Mobile Armored Podcast Show

Buddy Hawks Penetrates Paris

• Adam Moore and PJ McNerney • Season 1 • Episode 34

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Matt takes his adopted son Scott and robot T-Bob to visit a Parisian art gallery.

Knowing that he needs a chauffeur for his kid, Matt also takes Buddy Hawks, the long suffering M.A.S.K. agent who constantly watches his paramilitary friends go on cool adventures while he replaces windshield wiper fluid for old people.

What seems like an innocent prank of turning precious art pieces around suddenly transforms into a deadly game of explosive consequences for all of Paris! 

With no time to call in the rest of the M.A.S.K., Matt Trakker has no choice but to rely on himself and Buddy to stop V.E.N.O.M. from activating a trap set by former Germany occupiers of Parisc(yep…THOSE guys).

(Again, Buddy is the guy Matt brought along to chauffeur his kid, only to follow in Matt’s example of abandoning Scott to the streets of Paris).

Matt and Buddy have to perform the desperate acts of following V.E.N.O.M. into the Parisian sewer, preventing Scott from entering same said sewers, and endangering Scott life while he is on the Eiffel Tower (which is where Matt told to Scott to go to be “safe”). 

All in the name of saving Paris.

What’s not to love in this latest, greatest episode?!?

Join Adam Moore and PJ McNerney for artistic culture and refinement in the heart of Gaul on the Mobile Armored Podcast Show!!!

https://www.instagram.com/m.a.s.k.podcast/

PJ:

One of the things you kind of learn living in the mountains is you just got to kind of have stuff ready to go. Get your jack, get your, tread plates that you have, a little

Adam:

hmm.

PJ:

And you're fine. We actually had everything we needed and with two tries, we got her unstuck.

Adam:

Well done. Sometimes I get stuck on the side of the road, but it's because there's roaming gangs But I'm prepared for that, too

PJ:

yeah we watched Kurt Russell We know how to escape from New York and L. A.

Adam:

indeed. Welcome to the Mobile Armored podcast show. The podcast that transforms into a Nazi doomsday bunker. My name is Adam Mohr, alongside my co host and best friend, BJ McNerney. How's it going, BJ?

PJ:

Did we ever think that we would be talking about Nazi doomsday bunkers in an episode of a children's cartoon show

Adam:

No.

PJ:

it's like to say it, it's almost like, oh, like we're offending a lot of people. It's like, no folks, go look at the episode, this is what you got.

Adam:

We're not making any of this up. I know that you hear us walk through the plot of each episode and it sounds crazy sometimes, but we are not making anything up. Just watch the episode alongside listening to the podcast.

PJ:

If anything, I think we're trying to make these people in the best light possible. We married Matt and Gloria because it was the sort of best, most logical, and probably the kindest thing we could have done in Vegas.

Adam:

Yeah

PJ:

we didn't say they're shacking up together. We're like, no, they went there to get married because they're in love, which is clearly what they've been projecting. And so, no, now we've got Hitler in bunkers.

Adam:

exactly. It's episode 34, Peril in Paris. Buddy Hawks disguises himself as Venom Agent Dagger in order to infiltrate Venom's secret base in Paris. There he uncovers Venom's plan to find a Nazi doomsday machine.

PJ:

It's not a doomsday machine. They're

Adam:

Mm mm. Mm mm.

PJ:

We can State they're bombs. Okay? Like, it's not like there's like a giant robot underneath Paris.

Adam:

No, no, it's like, it's like whoever wrote that didn't actually watch the episode or didn't watch it all the way through. but let's dive into episode 34. Shall we? We open on Paris. Ah, gay Paris. The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and lots of smog, apparently. It's covered like a light cloud everywhere you look.

PJ:

It was the 80s, Adam.

Adam:

meanwhile, we're in the Egyptian wing of the Louvre. Matt, Scott, T Bob. Buddy Hogs is with them, and a very French curator from the museum are just walking through. Scott and T Bob are complaining about how early it is. And T Bob says, before your dad gave them that painting, we could look at it anytime we wanted to. And I was thinking, wow, the entitlement of great wealth.

PJ:

I love this idea of like a painting that's just sitting there in the tractor mansion and like Gloria is like tired of it. and all of all the mask agents, why invite buddy on a trip? did he feel left out? I think this is the first time we've seen buddy on vacation with Matt.

Adam:

It is.

PJ:

of just got the feeling he was just being, a chauffeur for Scott and T Bob.

Adam:

they have both Thunderhawk and Hurricane with them. maybe they're going on a driving trip through Europe, but we've never established that Matt and Buddy are pals. However, in a few episodes back, we theorized how Buddy feels left out on missions all the time. So maybe Matt. caught on to it and said, yeah, why don't I bring buddy with me to Paris?

PJ:

Also, he can watch T Bob and Scott, which is what he's going to do. Like

Adam:

Yep. Yeah.

PJ:

a glorified babysitter.

Adam:

Well, The curator of the museum says the least we could do to thank him is give you all a special tour.

PJ:

wonder about whatever conversation happened ahead of time between Matt and the curator? Which was like, Matt volunteers like, Well, I really look forward to that special tour you're going to give me and my son. And the, it's like, curator's like, Uh, what the? know, the special tour that I'm getting, because I lent you that painting. We don't really do that sort of thing right here. My boy's going to be very disappointed. It would be a shame to have to tell the prime minister about why my boy is crying when we see him. What time works best, Mr. Tracker?

Adam:

Well, They turn a corner on this special tour and they come into a room and they find that all the paintings have been flipped around, right? So we're only seeing the backs of the paintings, not the fronts. And Scott says, this is even better than the Eiffel tower.

