "Miscellaneous Hearts Aflame" area). Although the exact nature of Modo's feelings for the treacherous Miss Monnie is uncertain, viewers do get a taste of what he might be like at the early stages of a relationship-doting, gentlemanly, and willing to overlook a lady's faults until she starts walking all over him. It's a pity that the one time we get a glimpse of his romantic side (small as it is), it's with a girl who doesn't deserve such a sweet guy.
That said, I liked Billy quite a bit. Tough female type, morally ambiguous, and smart as a whip (other than not researching Limburger enough to know how many times the mice have kicked his ass, which probably would've kept her from allying herself with the pudgy Plutarkian). A bad girl, but not totally a bad girl. You don't see a lot of that in American cartoons. And her little gun fetish was pretty cool (I believe The Onion would've referred to that as a "military-industrial-Oedipal complex"). Again, she could've been a LITTLE more attractive, but hey, she was a bird. Whatcha gonna do? On the bright side, Susan Silo (yes, the same Susan Silo responsible for Karbunkle) did a great job voicing Billy, going from tough-girl growl to sappy sweetheart when the situation called for it.
I haven't followed my usual comment pattern thus far, so lemme just go through that. Obviously, the writing was very good (Eve Forward can always be counted on for a great script). Other than the aforementioned development and such, I also really liked the running gag of Ron and Chuck unable to escape the havoc wrought by Limburger and the Biker Mice. It's similar to an episode of Gargoyles in which an incidental character (a motorcyclist in one episode, a security guard in another) feels that Goliath and his clan are responsible for all his misery, and takes revenge on big purple. Both series come up with hilarious answers to the question of just what happens to the little guys who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is also a remarkably tight little episode. Notice how there weren't many of the little *** things between paragraphs? That's because individuals scenes flowed into each other for almost the entire episode. Night fades into day, and it feels like that's all the time that's passed. As for animation, it was about average, although, like I said, I didn't like Billy's design at all. They did do a nice job putting her in motion, though. Voice acting and music were pretty good. I've already mentioned Susan Silo's turn as Billy, and I think Dorian Harewood did a particularly good job in a few patches, especially his "Eat, eat!" line.
In sum, "Unforgiven Cheese" is a revealing, entertaining episode. Modo fans will definitely want to make sure they catch this one, but even if our dear-old gray-furred momma's boy isn't your number one mouse, the interaction between him and his bros shouldn't be missed.
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