Brief Summary: Like Wargames, but with android sharks!

Summary: We open with a neat little graphic of the GI Joe logo appearing accompanied by little, digital sound effects. It's cute, so I mention it. It has no bearing on the story. Leave it alone!

*Ahem* Sorry, back now. Been a few months since I've done this sort of thing. Got to get the old review mojo going strong again.

The episode proper opens with an establishing shot of a nice little suburban residential neighborhood…that just happens to have a rather large and imposing castle sitting in the middle of it.

We pan into the castle, where three men are working on a large, movie-style computer system. A fourth man pops his head out of a hatch in the floor. He mentions that the power plant seems to be awfully large for a computer game development firm. One of the men, sounding suspiciously like Cobra Commander trying to do a fake voice, heads over to try and nudge the intruder away from the computer, explaining that "This is a very competitive business, Mr. Wilson." What, precisely, this has to do with computer games is anybody's guess, but it works.

Mr. Wilson mentions that his son Kevin is a computer whiz and asks if it would be okay for him to bring his son by after everything is online and such. Cobra Commander tells him sure as he escorts Wilson out.

Destro pulls off his mask, telling Cobra Commander that he doesn't want Wilson's son coming around his computer. Cobra Commander also pulls off his mask (he's wearing his blue hood underneath it…I want a bathing suit made by the person who makes these masks, damnit) and bickers back and forth with Destro. After all, as CC says, what was he supposed to do? Tell the guy that no civilians are allowed around the new Cobra mainframe?

The computer system is called ASP; as she comes on line Metal-Head whistles at her, saying that she sounds like his kind of woman. (The computer has a female voice; yes, this means Metal-Head is a truly sad individual but we already knew that, didn't we?) Metal's the third guy in the room, his disguise consists of an overcoat, a beard and a bald cap and sunglasses instead of his goggles. All of which kind of makes him look vaguely like Dr. Wiley from Sonic the Hedgehog. Cobra Commander and Destro share a look with each other; the "why did you hire him?" look.

ASP takes control of Cobra forces in various designated areas while Destro makes some final adjustments.

We come back from the opening to find ourselves in one of the houses in the residential area near the ASP installation. Inside, Kevin Wilson and one of his buddies are playing computer games. Or, more appropriately, Kevin is playing the game while his buddy (Bobby) watches.

Kevin finishes his game and asks Bobby if he wants to play a REAL computer game. Bobby, naturally, agrees. Kevin then pulls out what appear to be plans of the ASP installation. Kevin tells Bobby that his dad has gotten permission for him to go visit the installation.

And apparently, Kevin thinks that permission to come by sometime means that you can commit breaking and entering, since we see him and Bobby bicycling their way past the BAT guards at the front of the installation and sneak into the building via a secret access tunnel. Kevin calms Bobby's fears about being caught by mentioning that they have an invitation to be there.

Kids: Do NOT Try this at home. Your neighborhood bank vault/shopping center/what have you will NOT Allow you access after hours even if you have an invitation to come onto the premises at some point. Even with the current state of our legal system, I think you'd have a hard time getting that defense past a judge.

Once the kids are inside ASP's base, they fire the computer up. Overkill detects lifeforms in ASP, but assumes that it's Destro, returning to complete some the programming and that the sneaky flesh creature used his back entrance to gain access to ASP.

Kevin breaks into the system and proceeds to see how good the "game" is.

Back at a nameless Cobra base, Destro is attempting to instruct Metal-Head in the finer points of strategy. Metal-Head's philosophy of war runs more toward explosions than pincer movements (if Metal-Head were Sun Tzu, the Art of War would be a much shorter, if louder, book).

Word that ASP is activated interrupts the conversation. Destro automatically assumes that Cobra Commander has activated the system, but since the communications system hasn't been hooked up yet, he can't see what it is that CC is doing. So…how the heck does he know that the system is activated?

Kevin and Bobby bring ASP online. ASP offers them three choices for a "game": Aerial Combat, Guerilla Engagement, and Theatre-wide Tactical Warfare. Kevin selects choice #3 and gets four possible targets: Outland 2, Alpha Charlie, Blizzard Bay HQ, and Pegasus Post.

Bobby notices that these are Joe bases, mainly because the screen says that they're Joe bases. Kevin calms his attack of nerves, saying that it's just a game and selects Alpha Charlie as his first target.