PJ:

Is it,

Adam:

Buddy says, Like Whoever the perpetrators are who did this, I'm just trying to figure out how they got in.

PJ:

says the man whose mask lets him pass through the walls effortlessly.

Adam:

Right.

PJ:

It's like this technology doesn't exist anywhere else, buddy.

Adam:

Speaking of babysitting uh, and Buddy, Matt asks Buddy to take Scott and T Bob to the Eiffel Tower in case there's trouble. And Buddy says to Matt, the only way you can guarantee to keep them out of trouble is to put them in a cage. And Matt's probably thinking, that's not a bad idea. Alex has got some cages. Maybe that's what I should do next time.

PJ:

Leave him at home in a cage. The line reading for the actor on this one was awesome because it's like, the only way you can guarantee them to keep it at trouble is to put them in a cage. Just there's a lot of disdain in that. it's like, Scott and T Bob can clearly hear you, asshole. Like they're right there. You're not even pretending to whisper. And the other way to do it is maybe stop leaving them to their own devices every single time that you go on international adventures.

Adam:

The only way you can guarantee to keep them out of trouble is to leave them at home in the care of a responsible adult.

PJ:

Matt doesn't know any, all the

Adam:

True.

PJ:

hangs out with are part of his paramilitary group,

Adam:

Fair point. Well, Once getting Buddy and the kid and the robot out of the picture, Matt is investigating, and I'd like to take a moment to note here that all the paintings being turned around is curious, and it's Definitely a security violation, but it feels more like a prank than anything else. And so the thing is Matt is investigating because as usual, the crime involves his stuff. There's no crime. It's like B and E and I don't know, what would you call it? When you flip paintings around vandalism.

PJ:

Maybe, I mean, but they didn't wreck the paintings. It's like, yeah, the B and E is a crime and 100 percent Matt investigating. It's like, you don't fucking touch my stuff. That's a through line for all of his petulance the entire time.

Adam:

Well, Matt sees an open door, which leads to a storage room, which leads to some underground rooms, possibly the catacombs of Paris. It's really hard to tell, but I'd like to point out like there's no dialogue for a good minute of screen time here.

PJ:

you are 100 percent right because like we switch from there we get we have a lot of cuts basically in there as you go through the various rooms and then you go through some exterior shots to the chateau where we find out venom is and I when I looked at the sequence of shots, I felt like the director was going for. Something like three days of the condor or day of the jackal in terms of the setup shots without any

Adam:

Okay.

PJ:

and just music. So it was like them trying to express themselves artistically.

Adam:

good job, showing not telling.

PJ:

All the eight year olds caught it.

Adam:

Meanwhile, in that ornate French chateau, Miles and Cliff are putting the pieces of a large map together on a wall. And Cliff is having a hard time, and it turns out that's because he has his piece of the puzzle upside down. And Miles says, you cretin! Again, Miles, you really need to be mindful of how you treat your employees.

PJ:

The brutality Cliff is going to endure in this episode it's not okay.

Adam:

No, it's not.

PJ:

And then they have this shot of Miles's face, like where it's hyper close up. And I was like, kids, can you play the game of count the number of miles's nose hairs?

Adam:

well, Vanessa and slide come in with the final pieces of the map and Vanessa is wearing a lab coat, which is. Odd. And also, what have Vanessa and Sly been off doing, and was the lab coat involved?

PJ:

kids, what's wrong with this picture? One is. Sly's not wearing his sunglasses.

Adam:

Yep. True.

PJ:

Vanessa's holding on to some sort of strap.

Adam:

Yes.

PJ:

know what exactly what that is.

Adam:

No.

PJ:

she's wearing a lab coat. And finally, the crankiest, most ornery member, has a very pleased look on her face. she's got a little afterglow right there. We could take some guesses at what Sly and Vanessa were doing back there. Know if Sly's going to put those glasses back on because he's going to cry. But whatever it is, Vanessa's pretty happy.

Adam:

Clearly their relationship is progressing.

PJ:

Possibly not voluntarily on Sly's part.

Adam:

So what we learned is that they were in the Louvre last night, and Sly is confused about why they didn't just steal the paintings. Now, Miles smartly points out, That they would have been hunted down as art thieves. And my point is unlike now, were there surely being hunted down as a terrorist organization?

PJ:

Yeah I agree. It would have actually been fun way to throw people off the scent if they'd stolen one painting. to try and like, you know, do a misdirect, but no, we're going to turn all the paintings around

Adam:

they could have gotten away with this scot free if they just turned the paintings back around and there would be no mask mission whatsoever. And they would have gotten away with their plan to blackmail. The city of Paris, but instead, out of either laziness or spite, they just left it the way it was and ran away. As it turns out, the map points to a triggering device. Now, whatever that is, it promises to make them all wealthy enough to buy every painting in the Louvre, says Miles. We cut to uh, exterior shot of Paris again. Ah, Gay Paris again. Buddy is driving Scott and T Bob to the Eiffel Tower. And Buddy says, Wow, it's certainly nice to be driving Hondo's Hurricane. Three questions for you. One, do you think Hondo knows? Two, do you think he'll ever find out? Three, what do you think Hondo would do if he found out?

PJ:

thing that came to mind with the first question was the scene in Return of the Jedi where Han Solo is saying, I got your promise, not a scratch. And Lando says back to him, would you just get going? You pirate? You pirate? With the exception here that Buddy will never be as smooth as Lando and Hondo would not be as timid as Han in this scene. I think there'd be like a real threat if like, Hondo knew. It's like, look, was fine with the F 150 if you dented it. But this is a, 57 Chevy Bel Air? Don't scratch it. And, in terms of what would Hondo do if it did get scratched? buddies in the ravine.

