Things aren’t looking great for Lion-O and the team in this week’s episode, the first new one in six weeks. The Thunder Tank’s broken down in the middle of the forest, which would be fine if it wasn’t pouring rain outside. “Things are looking up. No transportation, nothing to eat, and no shelter. If the rain stopped it might be bearable, ” Lion-O says right before we see a bunch of eyes in the forest. Who could be watching our heroes in their slumber?
Whoever it is, they’re friendly because the Thundercats wake up to a shelter over their heads and several bushels of candyfruit left behind for them to eat. Wilykat and Wilykit launch into devouring the sugary food, despite Lion-O’s warning that they don’t need those two more hyper than they already are. The cats hide to see if whoever’s been helping them shows their face. Soon they do, and we see a collection of what can only be described as robotic teddy bears clamber all over the Thunder Tank. Panthro freaks out that they’re touching his machine and the cats rush the group. They only manage to catch one — Ro-Bear Bill — who tells them that his people are called Berbils.
Ro-Bear Bill says they’ll give aid to the ThunderCats, but Panthro is reticient. “I don’t trust anything that adorable,” he grouses. Lion-O, Cheetara, and Tygra are willing to take the cute little Berbils at their word, but then the evil Conquidor shows up in his massive robotic tank. The Berbils are amazing builders, and it turns out that Conquidor has been capturing the Berbils and selling them into slavery! The Thundercats launch into action to stop this latest attack, but they’re defeated by the villainous cyborg and a few Berbils are taken into captivity.
Ro-Bear Bill gets damaged in the attack, and the Berbils are at a loss to fix him. That is until Panthro steps in and helps to fix him up good as new. The Berbils start calling him “Ro-Cat” Panthro and crowd him in a massive group hug. Panthro of course hates this, being the tough strong man he is. It’s a nice little window into how Panthro can connect with people if given the chance.
Lion-O’s grown up since the last episode, showing his new capabilities as a leader. Rather than attack the grouping of trollogs and giantors buying from the Conquidor head on, he sneaks in and bids on the robotic teddy bears to free them. Conquidor proclaims they won’t get away with it, and eventually he launches an attack on the village with the help of his buyers.
Meanwhile back at the village, the Berbils have fixed the Thunder Tank by putting in a new engine. Panthro devolves into tears from how nice of an action that was, and he becomes the Berbils’ biggest proponent for helping themselves against the Conquidor. They build an incredible collection of defenses that’s enough to drive away the giantors and the trollogs, and includes Snarf taking a bite out of one creature; even the Conquidor receives his just desserts at the end of the Sword of Omens after having his tank destroyed by the newly rebuilt Thunder Tank.
All in all, this was a nice little breather episode from the main storyline of the season. It didn’t move the story forward all that much, but it shows the ThunderCats that allies can come from the most unlikely of places. That Lion-O and the team get to help the defenseless and be generally awesome doesn’t hurt either. All in all, it was a fun episode and much lighter on the lessons for Lion-O than his time with the Drifter. I’m definitely looking forward to the storyline continuing forward though.
