LAST TIME ON JOURNEY TO THE WEST:
Uh, let's see...
Everyone got kidnapped,
Monkey killed the two guys who did it and got a lot of swag,
but then he had to give up the swag,
and also the two guys weren't dead after all,
but at least the kidnapping thing got fixed.
Now after that narrative cul-de-sac, it's time to continue
on The Journey To The West™
So our heroes are trekking westward,
having just wrapped up another wacky adventure I didn't see fit to animate,
when they come upon a huge, craggy mountain that's giving off some serious bad vibes.
Monkey's starting to recognise a pattern when it comes to the gang dealing with ominous mountains,
and has barely managed to get a warning out
before the mountain barfs out a huge, red cloud that immediately lights up into a fireball.
Like with a lot of demons they've faced, only Monkey can actually see the demon cloud
but the gang has learned to trust his judgement enough
that nobody bats an eye when Monkey yoinks Tripitaka off the horse and prepares for combat.
But the demon in the cloud notices Monkey noticing him
and, deciding that it would be best to avoid a direct confrontation with anything powerful enough to see him,
vanishes back into the mountain.
Monkey goes all "Huh. False alarm. All right, let's keep moving."
and bundles Tripitaka back onto the horse so they can get through the spooky mountain as quickly as possible.
But the demon isn't gone, just plotting.
He decides to try a more sneaky tactic to get close to the group,
so he plops himself down about a mile from the gang
and turns himself into an emaciated little kid, tied up and hanging from a pine tree.
Then he starts yelling for help.
Tripitaka's like "Hey, it sounds like someone needs help."
and Monkey's like "Well, good for someone."
and does a little spell to jump their progress up the mountain so they're well out of earshot.
Add that to the list of things Monkey could do to make the entire journey moot
that he won't do because it doesn't gel with the allegorical journey.
Anyway, the demon kid is like "Where the hell are those guys?"
and sees that they're inexplicably way farther up the mountain than he expected,
and they bypassed him altogether.
So he catches up to them, plops himself down nearby,
and repeats his helpless dangling orphan routine.
Of course, the demon briefly returning to cloud form means Monkey once again spots the demon cloud
and tackles Tripitaka off the horse
so Tripitaka is almost too busy yelling at him to hear the oh so pitiful cries for help just over the ridge
but hear him he does,
and Tripitaka finds the extremely helpless and pitiful-looking child dangling from a nearby tree.
The child introduces himself as Red Boy,
and tearfully recounts his entire life story, which boils down to:
"mY dAd iS dEaD aNd mY mOm hAs bEeN aBdUcTeD bY bAnDiTs wHo LeFt mE tO sTaRvE!!!"
Tripitaka is like "I instantly believe you!
Pigsy, cut this poor boy down!"
and Pigsy's like "I also instantly believe you,
and will of course cut this poor boy down!"
but Monkey is like "Guys, seriously?
This whole thing makes no sense!
Besides, even if he is telling the truth,
everyone who could possibly take care of this kid is dead,
so there's no point in rescuing him!"
This... logic fails to convince the others,
who rescue the boy and start on figuring out who gets to carry him.
After running through the options they settle on Monkey,
who recalls his track record for carrying disguised demons,
and immediately agrees.
So Monkey carries Red Boy, who he notes with some amusement weighs barely 5 pounds,
but gradually gets grumpier and grumpier with Tripitaka,
both for making him carry this kid and for not listening to his extremely logical reasoning
about leaving highly suspicious orphans well enough alone.
Red Boy senses his building anger,
and surreptitiously attempts to weigh him down with magic,
which monkey thinks is hilarious.
Red Boy freaks out, and drops his body just in time to avoid getting ripped apart by Monkey,
and decides it's now or never on kidnapping Tripitaka.
One giant whirlwind later, Tripitaka is gone
and monkey is so thoroughly disheartened,
he tells Sandy and Pigsy they should disband right then and there.
Pigsy's like "Finally!" but Sandy freaks out,
and gives an impassioned and heartfelt speech about redemption and second chances,
and it's so moving even Pigsy changes his mind about abandoning the quest
like he's been wanting to do since episode 2.
Monkey shakes off his 'nobody listens to me' funk,
and gets down to business figuring out where exactly Red Boy took Tripitaka.
So they search the area for clues for a while,
but when nothing turns up, Monkey gets frustrated
and pulls out the giant three-headed, six-armed war form he used when he rampaged through heaven.
He then starts lashing out in every direction,
which turns out to have been more than just blind frustration
and a well-documented lust for rampant destruction,
as his emotional episode causes the local mountain gods to pop out at their hidey holes
so Monkey can interrogate them about where a demon might possibly be holding up.
Now, the mountain gods tell Monkey all about the demon.
There's only one living on this entire enormous mountain,
because he is an absolute terror and has single-handedly made the whole place miserable.
Thanks to him, the mountain is so inhospitable that the gods barely have enough incense and offerings to get by
and the demon has been running a mafia-style shakedown racket,
demanding regular tributes from the mountain gods despite the fact that none of them have any money.
