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This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Find all my work at MJMunoz.com.

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Join me as I analyze the thrilling Red Panda Adventures number four,

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The Golden Claw, featuring manly makeup, battling bosses, and baby Browns.

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Red Panda Adventures number four, The Golden Claw. It originally aired November 26, 2005.

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It was written and directed by Greg Taylor, and this is season one, episode four.

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A ruthless protection syndicate is shaking down the citizens and shopkeepers of the city.

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But when our heroes move to intervene, they learn there may be more to this racket than meets the eye.

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Can even the Red Panda escape the clutches of the Golden Claw?

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Man, that's so good. I'm sure that was Taylor, and if it wasn't, then he shouldn't tell anybody that.

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And if it was, then he should tell people that. That's so, so good.

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Anyway, moving right on to talking about the episode.

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I didn't really like the gag at the end about Kit's Butcher being in trouble,

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and I just thought it was kind of soft, I guess you could say.

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And there was humor sprinkled throughout the episode, and I believe it's been a trend so far

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for there to be a gag at the end, and they... I don't know, I guess they're hit and miss is what I'm trying to say,

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but I also don't know that we need to finish with a gag every time, and I'm pretty sure there are...

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There's one episode in particular that I can think of that does not end with a gag, and I found that very impactful.

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Anyway, I don't know. That's kind of a special episode. It's its own beast, you could say.

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And I don't know that there's any other that strays from the formula, although I don't remember all of them ending in a gag.

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So, you know, ominous, looking towards the future, and maybe Taylor did that because he wanted the first season to end in a gag.

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After all, DakotaRingTheatre.com is your source for mystery, comedy, and adventure.

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So, maybe that's why? I'm not sure. But I don't... You know, I like humor, but like I said, it was sprinkled throughout,

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and I didn't feel like we needed it at the end here, and I felt like it kind of detracted a little bit from the rest of the episode.

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Not so much that it's, you know, a killer for me, but just kind of odd, and it made me notice a pattern.

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Okay, so I really like how sympathetic the Jacksons were. Not only did we get to hear...

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Not only did we get to hear Pop Jackson defending himself and his family and his business and his neighborhood,

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and then be brutally beaten, then we got to hear his daughter Dot, who was so sympathetic and scared and worried,

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and of course this is fiction, but it carried with it an air of reality, and the...

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Just showing the villains to be that bad and that evil and that wicked really makes you root harder

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for Red Panda and Flying Squirrel to take care of this protection racket, and it was very effective,

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and I think it owes to the performances of... It was close... No, not close. It was...

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Andrea Lyons as Dot, and I don't know who as Pop. I've got to figure out whose voice that is.

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I mostly know her name from Blackjack Justice, so anyway. Yeah, I thought that was really good.

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Oh, and you know, I did mention that the Golden Claw is ruthless, but it's not that the protection racket

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specifically tells us how ruthless the Golden Claw is. The fact that she has bodies littered at the bottom of the...

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Did she say Lake or River? I can't remember. Anyway, she's, you know, gotten a bunch of mob bosses killed

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to take over their enterprises, let's say, and the fact that she had... I can't remember the guy's name,

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but he was friends with Mace. He had Mace, or she had Mace killed by his buddy who brought him in

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to the operation, and he kind of did it without question. I bet he felt he had no choice, but also,

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I bet he wasn't the noblest of fellows, and that's why he was willing to ice his own friend to keep him quiet,

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because as he said, now you ain't ever going to talk. And of course, the twist that the Golden Claw

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is a woman, not a man, is pretty interesting. That's why I named the episode Woman's Touch.

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She talks about the crime syndicates, the crime organization in... Is it Toronto? Do we know it's Toronto?

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I think we do. Yeah, because of the terrific twosome of Toronto. Anyway, she mentions it needs a woman's touch

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to be focused and organized, and that's pretty interesting. So, like, one, that idea is interesting.

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Two, it makes her more interesting, more compelling. And three, I think it's just kind of fun.

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Alright, so, I wonder, should there have been more build-up to Golden Claw?

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Well, four episodes in, she's been controlling a more focused majority of the underworld for some time.

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Months, maybe? I wouldn't think a year. Weeks at the minimum, but I would think months at this point.

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Should there have been hints? Now, I thought about the past three episodes, or the first three episodes.

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We have... Night Patrol, Rabbit Season, I'm doing these out of order, and Riddle of the Sphinx.

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So, we've got a super criminal in Riddle of the Sphinx on his own, doing his own thing after being a petty criminal.

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We have Night Patrol, which is just kind of... Well, that leads to the... Well, there's a twist there.

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But it leads to another supervillain, and then we have the last episode, which I'm struggling to remember the name.

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Oh, Rabbit Season, which is a new supervillain, a superhuman type of supervillain, who we get revealed.

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So, I guess they have, as Red Panda mentioned, it's easier to recognize the mad scientist in the bumblebee costume than it is the low-level crime.

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So, maybe this was part of the plan for them to be kind of out of the loop, because they've been dealing with these larger threats.

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They tried in episode two to deal with petty crime, you know, doing Night Patrol, and it led them to an encounter with a supervillain.

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So, I guess that is interesting, but I wonder what it would have looked like had there been hints of Golden Claw throughout.