Adam:

you are dead on. Buddy's in the ravine. If Hurricane comes back damaged in any way.

PJ:

I've wondered about this as a general concept because I wonder if buddy ever complains that he basically has to, and Honda for that matter, that they have to share a vehicle. And like, if Matt's kind of like come back is like, buddy, your vehicle is all of Boulder Hill. Like you get all of this and tries to like pass it off in some way that, makes it okay. As he sees his friends constantly streaming out on exciting missions without him,

Adam:

you repair all the vehicles. So in many ways, all the vehicles are yours. Except they're not at all, buddy. So do not drive any of them without my permission. Well, They're driving along, and Scott asks Buddy to pull over at a bakery for some food. Buddy says, it's not like you didn't have breakfast. Scott says, but that was half an hour ago. Now, first of all, doesn't know if Scott had breakfast, because maybe he didn't. But also, Scott doesn't know when his next meal is. Or where it'll come from. So it's a smart move by Scott to just, intake calories whenever he can.

PJ:

100%. And I love this shot here because it really felt like, Sir, may I have some more?

Adam:

While uh, Scott's buying some baguettes buddy Scott's jackhammer peeling out of the chateau near the bakery. And then he goes to a payphone to call Matt. Who answers the call on some random phone in the midst of a huge crowd at the Louvre.

PJ:

but I also love the idea of Buddy having to go through the phone chain to actually get to Matt at the gala.

Adam:

did Buddy call collect or did he have some coins to put in there? He's like looking for anything. Like I didn't even go to currency exchange. How do I,

PJ:

Oh,

Adam:

I don't have to make a collect call. Where are you calling sir? The loom? Yeah. Excusez moi.

PJ:

Got a little book with him to try and translate to the operator. Louvre. Collect. I kind of like the idea that Venom chose a hideout right next to a great As

Adam:

That's great.

PJ:

And it also is like, Hey, Venom's not slumming it anymore. it kind of

Adam:

Uh huh.

PJ:

if it's like, Oh, maybe this is a Chateau that was owned by that German finance minister. And they're just taking it over while he's in jail.

Adam:

It's a great question. How do they end up in this place? Because it's not their typical shanty in the woods. Anyways, back to Matt at the party. He tells Buddy, I found something too, and then Buddy cuts him off. Turns out Buddy wants to go into the Chateau to investigate, but Matt tells him that he'll join Buddy as soon as he can. And to make sure Scott and T Bob are safely out of there first.

PJ:

A couple things when you go to the shot of Matt at this party, I'm like, who the fuck are these people in the background? it's like the weirdest set of losers that they got at this gala.

Adam:

you know, uh, everyone, PJ makes all the awesome social media content for the show. Will you please make something out of this? Because this is a, first of all, there's twins. If you look to the left and to the right, like they have the same exact face profile. Only one of them's wearing some sort of a spiffy hat. But other than that, yeah, it's a bunch of weirdos at this party.

PJ:

Although my other thought was that's checking in to make sure Scott and T Bob are okay. Who is this guy? We haven't

Adam:

Yeah,

PJ:

guy before.

Adam:

I know, right? Who are you and what have you done with Matt? Well, uh, After they end the phone call remember, Buddy's job is to make sure that Scott and T Bob are somewhere safe. Buddy asks Scott, You guys think you can find the Eiffel Tower by yourselves? Let's track the blame chain here. Okay. In case we need it later. One, Matt entrusted Scott to buddy. Two, buddy told them to go to the Eiffel tower by themselves. Good check.

PJ:

I, here's the thing, like I'm a little hard pressed to blame buddy on this one, since Matt has established a very strong pattern of this being an okay Like, can you guys go back to the hotel or maybe that time when Brad left Scott on a cliff in South America, like get down by himself back to the city.

Adam:

Yeah, it's true. None of them seem to catch any flack for it. Or, Or Scott never tells Matt about it. Buddy rushes into what appears to be a very dirty alleyway with his disguise briefcase, and he says, I almost can't stand to cover up such a handsome dude. Wow Buddy, vain much?

PJ:

You're supposed to be a master of disguise, sir. Like This is part of your job. of wondered if this was part of his morning affirmations is

Adam:

Mm hmm.

PJ:

In the mirror and be like, you're handsome. Don't forget that.

Adam:

It's okay if Matt doesn't choose you to go on missions. You're good enough and you're handsome enough. Turns out Buddy disguises himself as Cliff Dagger. He climbs up onto the roof of a neighboring building, then zip lines across to the roof of the Chateau. It was a very mission impossible sequence here.

PJ:

It really was. I thought it was fun. I enjoyed this.

Adam:

Now he spots the map on the wall. Inside the chateau, and he looks shocked.

PJ:

Okay. I had a question, Adam, have you ever gone into a room and maybe it has a map of a town or Like a ski slope, and just look shocked at it. I was really confused at why he looked shocked at a map with no context in it whatsoever.

Adam:

no, agreed, unless it said, Map to Bombs Underneath Paris. Which maybe it does, I don't know.

PJ:

it does. Cliff put that on there because he just needs the labeling.

Adam:

Well, uh, Cliff encounters Buddy in disguise in the map room, and Cliff says, Hey, what am I doing here? And a chase ensues, and I just wanted to ask you, did you notice how bad the Foley sound is for the running? It's like a pair of tap shoes, but not even really, it's like a pair of like plastic tap shoes on a, like a kitchen counter or something.

PJ:

Yeah, it was awful.

Adam:

Buddy attempts to uh, crash through the window.