Now, the demon in question is the son of the Bull Demon King,
but was sent away to be raised by Rakshasi and spent many years cultivating his latent fire controlling abilities,
to the point where he's now capable of calling on something called The True Fire of Samedi.
After he completed his training, the Bull Demon King sent him to guard this mountain
and he currently lives in this place called Fiery Cloud Cave,
which the mountain gods give Monkey directions to.
Now, as soon as Monkey hears that Red Boy is the son of the Bull Demon King,
all his worries melt away
because you might recall from his origin story way back in episode 1,
Monkey was actually friends with the Bull Demon King way back in the day,
making Red Boy something approximating his nephew.
Obviously, families never get in fights
So Monkey's confident that as soon as he explains this to Red Boy,
everything will be fixed and they'll get Tripitaka back no problem.
So Monkey and Pigsy zip over to Fiery Cloud Cave
and demand that Red Boy send out Tripitaka.
Instead, he sends out these five weird carts
and arranges them according to the five phases,
and then comes out looking for a fight.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Monkey's little
"Hey, man I was friends with your dad 500 years ago!"
argument fails to persuade him to knock it off and they fight.
Pigsy observes that while they're roughly evenly matched, Monkey has Red Boy on the defensive
so in a bid for glory, he dives in and wacks him with his rake.
Red Boy responds by diving into one of the carts from earlier,
and subsequently punching himself twice in the face.
But there's a method to his madness, as Red Boy recites a spell
and immediately shoots fire out of every hole in his face.
Fire also erupts from the carts and while Pigsy books it across the river,
Monkey makes a fire repelling charm and dives into the inferno.
But he can't find Red Boy in all the smoke,
so he jumps clear of the fire and returns to the others,
specifically to tear Pigsy a new one for bailing just when the fight was getting good.
They argue strategy for a while until Sandy recommends that,
since Red Boy's hand-to-hand combat skills are relatively underdeveloped
and he seems to mostly rely on his fire powers instead,
maybe they should focus on finding a way to put out the fire instead of just arguing.
So Monkey jets off to the eastern ocean to conscript the help of one of the Dragon Kings
in whipping up a little rain storm.
After hemming and hawing over paperwork for a while,
since making a proper storm requires the approval of the Jade Emperor,
the great dragon surreptitiously loans Monkey one of his armies and sends him back.
So monkey heads back to the cave with the dragon army hiding in the clouds overhead,
and picks another fight with Red Boy,
who again starts lagging behind and busts out the Flames of Samedi when the fight goes south.
The dragon army breaks out the rain,
but the flames react unexpectedly to the downpour
and actually get stronger
because The True Fire of Samedi is too powerful to be put out by an unlicensed thunderstorm.
When Monkey tries to find Red Boy among the flames,
the demon ambushes him and blasts smoke in his eyes, blinding him.
Now, as has been previously established Monkey is fairly fireproof
but technically, he's only immune to normal fire and heavenly fire.
The True Fire of Samedi isn't either of those things
and is actually managing to hurt him.
Red Boy smokes him again,
so monkey blindly launches himself out of the inferno and into the nearest river,
where the temperature shock knocks him out.
The dragon army freaks out and summons Sandy and Pigsy to help monkey,
and you know It's serious 'cause they use their actual celestial titles instead of their nicknames.
Sandy fishes him out of the water and freaks out in turn because he looks pretty dead
but Pigsy scoffs, elbows him to one side
and revives monkey with a few well-placed smacks on the back.
Score one for Pigsy actually doing something beneficial for a change.
So Monkey's alive but is fairly messed up, both emotionally and physically.
The fact that he can't rescue Tripitaka is almost taking more of a toll on him
than the whole being set on fire and nearly drowning thing.
So he concludes that, since they can't solve this on their own,
the only thing to do is to go and get Quan Yin's help.
Unfortunately, he's too weak to make the journey
which means Pigsy has to do it instead.
So Pigsy sets off southward towards Quan Yin's place,
but Red Boy notices him leaving and realizes the only thing in that direction is Quan Yin,
so that's probably where Pigsy's heading
So he takes a gamble, transforms to look like Quan Yin and intercepts Pigsy.
He tells Pigsy that Red Boy is an eminently reasonable guy
and they should just go to his cave and talk things out with him
and of course the minute they get to the cave,
Red Boy ambushes Pigsy and takes him prisoner.
Meanwhile, Monkey gets a bad feeling about how long Pigsy's taking
and drags himself off to the cave to see what's wrong.
He reflexively picks a fight with the guards,
but immediately realizes he won't actually be able to take them in a fight
so he transforms into a fancy but harmless gold scarf
which the guards bring into the cave.
After a little duplicate and replace action,
Monkey turns into a fly and starts snooping around.
There he finds Pigsy, tied up in a bag yelling about how he got tricked,
but before monkey can break him out
he overhears Red Boy ordering six of his minions
to go and invite the 'Venerable Great King' over to dinner.
