We open the episode at Silicon Tor, Megabyte’s base of operation, as he’s using some sort of magnet to create another portal to the supercomputer. This is also the first time we see Nibbles, the pet null of Megabyte. What seems like just another null will play major importance by the end of the series. Bob shows up to put a stop to Megabyte’s latest scheme by stopping the magnet from opening the tear. Though one has to wonder how a magnet would even exist in a computer world.
Bob takes the magnet and heads to Dot’s Diner. And like the idiot he is, Bob just leaves the magnet on the counter nonchalantly because he believes it’ll be safe with it being guarded. And then to continue the act of foolishness, he lets Enzo use Glitch. Which leads to Enzo turning Glitch into a jackhammer, causing the magnet to fall out of the shield, and hit Dot right on the head, sapping her of energy. Yeah, Bob’s a good guy and all, but a little too dumb at times.
Despite Bob being a guardian from the supercomputer, he has no clue on how to handle magnetic erasure, and quickly heads to Phong for an answer. But of course, despite someone’s life being on the line, Phong will only help Bob if he beats him in a game of Pong. Seriously? I get when Bob wanted advice on dealing with Megabyte’s offer in “The Tearing”, but Dot has almost been erased and on the verge of death. You may want to play your game at far less pressing times.
After Bob wins, Phong tells Bob that the only way to reverse it is by giving Dot slow food. An obvious play on fast food, where the food is slow processed. Bob heads off to level 31 to a place called Al’s Wait-And Eat, despite Dot’s warnings. At the diner, we see that it’s inhabited by some tough looking customers, and interestingly enough, other humanoid sprites like Bob, Dot, and Enzo. This will really be the only time we see other characters like this in Mainframe, and it will be a while until the show gives an explanation as to why.
The diner is run by a slow waiter, and the chef Al, who we never see, but always responds with “WHAT?”. Despite Bob’s rushing, he is unfortunately forced to wait. Meanwhile, Megabyte sends his idiotic cronies Hack and Slash to retrieve the magnet from Bob. As they arrive in the diner and plan to rough the place, Bob gets the slow food and chases Hack and Slash out of the diner. But as this all goes down, it’s time for a game cube to drop. Bob manages to fool Hack and Slash, because as it’s been well established already, Hack and Slash are idiots.
The game this time is a medieval adventure called “Castles and Knights”. The mission is to beat the user and make it to the princess, who Bob believes to be Dot. This leads to a pretty cool chase between Bob (and his dragon control by Al and his waiter), and the User on dragons. Sure, it’s aged pretty rough, but it’s still a neat scene. Bob knocks the user off. He enters the castle with a Glitch function known as “BS&P”.
And here is a fine example of the censorship the show had to deal with by ABC’s broadcast standards and practices, AKA “BS&P”. Worried that kids would be stupid enough to jump through windows, a lot of cartoons censored that action, and ReBoot was one of them. BS&P hounded ReBoot on a lot of things. They’re the main reason Dot looks like she has a monoboob. There was also an infamous case where they didn’t want any references to Hockey on the show, believing it to be a slang word. And for a show from Canada, that’s like a knife to the gut.
Bob teleports through the window, and takes a sword from a skeleton, which is a game sprite intent on attacking those who come in. We’ll learn more on Game Sprites as always, later in the series. Bob still destroys the skeleton, and continues onward. He reaches the damsel, who is really Enzo.
The user arrives, as he’s battling a restored Dot. Bob and Dot damage his icon, with Enzo giving the final blow to end the game. We learn that Dot got the slow food way before Bob got there because she’s partners with Al. So, Bob’s headstrong nature made things more difficult than they could have. Megabyte captures Enzo and wants the magnet back. Bob literally gives him the magnet, and sends the nearly erased Megabyte falling to his doom, as Hack and Slash drop down with him.
“The Quick and the Fed” is the best episode up to this point in the series. Now that the show can finally breathe after building most of its world, we can focus on building interesting stories around it. And this one was pretty good. Once again it plays to Bob’s massive problem with jumping into action without putting much of a plan together. But it works far better here than in “Racing the Clock” where he comes off looking too much like an idiot.
The game this time was great, filled with plenty of action, and compared to the previous two was given much more time to make itself matter. What seemed like a niche plot device to wrap up the show has become the best part of it. Other than that, the episode had some good action, some funny jokes, and paced itself almost perfectly, with every important scene in the episode getting the right amount of time to work. Sure, like a lot of the show, the show’s now weakened animation hurts some of the action, it still comes off looking really great, even for an almost 20 year old show.
In the end, The Quick and the Fed was neither too quick or too slow, but just right enough to fully digest an entertaining episode.