G.I. Dave’s Cartoon Realism: Silly or Gritty? “My Favorite Things”

Story By @G_I_DAVE

Alright G.I. Joe friends, huddle up. G.I.DAVE here. Season 2 Episode 19, “My Favorite Things.” I sat down for another Sunbow pass expecting a Serpentor episode. What I got was a scavenger hunt with a face-swap filter. This one DEFINITELY got silly as all hell quick, so were gunna take a different approach here and try to kill it the same way it cut me!

Serpentor is supposed to be the end product of history’s hardest military minds stacked in one body. Sun Tzu, Alexander, Caesar, Khan, Napoleon, the actual killers who ran campaigns. That is the whole point of the character. This episode treats him like a guy who needs his childhood stuffed animals back or the cheat codes won’t load. “These people are me.” Then he morphs his face to match the painting in the room. Cobra Commander’s visor is a mood ring. That is not a conqueror. That is a Saturday morning gimmick.

Serpentor is made from History’s greatest LEADERS..

…And Rasputin. I need that said out loud. Rasputin does not belong in that gene pool. Mad monk. Court manipulator. Mystic. Not a field commander. Not a general. Not a king who took ground. They steal his portrait out of a Swiss hotel with a BAT in a suit of armor, the BAT eats a 5,000-foot fall into a barn, Serpentor tells it to walk home, and then the Emperor of Cobra goes soft-eyed over “what an evil scoundrel he was.” That is the moment the episode tells you it is not interested in the military myth. It is interested in a checklist.

What actually happens on screen ? A cheesy Hotel heist, painting yoinked, Night Raven catch. Pan to a Terror Drome full of statues. Serpentor parks Genghis next to Henry V, swats a Viper, picks Cobra Commander up by the shirt, and annexes the room claiming ownership..LOLZ.

Next stop: Netherlands museum for Ulric the Batterer’s axe, Skullsplitter.

Joes are already in the area playing war games, which is the only part of this that feels like a real unit being in the wrong place at the right time. Or are they? CC tells Serpentor and Destro the Joe’s and NATO are doing training in this area..Destro and Serpentor simply say “YOLO BIOTCH” and dismiss that GREAT Intel info.

Leatherneck and Wet-Suit spend the whole episode in a Marine vs SEAL food fight. That rivalry is the most honest thing here. I have seen that exact energy in a team room.

Wet-Suit’s line about C-rats sautéed with dog food is the kind of trash talk that actually happens. And DAMMIT, I’m gunna make a stand here, C-RATS WERENT THAT BAD. Sliced beef and potatoes was SOLID. Yeah, the Ham and lima beans was a bit dry…but I’m tired of C Rations not getting proper respect!

Cobra blows a wall and floods the entire Town/City/Continent/world and Hydrofoils actually cruise over the wall. The Joe’s literally swim to a sporting good store and grab scuba gear underwater. FACEPALM

They hit the flooded museum, split, Low-Light and Dial-Tone do a decent BAT fight with a harpoon and ink. Leatherneck finds Serpentor, gets his weapon cut in half, uses a display shield, the axe dies on a guillotine set, Serpentor throws a tantrum. Tide goes out. Cobra leaves. Leatherneck comes back to NATO bragging. Wet-Suit wants the head. Lifeline has to physically get between them. That is unit dynamics. SOLID. We actually know these guys.

Then they fly Falcon gliders onto Castle Dracula because the next face is Vlad.

Wet-Suit throws surprise in the trash with a javelin-and-rope stunt off a gargoyle. Leatherneck has to fish him out of the moat. Inside, spikes, a BAT on a balance beam, Leatherneck shoots the beam. Serpentor recognizes the Marine who broke his toy axe and throws a dart tipped with his own blood. “Most deadly venom on the planet.” The dart misses, sticks through a door, Leatherneck leans on the door, thinks it’s a splinter, drops. That is the episode’s idea of a biological weapon: a magic emperor-blood dart and a punchline.

Now we’re in India, Wet-Suir and lifeline are attempting to get a sample of serpentors blood to make an anti venom for Leatherneck. We have a Snake-head cave, Face goes green, Now he is King Tashaka, lord of all serpents, looking for a pet he has not seen in five thousand years. Ten-foot cobra. BAT loses an arm. Serpentor drinks the venom like it’s a protein shake. Cobra Commander wants a taste. Serpentor dumps it on a table and the table melts.

Wet-Suit, who has spent the episode talking tough, freezes because he hates snakes. Lifeline has to shame him into letting the thing bite his wrapped arm so they can milk an antidote.

One grenade on the way out. Mothership gone. Mountain splits. Giant snake falls in a hole.

An egg hatches a baby snake so Cobra still has a souvenir. Leatherneck and Wet-Suit wake up in the same infirmary and immediately start insulting each other again. Hawk’s joke writes itself.

Gritty / SOLID
Marine/SEAL rivalry that does not resolve into a group hug until both men have actually paid for it.
Lifeline being the one who will walk into the snake den without a rifle and still run the mission. Medics like that exist.
Small-unit museum fight and the glider insert have the shape of a raid even when the physics are cartoon.
Leatherneck getting dropped by the guy whose relic he just broke. Cause and effect, at least.
Silly / Cartoon

Face-changing as a power-up animation. Every time he stands next to a statue he becomes a Halloween mask.

Rasputin in the stack. That one is a hard no.

A fictional serpent-king and a pet cobra the size of a truck as the “embodiment of all his power.”
BAT walks home from orbital-adjacent falling.

Table-melting nectar. One grenade deletes a mothership and cracks a mountain.

Serpentor, built from the worst and best warlords who ever lived, collecting paintings and drinking snake spit like a tourist.
Silly or Gritty? I say heavily silly with a couple of honest team speak trapped inside it. The Leatherneck / Wet-Suit thing works. The rest turns the Emperor into a man who cannot get dressed in the morning without the right antique. Serpentor should feel like

every great captain in history arguing in one skull. This episode gives him Rasputin, a costume change, and a favorite snake, and a HELL NO for anything remotely “realistic” in this one.

As always, tell me where I’m right, tell me where I’m wrong, or tell me your favorite C Ration!

-G.I.DAVE
YOOO JOE.