Recap / Captain Planet And The Planeteers S 1 E 24 And 25 Two Futures

Wheeler and Dr. Blight are trapped in a cave-in together and running out of air. When Wheeler voices his wish that he'd never gotten the Fire Ring, Dr. Blight pushes him into the time pool. Wheeler prevents himself from joining the Planeteers, causing a horrific future for his teammates, his city, and the world.

This episode includes examples of the following tropes:

• Aesop Collateral Damage: The entire world gets destroyed to teach Wheeler that everyone has to play their part.
• Affably Evil: Downplayed. Though he's not extremist enough to demand more than a few spare coins from the people he's influencing, the Bad Future Ma-Ti has lost his scruples about using the mind-control facet of his Heart power. However, he's still about as friendly as his younger self. When Wheeler unthinkingly addresses him by name, Ma-Ti apologizes for having forgotten who he is.
• Almost Out of Oxygen: Wheeler yawns and laments being stuck in a boring cave on New Year's Eve. Then MAL chimes in with the news that he's yawning out of oxygen deprivation, not boredom.
• Artistic License – Physics: Wheeler's inaction in helping the planet caused an ozone layer hole over Russia, which would not happen as the Ozone Hole can only be over Antarctica because it can only happen over super-cold areas, no other place on Earth can have that happen to it – not even the North Pole.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Linka is one of the most distraught of the Planeteers when Wheeler gets trapped. According to Gi, the plan to tunnel through the ice to save him was hers, and when they finally dig him out, she hugs him and says she was so worried.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Wheeler finds out that he could well die and wishes in a fit of pique that he'd never accepted the ring. He almost immediately regrets it, but Dr. Blight coaxes him and points out that if he changes time, this dangerous situation will never happen. When he's beside the time pool, she shoves him in, and Wheeler warns his past self against taking the ring. This results in a future where the world is in ruins, the other Planeteers are barely scraping by, Captain Planet never existed, and Gaia is dead.
• Cruel to Be Kind: In theory, Gaia could have brought Wheeler to Hope Island, so that he could see the horrible future on the Planet Vision. Instead, she makes MAL send him thirty-five years forward in time, and stops responding from the moment he goes to talk to Gi. She reappears only after the timeline is restored, Wheeler gets saved, and Captain Planet sends the Eco-Villains to the good future. However, without the first-hand experience, Wheeler might not have understood the lesson.
• Dead Alternate Counterpart: After being unable to get any of his teammates to re-form the Planeteers, Wheeler heads for Hope Island as his last chance. Once there, he finds Greedly has transformed the place into a pleasure resort. He manages to locate Gaia, or rather, her lifeless body, in the toxic waste dump.
• Diving Save: The Bad Future Kwame tackles Wheeler to the ground when he arrives in his part of the world because a group of people trying to take the oasis are throwing shells at them.
• Dropping the Bombshell: In the bad future, when Wheeler arrives to Hope Island and finds Gaia lying lifelessly among toxic waste, he drops to his knees, effectively begging her to not be dead. However, a moment later, Greedly shows up and coldly makes it clear to him that it's not going to work.
  Wheeler: Not you, Gaia! You're the Spirit of the Earth!
  Hoggish Greedly (from behind Wheeler): She WAS the Spirit of Earth. Past tense, kid.
• Failed a Spot Check: The Wheeler of a year ago, watching the ring fall into his hand, is oblivious to his two future selves running towards him and colliding right in front of him.
• Face-Revealing Turn: A non-monster example; as Wheeler emerges from the time stream in Ma-Ti's neighborhood, he initially fails to see a beggar with his back turned. When the beggar turns around, he sees that it's Ma-Ti, thirty-five years older and much sadder after his people's lives were destroyed along with the rain forest.
• Friendship Moment: Gi and Kwame often argue with Wheeler over the issue of the week and can sometimes be snappish when he doesn't understand things. However, when Wheeler gets trapped in a cave-in, leaving him with a limited supply of air, they and Ma-Ti unhesitantly spend a couple of hours tunneling through the ice to retrieve him.
• Hammerspace: It's a mystery where Linka's portable keyboard at the end came from.