PJ:

so, but he attempts to crash through the window like, you know, like, with a shoulder going into

Adam:

Yeah,

PJ:

budge at all. And then somehow he is swinging on a rope, Spider Man style, to leap over the real Cliff. It is the biggest non sequitur scene.

Adam:

like where'd the rope come from?

PJ:

Why is it swinging there? Should we be concerned for Cliff's health, mental health?

Adam:

Maybe that was left over from Sly and Vanessa.

PJ:

Oh no! Oh,

Adam:

well, Miles says, after him, he's a spy, he saw the map. And uh, buddies just haul an ass towards the front gate. Sly uses stiletto, fires at the gate, causing this big metal spiked gate to slowly start coming down. Now Buddy would get out without a problem, except he trips on a rock and falls, and he's about to get crushed by the gate.

PJ:

Given that Sly had enough time to get his mask, this would be a great time for Viper and Whip if you're trying to stop this guy.

Adam:

True, and I found it funny that they didn't aim at Buddy, they aimed at the gate.

PJ:

Which is a harder target,

Adam:

which ended up being a very kind of Austin Powers As it's slowly coming down, but anyways, it does lead me to ask the question, what's going to happen?

PJ:

I don't know, I think Buddy's in real trouble

Adam:

Well,

PJ:

Moves at, a snail's pace. Lot of

Adam:

well, a

Mask will be right back, and so will Venom. Now back to math.

Adam:

And we're back. When we left you, we were about to see the final moments of Agent Buddy Hawks. Thing is, he really has a lot of time, as we pointed out, so he could have gotten up and ran away, right?

PJ:

I didn't really have any idea why I decided just to lay there and take it. And I wondered if he had a death wish. If he was like, he was tired of watching the masked vehicles constantly go on cool adventures while he's left behind.

Adam:

this will teach Matt to forget about me, I'll get badly injured, and then he'll care about me, and then he'll notice. Well, Matt pulls up in Thunderhawk, and instead of blowing up the gate, he ejects the tire weapon from Hurricane, which magically lodges itself between the ground and the bottom of the gate, saving Buddy. And I thought, at least it wasn't a deus ex helmet moment.

PJ:

It's true. It's a Deus Ex tire.

Adam:

Right.

PJ:

I thought it was great. did you notice that the button to launch the rear tire is actually disguised as part of the radio?

Adam:

Yeah.

PJ:

Do you want to place it there? What if Scott wants to change the radio and listen to some Devo?

Adam:

Yeah. Exactly. I mean, How often is it that tire gets accidentally ejected? Well, Miles says they're on to us. We have to put the plan into action now. they were just having some, some fun. Unscheduled downtime. Well, All right. They're onto us. I guess we better start working. Buddy tells Matt, you're never going to guess what I saw in there. And Matt replies, you mean this? And Matt shows him a picture of the map. So Buddy's entire gambit inside the Chateau was for nothing?

PJ:

Yeah it makes you wonder, buddy, what if you hadn't cut Matt off earlier and let Matt finish his sentence about I found something

Adam:

Right.

PJ:

You've been a little bit better off and could have tailed venom secretly.

Adam:

So it turns out that Matt took the map off the back of 20 paintings in the museum. So it truly was idiotic of Miles not to turn the paintings back over after he got the maps and also. While they're driving, Matt has the computer play Buddy a video explainer, but remember Buddy's driving, and this does not seem like a good idea, does it? For Buddy to be driving while also watching a video explainer of what's actually going on here.

PJ:

This is distracted driving at its best. Um, Matt doesn't care. He's just going to play this video and hope that, buddy is capable enough to drive, as well as listen to this, like historical monologue. We're about to get to.

Adam:

Yeah, and it is a monologue. The computer goes into one of those exhausting monologues.

Computer:

During World War II, the French Resistance hid those paintings so that Hitler would not take them. During the German occupation of Paris, Hitler planted a network of bombs under the city in the sewers. He planned to blow up Paris if the Allies should try to march into the city. The bombs were to be triggered from a distance by this device. A shortwave radio trigger hidden in a sealed bunker. A member of the resistance learned of the locations of the bombs and wrote them down on the backs of the hidden paintings.

PJ:

I mean, It's kind of like, all right, eight year olds. I hope you caught all of that and are up on your war to history to understand this. it did make me wonder, like in the universe of mask. The Allies did end up entering Paris, why weren't the bombs detonated?

Adam:

exactly.

PJ:

If you're going to go this deep into it, like where it's like, hey, we've just given you like a history lesson, you might as well say that the reason why they need this trigger is because It's like, the bomb signal uses something like the Enigma encryption code to actually transmit the signal, which justifies the uniqueness of the trigger. and where did the computer get all this information from?

Adam:

that's the question I have. No one's ever heard about this before. No one knows about the bombs or anything like this. Matt gets a map from the back of 20 paintings and suddenly the computer says, Has the computer known all this? Somehow for all this time, and it's just been holding back

PJ:

Way to be proactive computer.

Adam:

The computer wraps up its monologue by saying a member of the resistance learned of the locations of the bombs and wrote them down on the backs of the paintings. So why didn't he just disarm the bombs? If they knew about them after the war, why weren't the bombs Disarmed.

PJ:

Yeah. I had a pet theory to try and suture this. What if the member of the resistance actually, when he discovered this, figured out how much power he could have. So he wrote them down so he could have threaten Paris, then died like before he was able to, so he actually intentionally was going to use this as some kind of power play after the war. it also made me wonder, though, because we've wondered so much about Miles in the past, did he find out of the connection of these paintings, the maps, the bombs? Again, say what you will about Miles, he has a knack for finding lost shit.

