West and Silas Grigsby (William Schallert), a U.S. Archive curator, arrive in the Panhandle Strip, where Gordon awaits them in disguise. A freelance revolutionary named Victor Freemantle (Harold Gould) has possession of the U. S. Constitution and demands sovereignty of the area and $1 million in exchange for its safe return. Facing interference from Freemantle's associates, as well as extremely elaborate measures put in place to protect the stolen document, West and Gordon set out to foil the villains' schemes.
Disguises used by Artie: One-eyed Gunslinger
(12:25); Honest Johns, Liquor Salesman (16:50)
Tropes present in this episode:
- Acid Pool: Freemantle hides the Constitution in his labyrinthic Elaborate Underground Base. The last obstacle before the room he's put the precious document in is a long corridor the bottom of which is a pool filled with boiling red acid. West uses an Improvised Zipline conceived by Artie to cross it the second time (for his first time there, he was brought there blindfolded and crossed a removable bridge) to retrieve the Constitution and come back. As somewhat expected, Freemantle dies by falling in the pool.
- Alliterative Name: Clint Cartwheel.
- Blackmail: Freemantle stole the original U.S. Constitution in order to blackmail the U.S. government into granting independence to the Panhandle Strip, ceasing diplomatic relations with Mexico and, of course, giving him a million dollars in gold.
- Blindfolded Trip: Grigsby and West are blindfolded as they're brought into the bowels of Freemantle's Elaborate Underground Base. About half of the way, they're turned around several times by Freemantle's men so they won't know which direction they took inside.
- The Caper: Jim and Artie must break into the vault of a conquistador-era treasure depository to steal back the original Constitution.
- Cassandra Truth: Grigsby doesn't listen to Artie at the end and turns the knob on the train's wall, which causes a contraption with two revolvers that were on the table to shoot him dead.
- Co-Dragons: Carlotta Waters (Madlyn Rhue) and Clint Cartwheel (Timmy Brown), Freemantle's lieutenants.
- Dating Catwoman: West makes out with Carlotta and later resolves to write her in prison.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Cartwheel threatens to whip Jim "free, for nothing, without cost."
- Divided States of America: Freemantle plans to blackmail the Grant administration so he can create his own independent state in the Panhandle Strip.
- Dragon Their Feet: Carlotta Waters isn't around for the agents' final showdown with her boss, but she turns up soon afterwards, having gone into business on her own account (although, in her defense, Jim and Artie dispatch the Big Bad with almost unseemly ease with more than 10 minutes left to go in the show).
- Elaborate Underground Base: Freemantle's labyrinthic subterranean base, where he hides the stolen Constitution. It dates back to the Conquistador era in 1557 and he added armored doors, an elevator and an Acid Pool to protect the room where he put the Constitution. Artie found a model of it at the Museum of Architecture of Mexico and he and West use it to plan their heist to retrieve the Constitution. Artie then ships the model back to Mexico at the end.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: Victor Freemantle is a South American whose gang consists mostly of white men, but includes a black man and a white woman as Co-Dragons. West rather chauvinistically assumes that Carlotta is Victor's girlfriend and has to be corrected.
- Femme Fatale: Carlotta Waters. As Artie puts it, "Lovely but lethal."
- Grappling-Hook Pistol: West uses one of his Derringers to shoot the Improvised Zipline's hook on the other side of the Acid Pool.
- Hollywood Acid: The titular "bubbling death" is a long corridor the botton of which is an acid pool, as the final part of Freemantle's Death Course that protects the stolen Constitution. Depicted as cherry red instead of the usual green or yellow, it dissolves anything it touches without a trace — which Freemantle proves when he falls into the acid as the climax of the fight he and his Mooks have with Jim and Artie.
- Improvised Zipline: West uses one conceived by Artie to go over the Acid Pool, after shooting a grappling hook with his Derringer.
- In Medias Res: The episode begins with West and Grigsby arriving in the Panhandle Strip to negotiate the return of the stolen Constitution. No details of the theft are ever divulged, although given the episode's final Plot Twist, the "how" can be easily guessed at.
- Just Between You and Me: Artie talks Freemantle into revealing enough about the hiding place of the real Constitution before he and West get rid of him ("Where my lady fair can stare at it for hours", i.e. behind her mirror) .
- Lured into a Trap: It turns out the Constitution that's kept under heavy protection within Freemantle's Elaborate Underground Base is a fake to lure would-be robbers, as Artie and West find out. Artie still manages to talk Freemantle into revealing enough about the hiding place of the real document before the fight that sends Freemantle to his death in the Acid Pool erupts.
- The Mole: Silas Grigsby. Which explains how the Constitution ended up in Freemantle's hands in the first place.
- Scary Black Man: NFL running back Timmy Brown as bullwhip-wielding goon Clint Cartwheel.
- Schmuck Bait: The strange knob on the wall inside West and Gordon's train that sticks out like a sore thumb activates a Booby Trap that will shoot the person turning it. Grigsby ends up fooled into turning it.
- Traveling Salesman: Artie poses as the proprietor of a "traveling groggery" at one point.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Cartwheel never wears a shirt, just a pair of bandoliers over his chest.