• Heart Is an Awesome Power: In the alternate future created by Wheeler not joining the Planeteers, Ma-Ti uses his ring with far less restraint – he uses the power of Heart to brainwash passersby into giving their money to the less fortunate. Which, admittedly, is still wrong, but the end goal is nice in a Robin Hood sort of way.
• He Knows Too Much: Greedly, seeing Wheeler wandering around and hearing him say something about Greedly's past activities, comments that such knowledge is a dangerous thing... for the person who knows it.
• Hey, You!: Wheeler never gives his name, so the older Planeteers from the alternate timeline have to find something else to call him. Their terms vary from businesslike ("young man" from Gi and Linka) to affectionate ("young one" from Ma-Ti). The Planeteer who matches the usual disrespectful connotation of the trope best is Kwame, who's grown considerably gruffer over thirty-five years' time and defaults to calling Wheeler "boy".
• I Don't Want to Die: Wheeler gives up on his mission entirely when he realizes that he'll most likely suffocate before the others dig him out, especially when Dr. Blight points out that the only way out might be to prevent things from getting this far in the first place. He explicitly warns his past self that the ring will get them killed. After seeing the Bad Future that resulted, he seems to forget about this entirely.
• Inadvertent Entrance Cue: As Dr. Blight gripes about Wheeler's glee at being back, saying that the air is almost depleted and they're still trapped, Gi breaks the last of the ice separating them from the outside.
• It's a Wonderful Plot: Wheeler ends up trapped in a cave with Dr. Blight and the time portal she came to use. Upset, he voices a wish that he'd never gotten his Fire Ring, which Dr. Blight happily grants by shoving him into the portal. Gaia then shows him the future of each area, including a Hope Island in bad shape, so he goes back in time to undo his changes and return things to normal. The Eco-Villains escape into the timeline but end up in a better future thanks to the (now middle-aged) Planeteers.
• Maddened Into Misanthropy: Gi becomes a downplayed example in the Bad Future created by Wheeler's absence. She's still capable of friendliness. However, on the whole she prefers the last remaining sea life to humans, living alone on an island and stating she doesn't miss people.
• Mathematician's Answer: While she and Wheeler are discussing the planned time trip, Wheeler asks what happened to his teammates in the future. Gaia dryly answers that they aged thirty-five years.
• Multiple-Choice Future: Wheeler's interfering with the past leads to a nightmare future. After he sets things back to normal, the villains try to go back in time to create a future which would benefit them, but Captain Planet instead sends them to an idyllic future. After witnessing the latter on MAL's screens, Gi asks if the vision means that everything will turn out alright, but Gaia doesn't give a straightforward answer.
  Gaia: The future is only a possibility, until you make it happen.
• New Year Has Come: The episode starts on New Year's Eve and ends right as the new year starts. Linka brings out a small keyboard and sings "Auld Lang Syne", and in a few moments, the Planeteers join in the song.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Wheeler's decision to turn down the Fire Ring, as he believes it would be easy for the team to find another bearer, spirals into the team's breakup, Earth's destruction and Gaia's death. Luckily, he's able to fix it again by keeping his recent past self from interfering with his earlier past self.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: MAL's observation that he and Dr. Blight are running out of oxygen tips Wheeler over the edge into frustration with his status as a Planeteer. He's fought hard for the environment, and it got him into this cave-in. Captain Planet can't dig them out because of the pollution, and the other Planeteers may or may not manage to get through before they use up all the air.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Kwame, Gi, and Linka bitterly complain about how things went downhill because others didn't help and snap at Wheeler when he tries to pull them into a last-ditch effort to save the planet, which they consider impossible at this stage. Ma-Ti, fittingly, deals a mostly friendly but no less painful guilt trip. When Wheeler coaxes him to try to save the world rather than just his home, Ma-Ti praises the amount of heart he has and wishes he could have known him when he was a young Planeteer. This doesn't make Wheeler feel any better, given that he knows he was supposed to be a Planeteer.
• Platonic Kissing: After spending a horrifying few hours exploring a Bad Future where the team broke up, Wheeler returns. When Dr. Blight starts yelling in frustration about him coming back, he kisses her on the cheek, being overjoyed that everything has returned to normal.