Adam:

It could be safe to say that miles has the same access to this computer knowledge, seeing as he stole the mask technology, maybe the AI is a part of that somehow, again, writer's defense fund nominee here, but maybe, and that's how it helps them find this stuff.

PJ:

it's a really good point, because imagine again, in a pre murdering Andy Tracker world, Miles knows, and we'll get into at Pandapoo my theory on this,

Adam:

Yeah,

PJ:

knows about all this weird shit he's put it into the computer to try and go after these things. And so you're right. It is basically the computer latently has this stuff. And it's only when it comes up in a venom context that it's actually utilized.

Adam:

well, buddy, like me, by the way, wonders why they would put these maps on the back of priceless paintings and match explanation is it was probably the only thing available to make notes on at the time. Really? They didn't have any paper at all.

PJ:

Look, all the paper was being used as toilet paper. And the only thing that wasn't being used as toilet paper were these paintings.

Adam:

Great, let's desecrate priceless pieces of art by putting maps on the back of them. Well, Anyway, Venom is now after the trigger device. And Matt says, if they find it first, they'll have the city of Paris in the palm of their dirty hands. So here we go. Matt setting the stakes of the mission for the win.

PJ:

Yeah. I had this question. Like, If you know, the bombs are out there. Why not alert the authorities Paris to just start the disarming process? Start throwing some people, some bodies out there just to start disarming these bombs.

Adam:

Yeah, they know it's in the sewer, so just start looking.

PJ:

They know they have the map. Like Matt's

Adam:

That's right, they have the map now.

PJ:

You can hand it to the Parisian authorities and say Hey guys, I'll try and stop these guys. Why don't you start disarming these things under your city?

Adam:

Great point.

PJ:

the other thought I had is if you're venom and you know where the bombs are, want to overstate this, it's actually. Decently easy to create something to blow up a bomb. You could create a whole different triggering mechanism.

Adam:

Yeah. The thing was designed in world war two. So I would assume 40 years later, they have the capability of developing something better to trigger those bombs. notably there has been no agent selection scene as of yet. and I will point out that we do not get an agent selection scene in this episode at all.

PJ:

We don't. And you and I have talked about this in a theoretical sense of wanting to have an episode where it's Matt and one other agent against the world. we've talked about this it could have been Hondo with A Matter of Gravity. It'd have been even better if it was Gloria and Matt in Vegas.

Adam:

Yep.

PJ:

like honeymoon adventure, but we don't, we get buddy and Matt in Paris.

Adam:

Yeah, it would have been great to have Matt and Gloria in Paris, right? They're on a little getaway, romantic getaway, and then suddenly something happens. Yeah, the Pandora's box that opens is if they weren't prepared for mission. we know why Thunderhawks there, but why do they have hurricane there? And in that case, why was buddy even there anyways? generally speaking, it's Matt Scott and T Bob on a family trip with many exceptions to that,

PJ:

Yeah.

Adam:

course. Doesn't matter to the mask writers. We're just going to go ahead and plow forward here. Thunder hawk and hurricane. They drive into the sewers of Paris and they go down a perfect ramp into a perfectly sized archway. And I was just wondering, does Paris have a lot of easy to access? Sewer tunnels that a car can drive through.

PJ:

I'm sorry, Adam. We have to do a commercial break here and just thank Tracker Infrastructure for their sponsorship of this show and all the great, they work, they do. Throughout every city internationally, including creating giant size entryways into sewers.

Adam:

That's right. If you need a giant entryway into your local sewer, the only place to call tracker infrastructure. And we thank you for your sponsorship of this episode.

PJ:

Now, back to the show.

Adam:

Suddenly they encounter Jack Cameron Piranha in the sewers. And Matt says where there's rats. You're gonna find the cheese. And Buddy says, I think you've been hanging around Bruce too long. So I'm gonna go ahead and nominate Buddy for his own award for that jab.

PJ:

It's 100%. Buddy, that was unnecessary, man. Truly. It's you just decided to take an opportunity to shit on Bruce when he wasn't around.

Adam:

We have a great masked venom battle in the sewers. Lots of laser rays firing away, some solid wall driving happens there. We have Hurricane doing a 180, splashing water into Cliff's face, causing him to lose control of Jackhammer. But Cliff is wearing a mask, so I'm not sure how that happened.

PJ:

I don't know, man. It's just like, it, like the mud covered up the optical sensor for a second. Cliff only has one eye.

Adam:

Meanwhile, Scott and T Bob are wandering Paris, unable to find the Eiffel Tower. Hard to miss. But anyways, they come upon the giant archway that leads into the sewers. And Scott is psyched. We can go exploring. And this is exactly why I worried about the giant inviting archway that leads into the sewers, because it seems to me like similar to Scott. A lot of people would be like, Oh, cool. Let me go walking into this inviting archway and see what's in the sewers.

PJ:

I probably wouldn't, without a flashlight, go wandering into a random sewer. Scott has a penchant for playing in trash heaps, apparently sewers. Which begs the question, why, Adam? Why does he do this?

Adam:

He needs just any kind of stimulus. And so he like Gloria goes to the extremes, right? He's not an adrenaline junkie. He just needs to push things to the extreme because he is so over stimulated by everything that happens in his life. So junkyards, trash heaps, sewers. Those are the places Scott wants to play or other children just want to sit on a swing set.

PJ:

That's a good point, man. The shot that it's involved with Scott standing before the sewer entry. Like I tried to do a little figuring out by doing a screenshot and then taking guesses at the relative size of like Scott and this entryway. I took a guess if Scott's four feet tall, maybe five, actually, let's say he's four feet tall. The opening is 20 feet tall. If he's five feet, he's like, it's like a 25, it's like two and a half stories. Is it? an opening to a sewer? Why?