ASP initializes very real, not-a-game Cobra forces for an attack on Alpha Charlie. The Cobra forces appear to be almost entirely BATs, probably because the idea of little kids inadvertently sending off real people to fight and maybe die in what they think is just a game was a little too dark for the after-school crowd.

Destro sends Metal-Head off to see what the heck is going on at ASP HQ, still believing it to be Cobra Commander who is behind the mix up.

The Joes scramble to prepare for the incoming Cobra attack at Alpha Charlie. Grunt and Big Bear manage to shoot down Overkill and take him prisoner. They attempt to question the badly shorting out Overkill but only succeed in picking up ASP's voice as it comes over Overkill's speakers.

At Kevin's command, ASP manages to enter the Joe personnel records to look up information on Grunt. When Kevin discovers that Grunt is a one man wrecking crew, he decides to "Conquer Grunt", since he still thinks this is just a game.

Big Bear suggests that they hook Overkill up to a Joe mainframe computer, so that they can try and figure out what's going on.

Overkill, working on ASP's instructions, plants a homing device on Grunt's belt…while saying something to the effect of "Homing device planted." How Grunt misses this, I do not know.

Big Bear and Grunt manage to escape the hangar where they'd been questioning Overkill before it blows up. Wet-suit brings in a Battle Copter for them to escape on, but Grunt goes back and takes out Overkill, bringing the BAT commander along for further questioning. Grunt ties Overkill to the back of the Battle Copter and hangs on, holding Overkill under one arm. Big Bear also hangs onto the back of the Battle Copter for the escape flight.

Big Bear wonders why Cobra would be after Grunt since he is, after all, just a grunt. Grunt preens a bit, figuring that Cobra has finally figured out who the real threat among the Joes is.

Kevin is disappointed that Grunt got away and hopes that he won't lose too many points for failing to win the mission. He is, instead, rewarded by being able to move on to "Weapons Level Two."

Destro manages to get the communications system between his base and ASP working. He figures that Metal-Head must have arrived there by now and will hopefully be able to tell him what Cobra Commander is up to. Over the loudspeaker, he hears Bobby saying "Kapow! Fire One! Fire Two! Kapowie!" and, understandably so, figures that it's Metal-Head. He wonders what Metal-Head and that idiot Cobra Commander are up to.

Just then, Cobra Commander walks into the room, wanting to know what idiot Destro is talking about.

Kevin and Bobby hear Destro talking over the loudspeaker but figure that it's just the computer trying to fake them out.

Using the homing device, ASP tracks Grunt and the other Joes to Blizzard Bay HQ, where the Joes are taking Overkill to be hooked into the Joe mainframe.

Kevin activates the Cobra arctic forces, which consist of drone snowmobiles (Ice Sabers) and an android shark.

The Grunt and Co. radio the Blizzard Bay base and tell Duke they're on their way in. Duke asks Wet Suit to deal with the android shark who is currently nosing around a vent. Wet Suit agrees and goes in after the android shark (kids, don't try this at home, since Wet Suit dives into the artic water without benefit of protective gear beyond a regular scuba wet suit).

Duke tells Wet Suit not to use lasers against the shark since the shark may be carrying explosives. Wet suit instead goes after the shark with a knife, particularly after the shark eats half of his favorite spear gun. He uses the knife to open the standard open-this-hatch-and-destroy-the-evil-machine hatch and destroys the evil machine…which causes the shark to explode so why he couldn't use lasers is beyond me.

The shark destroyed, Dr. Evil...err...KEVIN sends the Ice Sabers after the Joes. Grunt easily dispatches the Ice Sabers since in any fight between a Patriot and jumped up snowmobiles the tank is generally going to take the day.

At the base, Wet Suit is wearing a robe and shivering while he tries to warm up. Big Bear has successfully hooked Overkill into the Joe mainframe and is in the process of cracking the code. He manages to trace ASP's signal back to the base. The Joes then proceed to go after the ASP.

Bobby asks if he can take over from Kevin for a while, which means he's the one at the controls when the Joes arrive on the scene to try and take out ASP. The kids still think that this is all just a game.

Bobby gets smoked by the Joes so he asks Kevin to take over again. Kevin also gets smoked so he tells ASP to do whatever it takes to conquer Grunt. Kevin is apparently unaware that computers work on what they're given and that garbage in generally gives you garbage out.

