Sunday, October 23, 2011

Adventures of Brisco County Jr. 13 - Steel Horses

Plot: The story begins with Socrates bringing Brisco to a warehouse owned by one of the tycoons. There's a "coming thing" there he thinks Brisco will want to see, but he has to keep it quiet, because no one is supposed to know about them. Too bad Juno Dawkins, the 'most fearless member of Bly's gang' does know about these steel horses, and he's riding away on them, along with his gang (including a crazy guy who likes dynamite, a nerd, and a German wearing a pickelhaube.

Somehow, the tycoons decide Socrates should be fired for this, even though Dawkins was already there when he and Brisco arrived, and the only way to save Soc's job is for Brisco to get those motorized cycles back. And away he and Bowler go, to retrieve the cycles, and to stop Dawkins from hijacking an Army wagon transporting a certain object to a lab in Nevada.

Does Brisco use his gun? No.

Things Comet does: Get his feelings hurt.

Kiss Count: 0 (18 overall).

John Bly Spreads His Arms Dramatically Count: N/A (7 overall).

Is Pete Hutter in this Episode? No

Pete Hutter Quote: N/A

Non-Pete Hutter Quote: 'What kind of gang is this Dawkins? He can't hear, he can't speak English, you can't explain what we're after.' - Mr. Beck

Brisco's Coming Things: Motorized cycles, rubber tires, nitrous. Wickwire's "see-through looking glass", which is basically a one-way mirror. Bowler comments that he'd like to have one in his house, that he could turn on and watch whenever he wanted. Perhaps "Good cop, bad cop".

Bly Gang Count: 1, Juno Dawkins (6 overall). Take 1 hotshot kid on motorcycle, add 1 cliff, and what do you think you get?

Stuff the Orb Can Do: N/A

Other: Wickwire returns for the first time since "Senior Spirit". He's returned to teaching, but is also running a still. A true Renaissance man. Somewhere along the line, he convinced the Schwenke sisters (see "No Man's Land") to come to San Francisco with him, where they have some sort of musical blacksmithing show they put on at the Horseshoe Club.

I'd take Dawkins more seriously if his mustasche didn't suggest he and puberty had only recently made each other's acquaintance.

Horses do not like motorcycles. Bowler doesn't much care for them, either.

This is a very focused episode. There aren't really any subplots. It's Brisco and Bowler trying to overcome the speed advantage Dawkins and his gang have before they get the "himmelskorper", as the German put it. The closest we might get is Bowler's growing udnerstanding of what Brisco means when he talks about "the coming thing", but even that is driven by their chase of just such a "coming thing". Which is OK. I don't love this episode, but it's fine, and I like how it ties in with the episode I'll get to in two weeks.

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