Adam:

So that people and vehicles can enter. We all know the stories about Paris and the famous sewers. Have you not been on a sewer tour of Paris, PJ? I'm shocked. It's the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and the giant sewer tunnels. Boy. I know you live in the mountains of Colorado, but I didn't think you were that uncultured.

PJ:

I'm sorry, apparently, I will do a better job next time I go to a major city of asking for their finest sewer tour.

Adam:

T Bob outside the tunnel entrance stumbled into something covered in a tarp and the tarp falls off revealing switchblade. And I feel that's a terrible place to hide a multi million dollar weapon of mass destruction.

PJ:

Yeah, it really is

Adam:

but anyways, we're back with Miles and Venom and he uses Viper to break his way into the secret Nazi bunker. And now he's got his hands on the trigger device. And he says, now I can destroy Paris at the a button. But do you think this device still works after 40 years?

PJ:

I definitely had the thought you might want to replace the batteries in there, Miles. Like it's there because I like, and truthfully, like if the batteries had corroded, cause they honestly, if there were batteries, cause there's no visible electrical connection, they would have been lead acid. So they

Adam:

Mm hmm.

PJ:

Would have eaten through. And if it was circuitry, it's done. But I'll say this much on the other side of it, though, on the bombs themselves, the explosives are a credible threat, and the material in there can last a century or longer. And I did a little research unexploded ordinance from World War Two is still a problem to this day. the last event that happened was from December 3rd of 2024. We still have to contend with these unexploded bombs years later.

Adam:

Well, Scott radios Matt to tell him that he found Switchblade at the entrance to the sewers. Matt orders Scott to go to the Eiffel Tower where it's safe.

PJ:

To the most notable landmark in the city, which is under a terrorist threat. Father of the year moment.

Adam:

Agreed. That's up for nomination for sure. Well, Miles takes off at Switchblade and makes an announcement to the people of Paris. But he's in Switchblade, a helicopter slash jet. I guess Switchblade has a loudspeaker with enough oomph behind it to be heard by the entire city?

PJ:

So again, this is writer's defense fund award. But I was wondering if he was also tapping into the television radio network signals as well. Because what he's about to say otherwise could get garbled, and no one might actually not actually hear him.

Adam:

Yeah, okay let's give Miles that. He says, You have one hour to pay me one billion dollars or the city will be reduced to rubble. That's a very solid threat, Miles. Well done. If I can point one thing out though, generally you want to prove you have the capability of doing something before making the threat, so blowing up a little something just to prove, because I could go out right now, PJ, and I could say city of Los Angeles, give me a billion dollars or else the city will be reduced to rubble and people would just look at me and then continue on with their lives.

PJ:

A really excellent point. You need to give a little taste there the other question I had Adam is how many people are actually able to understand him given that. He's speaking in English and many of them might not, there might be

Adam:

Right.

PJ:

Speaking, like they just French speakers, like what,

Adam:

Yeah. So a madman is shouting to them in a foreign language. They don't understand about money that isn't in their currency or else a threat that has not been demonstrated will be carried out. So in theory, a very solid threat by miles in execution, very poor indeed. No,

PJ:

done this before, like Tokyo with the magma mole. He showed off the threat first

Adam:

Well, scott and T Bob, they watch from atop the Eiffel Tower. I'm curious how they got there since they were lost for the whole episode, but anyways. And they're watching as Thunderhawk faces off against Switchblade and Manta in a sky battle.

PJ:

So Matt very intentionally is going towards the Eiffel Tower. And I had a question. Why was he doing that when he told Scott to go there?

Adam:

he has a very short memory.

PJ:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Adam:

To your point, a straight laser blast from Manta hits one of the Eiffel Tower's legs and the tower begins to fall with Scott and T Bob atop it. But Buddy pulls up and uses Hurricane's laser cannon to somehow fuse the leg back together again. And this is the second time we've seen masked lasers do something like this. Like, how is this possible?

PJ:

So we're going to have to do a mini science corner here.

Adam:

Yeah.

PJ:

when you want to weld things together, you have something that is incredibly hot. you know, Whether it be a butane torch or an arc welder it's something sufficient to melt metal. So you have to start off with this belief that the lasers are sufficiently hot enough to melt the steel, to fuse it together. When that they fire over a distance, they don't lose so much power that they're not sufficient. And Again, so people know power, Goes down as the square of the distance. So if you get what X, the power over some distance if you increase that distance by two X, you actually get one fourth the power.

Adam:

Mm hmm.

PJ:

To actually be firing an incredibly hot beam to melt that. And it has to be sufficiently strong metal at the source of the cannon that it doesn't get melted as well. So whatever space material they've got there, like it is. they're firing a fucking hot laser. that is able to, fuse steel from like a kilometer away, half a kilometer. I don't know, but it's immensely tough like pull all of that off.

Adam:

Yeah. Okay. Granted.

PJ:

Now, if you accept that, let's also consider that fixing the Eiffel Tower afterwards is going to be really expensive.

Adam:

Indeed. Who could do it?

PJ:

We just want to take a moment and thank Tracker Construction for their sponsorship of this show. Tracker Construction, when your massively large metal landmark, precious to your city, gets wrecked, we're there to help you out. Dun

Adam:

Yeah, that's right, PJ. In this day and age when monuments around the world are threatened by Any combination of natural disasters or multinational terrorist organizations. It's good to know that Tracker Construction is there to help with the cleanup. And thank you, Tracker Construction for your sponsorship of this episode. Well, Mask is outnumbered two to one during the battle. Thunderhawk takes a direct hit from Switchblade and is forced to land, but somehow it's okay because it takes off a second later with Buddy on board. Now we have a very interesting use of a mask power here. Buddy uses Penetrator, allowing. Them and Thunderhawk to phase through switchblade and grab the trigger device. But here's my question. So if they're phasing through switchblade, how are they able to grab a solid object at the same time? So is there even like a magic science corner that can explain this?