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Anyway, it's kind of interesting to think about.

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As far as the gadgets are concerned, we had disguise makeup, which I think counts as a disguise, even though technically it's not an item.

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It's, you know, an assemblage of items or whatever, and techniques, but to me it still works.

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At least the palette for the makeup would be the gadget.

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Then we've got gas grenades that have knockout gas in them that Red Panda and Flying Squirrel use.

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And then we have special radio equipment.

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So, apparently Red Panda, in his civilian form as Frank, has some sort of radio transmitter on him.

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It's going to Kit and the guys of the Flying Squirrel, and she is somehow transmitting that to Chief O'Malley and the police.

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I think on the police band, or whatever is what they said.

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So, that's interesting.

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We don't know what that tech is, but we don't really need to know.

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All we know is that they have special radio equipment, and that really suffices.

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So, that's cool to record that.

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I'm going to move on and talk a little bit more about Red Claw, rather.

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No, Golden Claw, sheesh.

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Golden Claw seems like a one-and-done villain.

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She feels impressive given the scope of her crimes and her coming up in a world of scumbag men.

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And the reason I focused on them being scumbag men is because it wasn't that she was breaking the glass ceiling.

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It was that she was breaking through guys who probably wouldn't have a problem breaking a lady's jaw because they're thugs and hoodlums.

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So, that's interesting that she was able to come up under that, or in that environment.

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And I wonder how that happened, and I wonder...

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Like, I think there's a cool, interesting backstory for Golden Claw.

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Not something that makes her sympathetic, just something that tells us who she is or gives us more of her story.

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And I think that can be kind of interesting.

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I'm going to move on to talking about lore.

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So, Red Pan and Flying Squirrel are immune to their own knockout gas, which is pretty crazy.

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And, well, that kind of opens up questions.

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So, it gives a perspective on Red Panda that he's so...

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...desperate to win in his war against crime, his one-man war against crime,

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that he is willing to subject himself to his own knockout gas and make himself eventually immune to the knockout gas,

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so that he can use it effectively and have it not be a double-edged sword that can be accidentally used against him and have him knockout when he's using it on enemies.

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And Kit is so desperate to join him and make it a one-man, one-woman war on crime,

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that she's willing to subject herself to that same treatment and trust this strange man who she doesn't really know

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to be around her when she's knocked out until she ain't knocked out anymore, if that's how it works.

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And three, that raises a question in my mind.

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Is there a possibility that at some point the knockout gas formula will need to be tweaked so that the criminals,

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if they're, let's say, a hood or a gangster who keeps running in different people's crews as a henchman,

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could he eventually become immune to the knockout gas and then be able to withstand it?

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And could that cause a complication in the future? I think that's kind of a fun idea.

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Again, unless they tweak the formula, which I could see Red Panda doing because he doesn't want to allow for any chance like that to happen.

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He must have read the Art of War.

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Okay, Red Panda must have learned to disguise himself somewhere along his journey,

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and I think that's pretty cool to think about him working with somebody.

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I don't know, who would it have been? A spy? A thief?

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I don't know. Was it some noble person or some sort of criminal who knew how to disguise themselves

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and how did he get to that point where he could do that too? I just find that interesting.

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Let's see. Oh, okay. So this is a, I don't know if this counts as low or not, but this is my show, so I'm doing it.

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Kit's eyes are brown, apparently, not green, and I think it's a bold choice, and I think that's kind of cool.

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And then there's a little bit more here, which is O'Malley is not decrying Red Panda

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and flying squirrel in this golden claw case in the papers.

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So that's interesting because maybe he's coming around to them, maybe he's not.

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At some point, I wouldn't be surprised, I'll put it that way, if he comes around to them

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and maybe even has a rooftop conversation with them. I don't know. Maybe it'll happen. Maybe it won't.

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You got to stick around and find out. So, anyway, being that there's a potential for a character arc

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and a development between them, I'm just noting that the slow burn might be starting here,

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where we're seeing him not attack them in the papers. So I think that's pretty cool.

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Yeah, overall, this was a fun episode. It seems like not much happens.

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There's a, you know, mastermind type crime boss criminal here, not a supervillain,

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and they're just helping out people in the neighborhood, but the cool thing is they're actually helping, you know,

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it's better than catching one purse snatcher and beating them up.

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You're effectively catching or beating up and hurting, you know, dozens of purse snatchers,

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or a whole organization of purse snatchers who coordinates purse snatching so that they can get it more regularly

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and set up and become integrated and insinuated into people's lives, where they begin to think it's normal

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to have some of your money taken from you by threat of force, like, you know, people are going to beat you up,

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or men with guns are going to come after you and threaten to harm you and your family, or even kill you,

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or something like that, if you don't give them the money they deserve. It's kind of interesting.

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Kind of interesting that people would accept and legitimize a group like that.

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I'll say no more. I don't want to offend anybody's Canadian sensibilities, but yeah, overall,

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I thought it was a good episode, and I liked it, and I'm looking forward to talking about the next one.

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So, for now, this is MJ signing out, and I hope you are well and you be well.

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I hope you enjoyed that. Go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions, comments, or other feedback you might have.

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