• Previously on…: Part 2 opens with a conversation between Wheeler and Gaia, recapping the second half of Part 1. He tries to justify his actions, and she patiently explains their consequences.
• Race Against the Clock: A time-sensitive element comes into play as soon as part of the cave collapses, trapping Wheeler and Dr. Blight away from any fresh air. The others barely manage to tunnel through the ice barrier before the pair use up the last of the oxygen, and Gi admits that Linka's plan to do so was a long shot.
• Refusal of the Call: Wheeler decides he'd have been better off not being a Planeteer, so he goes back in time and convinces himself to refuse the Fire Ring. This results in a hellish present where there isn't a Planeteer team. Wheeler then has to go back and stop himself from stopping himself.
• Ret-Gone: Attempted by the Eco-Villains. They jump into the time stream, with Dr. Blight gloating that they're going to make sure the Planeteers were never born. However, Captain Planet spins the pool in the opposite direction, sending them into the future, which is now substantially better, much to their distaste.
• Set Wrong What Was Once Made Right: Wheeler goes back in time to warn his past self about becoming a Planeteer, so he wouldn't die in an ice cave. However, the side effect of his actions is that there was nobody to stop Greedly and Rigger from going to the past themselves and accelerating the global warming process. After being shown the resulting Bad Future, Wheeler goes back once more to stop his recent past self from stopping his more distant past self.
• Silk Hiding Steel:
  • In order to make Wheeler understand the consequences of his messing with time, Gaia first politely asks MAL to send him into the future. Predictably, MAL is unwilling, even asking disdainfully what would happen if he were to refuse. Gaia points out to him that he's rather close to the North Pole, asks him what could happen if the Earth's magnetic field were to suddenly become a lot more powerful, and without missing a beat, carries out the threat. MAL quickly realizes where this is going, and gives in.
    MAL: Wait! Ouch! Stop! Don't! The magnetism will erase my data! Ow...! (clicks tongue) All right, I'll do it. No need to get geophysical.
  • Later, after the all the crises have been dealt with, Gaia asks MAL to show the future in which the villains ended up. This time, he doesn't even try arguing.
    MAL: Of c-course, m-madam! Right away!
• Temporal Duplication: In Part 2, there are ultimately three versions of Wheeler in one scene - the one from January the 5th (that is, the correct one) and two from December the 31st, only an hour apart from each other.
• Trees into Toothpicks: The episode ends with the villains trapped in a version of the future where everyone is actively trying to protect and care for the environment. Hoggish Greedly gives a speech about how, in the 20th century, "if you wanted a toothpick, you chopped down a forest", prompting one young girl to ask how "stupid, selfish people" like Greedly could have had any influence.
• Two-Faced Aside: Dr. Blight begs Captain Planet to dig out her and Wheeler, promising to behave herself from now on. Then she adds to the viewer that she'll lie her head off to get out of here.
• The Unreveal: While we learn of what happened to the other Planeteers' future selves, Wheeler, despite seeing his home destroyed in the future, doesn't even think to stop and find his alternate future self to see how much it changed for him (especially unusual given that Wheeler changed history to avoid dying in an ice cave).
• Wasn't That Fun?: The Planeteers have to slide/tumble down an ice tunnel during the current mission. Afterwards, Ma-Ti says that once the mission is complete, he wants to repeat the experience.
• Wasteland Elder: Linka appears as an authority figure in the bad future, handing out food to the starving people and making sure (with force if necessary) that they leave some for others.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: Three-quarters of the remaining Planeteers have gotten used to using their powers in less benevolent ways in the alternate future.
  • Kwame appears as an embattled old man using his Earth power to protect Africa's last remaining oasis.
  • Linka uses her Wind power on a civilian who demands more food, because they need to ration the food to have enough for the villages she supplies.
  • Ma-Ti, now a beggar, uses his Heart power to brainwash an apathetic businessman into donating money, which he gives to a local woman so she can buy food for her daughter.
• You Remind Me of X: When Wheeler meets the Bad Future version of Gi, it takes him a few moments to remember that she doesn't know who he is. He explains away his unusual behavior by telling her that she reminds him of someone he knew who also loved the environment a lot.