PJ:

so let's jump back to science corner and we're going to, I'm going to try my best because

Adam:

Okay.

PJ:

Let's talk about how penetrator might work in the first place. Okay. Okay. Buckle up, folks. So thanks to quantum physics. And so people know quantum physics is this fucked up, non intuitive subject that makes up the universe. And Newtonian physics exists in this very small island where humans live that kind of approximates. Everything else. And if you get too small or too big or too fast or too slow, you're in quantum physics land.

Adam:

Mm hmm.

PJ:

Of the universe. We live again in this really tiny island here. Regardless, quantum physics tells us that atoms are the building block of matter. made up mostly of empty space. Okay. There really isn't very much to atoms. And so if you, if that's true, why don't atoms just pass through each other all the time, penetrator style? There's this concept called the Pauli exclusion principle, which states that no two fermions. So like an electron, actually protons and neutrons fall under that as well, occupy the same quantum state. And it means that they create the repulsive force when the atoms get too close.

Adam:

Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence. Silence.

PJ:

of the fermions. So the electrons, neutrons, so that no two fermions have the same spin at the same time and therefore can occupy the same. and you're just fucking with the wave functions in a really hardcore way and you

Adam:

Silence.

PJ:

to do it in such a way you don't accidentally create antiparticles like or positrons where they would just annihilate the thing they're actually encountering. so if you believe all of this. how it actually works.

Adam:

And if you understand and have followed along

PJ:

Yeah, if you've followed along on my really shitty explanation of this corner of space magic and going through switch blade, buddy has to be able to phase and then unphase and rephase his hand at just the right time to snag the trigger device. And not accidentally hit miles's crotch. So this is a really like exquisitely time maneuver. Otherwise basically miles is going to have a whole lot of other problems at the same time, to just grab this trigger device. So

Adam:

not to mention potentially some sort of quantum explosion above the city,

PJ:

this goes wrong, basically like the switchblade and Thunderhawk explode and

Adam:

yeah.

PJ:

leaders are dead, which might be not a bad thing.

Adam:

Well, Scott's watching all this from the top of the Eiffel Tower but the Eiffel Tower starts falling again, and Scott actually, Wait. tells Mask to go after Venom. He says, don't let them get away. And Scott at least has the right idea here. And he's actually saying it while atop a structurally unstable Eiffel tower. So he's got some cojones as well.

PJ:

He does. Maybe he's tired of this mask venom battle. And it's look, dad, just get it over with.

Adam:

Yeah. Matt decides to save his son and let Venom get away. And so he jumps out of Thunderhawk and uses Spectrum Hang Glider to rescue Scott and T Bob, while Buddy lands Thunderhawk. And uh, once they're on the ground, Scott tells Matt that he should have gone after Venom. And again, Scott Right on the money.

PJ:

It's true. And I really wonder, it makes you wonder what kind of death wish Scott has at this point in time, where he's he'd rather see his father go after Venom than rescue himself. Do

Adam:

Yeah. He's getting a lot of Gloria in him now. He's really starting to feel the adrenaline junkie nature of life. It's okay, Dad. Oh, we're fine. We'll take stairs. Ah,

PJ:

seen a few times now that when Scott's about to fall, Matt's first instinct is to fire lasers at the thing that's about to fall.

Adam:

well, Matt, Scott, T Bob, and Buddy are sitting at a cafe. Turns out the bombs have been defused and all is well. And T Bob says that he wants to go see the Kasbah. It turns out that his map was of Algiers this whole time, which is why they couldn't find the Eiffel Tower. And everyone laughs. So, kind of a Roy Batty moment here?

PJ:

I thought so I wasn't sure if this applied that T Bob actually doesn't know how to read And like how sad it would be if he wasn't programmed to do that. And how angry would be that he wasn't programmed to do that. Did mass diffuse those bombs themselves? Do they actually finally tell the authorities about them?

Adam:

Yeah, who defused the bomb?

PJ:

finally turn over to the authorities and say, Oh, go defuse these or did Matt do it himself?

Adam:

Or did Matt say, yeah, they're defused, don't worry about it. yeah, Tracker Demolition might need them in the future. So, uh, We got to the, we got to the more you know. We're at the Tracker Mansion at night. And Scott is soldering the bomb. T Bob's head, for some reason. T Bob kind of jumps, causing the soldering iron to land on a piece of paper, which starts a fire. Scott picks up the phone, and the next thing we know, there's three fire trucks outside, putting out the fire. And uh, the lesson Scott reveals to us is to make sure that you have the fire department number nearby. I'd like to point out three things here.

PJ:

Yes.

Adam:

we learned that Scott has his own lab. Which must be very nice. He lives in a big mansion, has his own lab, 10 year old. Great. Second three fire trucks show up to put out a piece of paper that caught on fire. So Matt does not mess around with his property. And finally three, Scott could have easily put that fire out by himself. I mean, There's a piece of paper that caught on fire, which even if Scott didn't put it on himself, probably would have just, you Extinguished on its own because it's a piece of paper, right?

PJ:

Yeah, a hundred percent.

Adam:

Okay.

PJ:

Here's a, actually just something I just realized. Do you think this is a private fire department that Matt keeps on retainer on his

Adam:

I, yes, I think it is a private fire department that Matt keeps on his property. And that's why they all show up to put out a piece of paper. That's burning.