Monkey takes a gamble on who the 'Venerable Great King' might be
and takes a page out of Red Boy's book by
transforming himself to look like the Bull Demon King
then intercepting the minions en route and heading back to the cave with them.
So Red Boy's like "Father, you won't believe what I've caught!
It's that reincarnation of Golden Cicada! The monk Tripitaka!"
and Monkey's like "Whoa, Tripitaka?
But I hear he's under the protection of the terrifying and devastatingly handsome Sun Wukong.
You'd best be careful. That tricky monkey could be anywhere.
Looking like anyone.
His shape-shifting powers sure are impressive is what I'm saying."
"Ha! There's nothing impressive about that Monkey and his powers can't be that versatile.
I'm sure I'd recognise him at a glance."
"Hmm, you sure about that?"
Anyway, Monkey says he'd love to eat Tripitaka but he just can't today.
See, he's trying out this new diet where you go vegetarian four days a month
and, well, he doesn't want to break his streak.
But Red Boy gets suspicious of that, because his dad is always down for human snacks.
So Red Boy's like "Hey, uh, father,
do you know it slipped my mind but, um...
any chance you could tell me the exact hour and date of my birth?"
and Monkey's like "Oho, well
I'm far too old to remember such a weirdly specific fact about you."
and Red Boy's like "My father NEVER shuts up about my birthday!"
and attacks.
Monkey reveals himself, throws in a last bit of sassing
and vanishes in a flash of light.
So Monkey returns to Sandy,
feeling refreshed and renewed from pulling one over on his opponent
and uses his renewed enthusiasm for life to jet off and find Quan Yin.
So monkey arrives at Quan Yin's mountain and info dumps the situation.
Quan Yin responds with characteristic grace and nonchalance
until she learns that Red Boy impersonated her
at which point she flies into a rage and hucks her sacred vase into the ocean.
Turns out she kind of did it on purpose, though.
A helpful turtle brings the vase back to her
and when she asks Monkey to pick it up and bring it over,
he finds that he can't lift it
because, as it turns out, it's been filled with an ocean's worth of water.
So Quan Yin tells him that the water in the vase can put out the Flames of Samedi,
but since monkey can't carry it, and she doesn't trust him with any of her servants or possessions
It looks like she's got no choice but to go with him and take care of the problem herself.
So after some banter and shenanigans,
Quan Yin, her servant Moksha, and Monkey start heading for the mountain.
Along the way, Quan Yin borrows the swords of constellations from a friendly devaraja
and transforms them into a replica of her lotus platform.
When they get to the mountain, Quan Yin summons all the mountain gods,
orders them to evacuate every living creature within 300 miles
and then dumps out the vase.
The ocean that results perfectly mirrors her home in the southern sea.
Then she takes Monkey's hand, paints the character for delusion on it
and orders him to go pick a fight with Red Boy and lure him back to her.
So Monkey goes and kicks a hole in Red Boy's front door,
then lures him to Quan Yin.
Monkey vanishes into Quan Yin's divine aura
and Red Boy decides that this is in no way a trap
and is in fact the perfect time for him to pick a fight with a bodhisattva.
He goes to whack Quan Yin with his spear but she vanishes,
so he resorts to yelling insults into apparently empty air.
In fact, Red Boy is so confident in his triumph over Monkey and Quan Yin
that he thinks maybe he'll just take a seat
right here on this big fancy lotus platform she's so proud of.
So Quan Yin does a thing with her vase and the Lotus platform reverts to its true form
aka a metric f*** ton of swords
with predictably painful results for Red Boy.
So Red Boy freaks out as Quan Yin reveals herself,
and begs her to make him her servant and also make the stabbing go away.
One quick haircut later, Quan Yin does just that
dispelling the swords as well as Red Boy's many and exceedingly uncomfortable injuries.
True to form, Red Boy's confidence immediately returns
and he declares the whole thing a trick and charges Quan Yin.
Monkey dives in to block the attack, but there's no need,
as Quan Yin throws a golden ring at Red Boy which splits into five
that constrict around his wrists, ankles and neck.
Monkey recognises what's up, and as Red Boy moves to attack again
Quan Yin recites a spell that's similar but not quite the same as the migraine spell
and the rings immobilise Red Boy completely.
So Quan Yin's like "Okay, this is mine now, go rescue your master."
and Monkey books it back to Sandy to do just that.
Pigsy and Tripitaka get rescued, Quan Yin gets a new servant
and everything's cool again,
so our heroes can continue on their Journey To The West™
WILL TRIPITAKA EVER ESCAPE HIS CONSTANT STRING OF KIDNAPPINGS?
WILL MONKEY LEARN TO CALL FOR BACKUP BEFORE GETTING SET ON FIRE?
AND IS THIS THE LAST WE'LL HEAR OF THE BULL DEMON KING?
FIND OUT NEXT TIME ON JOURNEY TO THE WEST!