Grunt manages to evade ASP's defenses and gets into the building. Finding the kids, he assumes they've been captured by Cobra…except there's one problem…no Cobras. The kids, for their part, assume that Grunt's a cop come to bust them for well, breaking the myriad laws relating to breaking and entering and such.

Grunt asks the kids where the 'snakes' are and the kids react with confusion, not understanding what Grunt means. Grunt asks about the terrorists who kidnappend them and the kids explain that they weren't kidnapped, they were just playing a game…except that they now realize it wasn’t a game. Particularly because the man standing in front of them is the same guy they've been trying to kill for the last 22 minutes or so.

ASP sets herself and the base to self-destruct, since this is the ultimate way to try and conquer Grunt. Grunt and the kids manage to get out of the base and get themselves and the other Joes to cover before the building explodes into itty-bitty bits.

Destro is NOT happy, partly because now he has to rebuild the computer from chip one. Cobra Commander, on the other hand, says rather sadly "I guess Metal-Head never knew what hit him…"

Which is, of course, when Metal-Head walks in, "Did you see that mega-explosion?!" he asks, happily. "Kablooie! Kapow!" Slight pause. "Too bad it was one of ours…"

They don't show us what, precisely, Destro and Cobra Commander do to Metal-Head after his Lazarus-like return from the seeming dead, but that's probably just as well.

Cut to: the Joe base where the kids and Mr. Wilson are standing with Grunt, Wet Suit and Big Bear. The kids apologize for trying to kill Grunt and say they'll stick to their own computer games from now on. Bobby asks Mr. Wilson if it would be okay if Grunt came over to play with them sometime. Mr. Wilson says that it's okay with him and Grunt also agrees, saying he'll be by when things are quieter between the Joes and Cobras.

Bobby and Kevin exchange a Yo Joe and a high five and the episode ends.

Commentary: First off, what I want to know is where the hell was Metal-Head through this whole episode? I mean, he was supposed to head over to ASP's HQ but apparently didn't get there until after the explosion took place. So…what the hell was he doing? Did he stop off at the Tasty Freeze for an ice cream cone? Catch a movie? Get lost trying to get out of the Cobra base he was at? What? I sense fanfic…

Over all, this episode isn't that bad. Yes, it relies on a lot of assumptions on the parts of the characters to work, but the assumptions at least make sense. The idea that permission to come in as a guest translates to permission to break into the building is a leap of logic I could see ten-year-old boys making rather easily. Overkill assuming that Destro is the one tinkering with ASP makes sense. Destro has MORE than enough reason to think that Cobra Commander would be dumb enough to jump the gun and fiddle with ASP ahead of time. The bit where Destro assumes Bobby is Metal-Head cracks me up, largely because it fits what we've seen of Metal-Head's personality and the contempt Destro has for him. I think we can all forgive Grunt his attack of ego in presuming that Cobra's coming after him because they think he's that much of a threat. And, finally, ASP presuming that "Do whatever it takes to conquer Grunt" means "Blow yourself to kingdom come" works because computers are incredibly *dumb* and occasionally come out with bits of illogical logic.

I remember hearing that some safety council or other entered in a bunch of information about stairwell accidents into a computer and found that most accidents occur at the top and bottom stairs. They asked the computer "What can we do to fix this problem?" The computer's logical, if somewhat impractical, solution was to "Get rid of the top and bottom stairs."

Continuity Note: When ASP pulls up information about Grunt, one of the things she gets is his real name: Robert W. Graves. Which means that, unless the laws of probability were repealed, this is the same Grunt who stayed behind in the world where Cobra took over in the Sunbow episode "Worlds Without End." How he got back to this world, we're never told, but the cynical can suspect that it has something to do with Grunt's figure being re-released in 1991.

Comic Note: Grunt's 1991 filecard mentions that he left the Joes temporarily to pursue an engineering degree, though he returned to the Joes due to a depressed job market. This is precisely what Grunt did in the Marvel comics, at least as far as the engineering degree. Grunt did return to the Joes in the Marvel comics, but as I recall, it had little to do with the job market and a lot to do with the Joes needing him back for some purpose or other.

Fashion Note: Both Bobby and Kevin are wearing clothes and hairstyles that painfully date this episode to the early 1990s, which I mention mainly because most of the time kids in cartoons seem to wear fairly generic outfits that could be from any time period in the last 30 to 40 years or so (jeans, t-shirts, dresses, etc.). It just struck me as unusual to see two kids with square hair and/or a mullet and acid washed jeans.