hit the dirt
scooby doo has always been the type of intellectual property i hop in and out
of depending on which series or movie it is so there are definitely several adaptations of which
i never got into i wanted to start rectifying that so i began in my free time watching some
scooby-doo here and there and catching up with what i've missed one of those versions
of scooby-doo was mystery incorporated a highly acclaimed two-season run of the series that wasn't
afraid to add a through line narrative story more serious tones character development and even
death yeah this isn't a pup named scooby-doo anymore and side note that yes that is still
my favorite series since mystery incorporated is heavily focused on story there is a lot of missed
context here but let me help fill in some of the connective tissue at this point in the series of
the episode we're talking about today the gang knows of older different mystery incorporated
crews that have existed and there are many parallels especially in this episode that show
a similar cycle of events and character beats that they finally start to pick up on and realize but
there is someone very important you need to know about before jumping into this episode and that is
cassidy williams a reoccurring character in this version of scooby-doo who shows up about a dozen
times more so in season two but because the show is semi-episodic and it's a lot harder to just
jump in at any given time not knowing who she is can truly ruin the purpose of her character
and why she is so important overall you wouldn't start watching the marvel cinematic universe films
at infinity war or end game would you the payoffs and spectacle while neat loses the reward feeling
that given significant purpose now have no real value to the viewer so a little bit about cassidy
to get you caught up to speed cassidy williams is one of the original members from the first
mystery incorporated more comparable to who velma is in her role today as the smart one on the team
obviously she has a lot more to her character and her previous pop-ups in the show but as far as
what you need to know for this episode that's the gist now there is a slight recap at the start of
the episode to help kind of catch you up but even though i will be discussing the major spoilers
of this episode i don't want to ruin the whole series for you as it has been a great experience
to watch all the way through the last thing that i'll state from the recap part as it literally
pertains to the opening of this episode we're talking about today is that cassidy is attacked
by a 1930s german robot that looks straight out of wolfenstein and she is able to best it but
not without the robot's now decapitated head blowing up the whole building she was in and
barely escaping and the episode we're talking about today is season 2 episode 11 the midnight
zone and this episode wastes no time putting you right in shortly after that explosion in the recap
the gang pulls up on cassie to see if she was all right they even brought her ointment thoughtful
she hate men it wasn't the ointment that startled her but instead an attack from another german
robot creeping up behind the gang she of course blasts it with ease remember when guns were in
so many cartoons like this is even an old series this specifically came out in 2012. regardless
cassidy then tells the team that she has been attacked by six robots over the last week and
she knows that the team hasn't been able to trust her in the past but she is willing to
answer all their questions now and despite her promise cassidy immediately shoots down
the first question daphne asked her about her past and the nature of her relationship with
the mysterious mr e again a significant plot point to the overall show that i don't want to take away
from this episode velma notices a rare sea snail on the arm of the shot robot so she confidently
concludes that the robot must find their origin in a specific deep trench off of crystal cove
just as velma makes this breakthrough a robot that had been lurking under the water nearby
attacks only for it to be quickly taken care of and probably not coming back from the you know
large harpoons speared through its chest the mystery incorporated team in cassidy agree
that they have to go to the underwater trench and daphne makes the call to get them there a
mysterious call shortly on the dock the mystery incorporated team plus cassidy stand waiting for
daphne's contact this contact shows itself to be two preteen boys who jump out of the water
in their matching dive gear and their pet sea lion who is also named scooby and this leads to
a bunch of scooby two and the old scooby type jokes and poor scooby that the disrespect is
unbelievable but technically the seal version of scooby came first as far as the two kids tom and
tub they used to actually be babysit by daphne and here's the fun fact about all this for you these
two characters and the seal are from an older hanna-barbera show moby dick and mighty miter
that came out in 1967 the original scooby-doo scooby-doo where are you came out in 1969 so that
makes the seal scooby like i said the technical original scooby from hannah barbera another fun
thing is that they make a mention of moby dick in what looks like a whale surfacing from the ocean
is instead a submarine designed after moby dick it's a nice little homage to the classics after
deciding to go under the crew are foreworn by a floating green giant diver sailor pirate witch
head thing telling the group that if they dare to dive beneath the waves then all they will find is
their doom shaggy and now scooby 2 quite fairly immediately try and tap out fred though is the
