Bob is no longer in Mainframe, and the system is being guarded by Guardian Enzo. However, despite Enzo’s determination, he is still inexperienced, which has already causing him to cast doubt on himself. And his doubts are made no better with propaganda from Megabyte, which is painting Enzo as a failure. The same Megabyte who is having his sister Hexadecimal experimented on to be under his control. So yeah. A lot of bad is going down. But hey… at least Cecil’s all right.
The battle for Enzo to prove his worth continues as we head into the next episode. Let’s look at “Between a Raccoon and a Hard Place”.
We open the episode as yet a game cube has dropped on Mainframe. However, Enzo was unable to get into the game due to Megabyte’s forces constantly blocking him at every turn. A tactic Phong tells Enzo that was once used on Bob. The game ends, and as you could probably guess, the user won. The entire sector is destroyed, and the binomes inside are nullified. Even Mike the TV blames Enzo for his failures, as Hack and Slash put a stop to him. It appears that Megabyte’s crew is attacking the victims of the sector.
With no defense against his forces, as well as instant deletion for anyone who rebels, the binomes easily give up their P.I.D codes to Megabyte. While that’s happening, Cyrus is putting up posters proclaiming Enzo as a failure of a guardian, continuing on Megabyte’s tactic of propaganda and fear. Phong suggests that Enzo must enter a game by himself to prove his worth. This of course is something Dot objects against, even with AndrAIa suggesting to help him out.
Mouse tells Dot that she’ll go with the two sprites, but both Mouse and AndrAIa need their icons formatted for rebooting. They download the information from Enzo’s icon and the two now have icons capable of rebooting. Meanwhile, Dot and Phong mention that due to being locked out of the net, not even Megabyte can exit the net, meaning that, as Phong puts it “Bob has locked us in the cage with the tiger”.
Megabyte orders his troops to once again stop Enzo should he try to enter the game, but not to delete him, since he’s more useful alive than dead, and that he wants the masses to know of Enzo as a failure. And as if on cue, a game cube is about to drop on Mainframe. The virals see two signals of Dot and Enzo entering the cube, as the fleet go to block them. However, it turns out to be cardboard cutouts. Multiple cutouts of Dot and Enzo fly past them, as Mouse, AndrAIa and Enzo enter the game. However, before the game drops, AndrAIa stops Mouse from following them in.
The two of them arrive at a desert in front of an old gas station. AndrAIa tells Enzo that she made sure Mouse didn’t enter due to the icons being untested, and since AndrAIa is a game sprite she could still survive if the game leaves. They are greeted by a prospector binome, who immediately shows doubt in Enzo due to him being just a kid.
Back at the tor, Megabyte checks up on Hexadecimal. Her body has been fully restored, but her mask is cracked. And for some strange reason, she’s dressed in a leathery S&M getup. Hex, of course, is fine with this new look. But Megabyte has also attached a collar around her neck that causes her pain if she tries to rebel against him. Now Megabyte has the power of Hexadecimal at his command, and the plans for Megaframe are still underway.
Back in the game, our heroes learn that they’re inside the game “Rocky the Rabid Raccoon”. AndrAIa reboots into a biker babe, and Enzo reboots into…
Elmer Fudd?
The titular Rocky the Rabid Raccoon shows up, and is a psychopath complete with super speed. After slobbering over AndrAIa, he gets a massive lead. But through some strange Rube Goldberg act of happenstance, they manage to kill a buzzard with fireworks, which falls on Rocky, which causes him to not see a train in front of him, hitting him and taking out one of his three lives. Despite Enzo’s success, he’s still not earning any favors with the binomes.
Dot is not happy that Enzo is alone with a game sprite, but her concerns have to be put on hold as they must plan one what to do after they exit the game. Back inside, Rocky manages to steal their bike and once again get a lead on our heroes. He makes it to a missile silo, and fires a rocket at Enzo, AndrAIa, and the prospector. They manage to escape the rocket blast in time, but meet more binomes who still doubt Enzo’s abilities.
Rocky continues onto the bonus level, where an extra life is inside. Enzo tells the binomes that he’s not Bob, but they have to trust him so that they won’t all be deleted. They enter the sewer area, and try to take the extra life as Rocky approaches. They escape through a manhole, as Rocky is destroyed by the ghost binomes inside the sewer. One more life is lost. Everyone is starting to finally have faith in Enzo.
Rocky enters a subway to find food to energize. He batters down on a vending machine. But a flasher binome (yes, this really happens), sends him back upward, as the binomes lead Rocky into a tar trap. Enzo and AndrAIa flatten the annoying raccoon to end the game. Enzo is at first concerned when he doesn’t see AndrAIa after the game, but she has managed to survive. But their celebration is cut short by Megabyte’s guards. They easily escape as the binomes tricked them again with the cardboard cutout plan.
“Between a Raccoon and a Hard Place” is in some ways a filler episode, but compared to ones from the previous seasons, it definitely doesn’t feel as bad. It furthers the important storylines, most importantly being Enzo trying to earn the respect of the citizens of Mainframe, who still doubt his abilities because he’s a kid, and mostly because he’s not Bob. It also continues to add more emphasis to the relationship of Enzo an AndrAIa, with the drama of her possibly leaving with the game if the icon transfer fails. And of course, if it wasn’t obvious that AndrAIa loves Enzo, Phong is of course here to point it out.
The game this time around is a strange mix of classic Looney Tunes comedy as well as a sorta parody of the massive popularity of animal mascot games around the mid 90’s. A trend that started with Sonic the Hedgehog, and just never seemed to go away any time after that. Hell, it still feels prevalent in gaming to this day. It’s really cool to see so much variety in the types of games the show will present now. From dark and scary like the Evil Dead game in the last episode, to silly and fun like in this episode.
In the end, it’s a fun episode, that while it could be skipped without missing too much information (except for maybe Hexadecimal’s “rebirth” and Megabyte’s control over her), but you’d still be missing a fun episode. And things continue to build up as Mainframe has to execute a plan to block Megabyte once and for all.