PJ:

So the number Scott needed to remember was three. Like

Adam:

fire department. How can I help you? It's Scott. Say no more. We're on our way.

PJ:

You know, look it's a good lesson. I know what they're trying to go for but it's a really poor demonstration of it here's an important thing. Why doesn't his lab, which contains electrical equipment, have at least a fire extinguisher or a fire blanket inside of it,

Adam:

Or sprinklers.

PJ:

or sprinklers? In my garage, I've got like three fire extinguishers, two fire blankets, Just in case.

Adam:

You do some unusual things in your garage and I'll just leave the audience to wonder what PJ does in his garage up there in the mountains. But anyways, folks, let's look at our, our awards for the episode. The Buddy Hawks award.

PJ:

He wins his own award pretty handily with the

Adam:

Yeah.

PJ:

I don't

Adam:

Yeah,

PJ:

like,

Adam:

I agree. There is no need to diss Bruce in that moment. And yet he chose to, so an unabashed Buddy Hawks award. Congratulations, sir. Father of the year.

PJ:

I think there's a few. Nominees for this Matt trusting, Scott and T Bob to buddy right after

Adam:

Huh.

PJ:

the comment that he should be put into a cage like that's a, that would be a solid one and a winner in every episode, but I really thought Matt ordering Scott to the Eiffel Tower. While the city was under terrorist threat, because he said it's safe really was the thing that takes it away for father of the year for me.

Adam:

sure. You just opened up a new dimension for me though. And I think I'm going to go with. Matt entrusting Scott and T Bob to Buddy after having said the cage comment because Matt's like, This man wants to put my son in a cage. He's perfect for watching over my son. So I'm going to go with that one. I don't think we had a Slyrax Ragdoll award here in this episode.

PJ:

think so. There's a near miss for Scott. Had he fallen, it's an easy Slyrax, but he didn't. He's just hanging off the side with T Bob at the Eiffel Tower.

Adam:

And finally uh, Roy Batty award. What do you think?

PJ:

I think it's that tail end bit where it's making fun of T Bob's inability to read.

Adam:

I could understand someone afraid of a robot uprising, would not want robots, know how to read. but I agree with you there. So let's figure it out. Is this episode pandapu or not?

PJ:

I'm going to tell you so I'm going to give a weird analogy. I really liked the movie, David Lynch's Dune,

Adam:

Yeah. Yeah.

PJ:

but it's almost great. and there's a few places where it just kind of misses. And honestly, there's a lot of intriguing stuff in this episode. They do the fun mission, impossible bit. We've got this like weird discussion to be had about The Nazi bombs, which honestly was like, if you're not going to deepen the lore in that case, like venom could have just planted bombs and you'd have effectively the same result. So there's a lot of places where you could take it somewhere interesting and it doesn't go. There's a credible threat from venom. we get a great use of penetrator with the quantum magic that we've got there. But outside of that, like. so many different ways I wish this episode of could have gone. So for me, it is a panda poo.

Adam:

I want to agree with you on that one and just say it's not the worst we've ever had, It's wasted potential. So yeah, another PandaPoo episode.

PJ:

I do have a meta discussion though, around miles, because like like so many times where it's miles. Maps and ancient civilizations artifacts something hidden what is miles hiding about his past either explicitly now or implicitly we've got this Nazi strain that is just infused in these episodes and so like I kind of wondered myself like. All right who else was obsessed with ancient civilizations like you can see in book of power or chariot of the star chariot or what we have here like his miles somehow connected to Himmler,

Adam:

it's a great question. Miles, what do you think? He probably would have been in his twenties or very early twenties, late teens, early twenties during the second world war, especially near the end of the second world war, right? So yeah, there's a possibility. He doesn't have a German accent. Doesn't mean that. He's not German. So possibly I'd like to follow this thread

PJ:

yeah, I

Adam:

future episodes.

PJ:

know about the map to find the Nazi gold when they were in South America? You don't stumble upon that accidentally and then you don't stumble upon this accidentally. You don't stumble upon, the Star Chariot accidentally or every ancient civilization like that we've seen. It's like. what body of research did he have available to him that makes all this possible? I feel like this is the, again, part of that, that missing bit just like, who is this Miles Mayhem? Why does he have access to all this stuff?

Adam:

Yeah. The other thing about, you know, with Venom, compare him to Cobra is I feel like Venom doesn't have a core goal overall in the series. They're just kind of like every episode, it's kind of a different thing. They're it's like, Venoms are trying to, Make ends meet. Like that's,

PJ:

true.

Adam:

that's their goal, just to survive to the next day.

PJ:

I mean, one thing we've seen a lot is Venom's after, I mean, Miles is after money. And maybe if Matt paid him off, that would be the end of it.

Adam:

Yeah. Matt should just cut him in on the money. Well, Let's see what Venom's up to in episode 35 next week. The episode is called In Dutch. A madman hires Venom to destroy the flood dykes in the Netherlands if their parliament doesn't allow him a political position. Oh boy.

PJ:

I'm looking forward to this. I have not watched this episode yet. I love the mechanics already from the tagline. And I

Adam:

Yeah,

PJ:

to say there. We're staying on our European vacation though.

Adam:

we are. Yeah. It's, I have not seen the Netherlands yet, so I'm looking forward to uh, to seeing the canals and uh, whoever this politician is. We will see you in Holland next week, but for now this podcast has to transform and head back to HQ. I am Adam Moore.

PJ:

And I am PJ McNerney.

Adam:

Bye bye.

PJ:

Bye bye.

The mobile armored podcast show is written, produced and edited. Bye Adam Moore. And PJ McNerney.