only one who's a bit more excited to go underwater and ushers everyone on board the submarine now
under the water cassidy has a heart to heart with daphne about love and missing chances
and living a full life of regret and how that feels and this also relates again to the deeper
story of cassidy throughout the series while the full story of it may not relate to what
we're discussing today there is still an important emotional impact here that will make sense their
heart to heart moment is quickly interrupted as a red light begins to blare alerting everyone
that in fact the sub has now entered the midnight zone i don't know that just sounds epic being in
the midnight zone as tub explains means that they are now so deep underwater that they are in total
darkness after a brief attack from a giant squid in underwater town can actually be
seen though velma recognized it as the lost town of missionaries that disappeared about 300 years
ago a disappearance that some say was the start of what cursed crystal cove the mystery inc team
in cassidy suit up and head out and pretty quickly after exiting moby the team notices strange holes
recently dug into the ocean floor with excavation flags and pickaxes still scattered around them
deeper in the ruins the gang also finds the skeletons of the missing missionaries from over
300 years ago and immediately after making this fine shaggy and scooby began opening waterlogged
cupboards looking for food to eat food left over from the missionaries which again have been dead
for 300 years what they find instead is another robot lying in the weight so the gang begins
to swim desperately away but realizing they'll never be able to outswim them daphne cries out
for tom and tub to help them before the boys can get there a robot swims up and snatches
shaggy's diving helmet with another two grabbing velma and daphne's tom tubb and their submarine
show up at the nick of time pulling the group into the submarine's airlock just before daphne
velma and shaggy run out of air as the sub starts to ascend three robots begin pushing the sub back
down compromising the mechanics in the sub as it scrapes across the ocean floor causing it to take
on water it's only due to cassidy's quick thinking that the group still in the airlock avoid drowning
for the second time in 10 minutes moby dick and everyone inside is sent careening off the edge of
the trench with the sub crashing into the wall on the far side and lodging itself there and as the
whale shaped submarine continues to take on water tom and tub look around noting that there's no way
the group's getting back to the surface until they find a place where they can lay low and make some
repairs this is where shaggy notices a massive underwater facility built into the wall of the
trench and suggests that the group goes in there left with no other options the group take moby
into the airlock of the underwater building as it being a brutalist growing green concrete lair
at the bottom of the ocean next to a cursed town wasn't enough of a cue for the mystery and gang
as to say this place is evil once the submarine is fully in the airlock the door seals shut and that
giant floating witch head shows up again this time informing the group that the sea will make them
pay for not heeding her warning she disappears as the room begins to fill up with water which really
brings up the question of how many times in one episode can you almost drown your main characters
before it starts losing the real urgency it had the first time well we may soon get somewhat of an
answer to that fred is excited by the excellent trap that they have found themselves in and in
fact is so distracted by the trap it takes daphne slapping him for him to focus enough to save their
lives fred recognizing the trap's design swims down pulls the release valve draining the room
and saving the team from davy jones's locker once again and thrilled by the fact that they're not
dead daphne hugs fred before remembering that she's supposed to be mad at him you know for
being fascinated that they're about to die but again this connection is still more in line with
the overall show plot for daphne and fred's characters and the only importance here with
this connection is still due to cassidy all of them go into a room in the heart of the facility
where it seems like robots are mining something and as a robot guard approaches their position
the group barely manages to hide in an air duct once in and now crawling around the air ducts
they reach the robot assembly room where they see conveyor belts of robots being put together
and if it wasn't bad enough the floating green witch head shows up again offering you guessed
it another cryptic threat proving herself a woman of her word the floating head takes control of all
the robots in the room including the half-finished ones and some spare parts and sends them after
the gang who come tumbling out of the air duct from the ceiling the gang clearly outnumbered
run with the robots in close pursuit they seal themselves in what appears to be oddly enough
a nursery but instead of children it's robots built in the size shape and with the mannerisms
of a baby who when awake began to scream alerting the full-sized grown robots to the
human's whereabouts the whole robot baby with or without the screaming is for whatever reason
legitimately terrifying i don't know if that's a me thing or a wee thing but it but it is a thing
the game begins to run again this time finding themselves outside of a control room determined
to find the origin of the floating witchy head that's been haunting them they go in not so fast
but instead of a living evil mastermind waiting for them what they find is the mummified corpse
of a floating woman who whispers the word nibiru did touching just whisper i heard it too nibiru is
related to this big event that happens later in season two of this show it's a major plot point
has little relevance to right now's discussion but it is a thing velma recognizes the body to be that
of frau abigail gluck a member of the benevolent lodge of mystery a mystery solving group founded
in the 1880s that much like the current mystery inc and the original mystery inc team went missing
consisted of four members and its animal companion daphne mentions the darrow family another mystery
solving group of the same setup which brings the number of mystery groups up to four
almost as if this has happened before a cycle like we've mentioned before a suddenly appearing
professor pericles one of the show's main villains confirms the speculation as correct from the top
of his army of robots professor pericles tells the gang about how he met frau in the 1930s and
how she had discovered that the missionaries had had the fifth and sixth pieces of the plane sphere
disc a map that would lead to a place of infinite treasure to aid her in her search for the missing
pieces frau had built this lab in a legion of robots and pericles later had found the lab and
restarted it in order to continue the search using a holographic projection of frau's mummified face
to buy himself some time unfortunately for the group of meddling kids the professor had actually
found the missing piece he was looking for and that they no longer had need for this lab deciding
to destroy it and the gang in one go pericles gets into a pod and escapes leaving the gang to
fight off an army of robots as the self-destruct timer begins to count down the group books it
to moby but learn that the sub is stuck and can't leave unless someone stays behind to manually keep
the door open cassidy without hesitation offers herself up promising that she'll be right behind
them and with time running out the gang plus tom tubb and the seal named scooby climb into
the submarine but daphne takes a moment to speak with cassidy continuing their heart to heart from
earlier and putting some dots together figuring out why cassidy spoke with her earlier and this
gives a bit of closure for one of cassidy's overall character arcs as daphne climbs into the
sub cassidy puts on her helmet and forces the door open as the army of robots gets even closer when
the countdown ends the lab falls into the trench below pulling the missionary town down as moby
swims away safely but with no sign of cassidy in sight back at the surface the group scours
the water looking for her but when scooby the seal comes up holding cassidy's shattered diving helmet
the team loses hope they look on across the water hoping that their suspicions about cassidy's fate
being wrong and then it just ends that's that's the episode the show gave us some good laughs
with some great writing throughout this episode but in the end the tone kept getting darker and
darker and like i've stated in other similar videos this isn't dark as in scary trust me i
would have picked plenty of other scooby-doo episodes if that were the case but as far
as what they gave us this was a pretty grim adventure you know minus the billy or the mandy
to end an episode with the presumed death of a character nearly drown or have robots that
have this killzone hell guys look nearly kill off your main characters many times and to just
roll credits all somber as to respect cassidy but see you in the next episode scooby-doo fans
i don't know it was definitely a lot more intense than the scooby-doo i've watched in the past i do
however love this tone shift for scooby-doo watching this as an adult makes me wonder why
i skipped this iteration of the franchise scooby doo mystery incorporated is way better than it
had any right to be and episodes like this that leave you with an uneasy feeling and ultimate
sacrifice you just don't get this kind of stuff in cartoons all the time obviously like in my earlier
mcu reference you can't just jump into this one i had to stop myself from explaining what happened
before all of this and what actually happens next the theories around it all and how maybe
a certain character is both dead and not dead at the same time but you'll have to watch the
series for yourself to get it all i know i'll have certain comments saying something about at the end
of the season this and the finale of the show that and yes i know what happens but it's not
to the point of this video about this episode so please understand that this was a real treat to go
and discover something i overlooked to find this hidden gem of a darker episode from the scooby-doo
franchise as a whole as well as the greatness of this two-season version of scooby-doo if you
have seen it please let me know in the comments your thoughts on this series as well as what you
think of this episode if you haven't seen it both seasons are actually on netflix at the moment at
least here in the us so i highly recommend that you give it a shot i know this was a bit longer of
a video than usual most times when we discuss an episode of something it ends up being a 12 minute
segment of an episode and since this was a full length 24 minute episode of a show there was a lot
more to it and i had a lot more to say so if you enjoy videos like this make sure to hit that like
button for me it truly helps out the video and i very much so appreciate it and also subscribe
if you haven't i am beyond speechless for the overwhelming support and i am very grateful
you take the time to watch these i'll be back with another video later this week but until then
later
you