Tygra is out on patrol when a raging forest fire starts burning out of control. In the ensuing chaos and stampede of animals trying to escape the inferno, he almost gets into a fight with someone who turns out to be Willa, who's on the hunt for the source of the fireballs bombarding her village and destroying her forest. She knows it's the Mutants, not the Thundercats doing it, but she can't help but feel they're partially responsible for bringing their war to her backyard — if they hadn't led the Mutants to Third Earth, none of this would be happening. They're interrupted by Monkian, but Tygra takes him down easily. Tygra's determined to stop the attacks and prove to the Queen of the Warrior Maidens that the Thundercats are her friends, so the two go to Castle Plun-darr together to figure how the Mutants are doing this and how to stop them. The rest of the Thundercats are busy at Cats Lair, Lion-O getting too worried even to focus on his game with Snarf since Tygra hasn't returned from patrol, none of them with any inkling of the danger their friend's walking into.
The two spies arrive at the castle and almost get their heads blown off by a fireball launcher. Since it stops shooting at them after that one shot, Tygra theorizes that it's an automatic security system, that they haven't been spotted yet. Since they clearly can't walk in through the front door, though, he uses his whip to make a tightrope across a chasm around back. That gets them closer, but they still have to cross the moat. Tygra tells Willa to stay behind and follow if he doesn't come back, then turns invisible to swim across the moat.
Unfortunately, the Mutants have other security measures in place, like filling the moat with something phosphorescent, which shows a golden, shimmering Thundercat shape clearly swimming through the moat. Slythe tries to catch him with the Nose Diver, but Tygra manages to take it out with a boulder that proves too big for it to grind up. He finds an underwater pipe leading into the castle and swims inside, only to be stopped by metal bars just after he realizes he's lost his whip. He tries to turn around but more bars close up the other end, trapping him.
Tygra's unconscious by the time the Mutants bring his cage inside the castle. They take him to the tallest tower where Slythe shows him the particularly vicious Death Trap he's decided to use on him — the "Four Winds," an x-shaped device that pulls the victim's four limbs in opposite directions, literally ripping them apart. But since that's not strong enough Cold-Blooded Torture for the Mutants, they rig it with a mirror so that it won't go off and kill him until sunrise, giving him several hours to suffer anticipating his gruesome fate.
Back at Cats Lair, Lion-O spends a sleepless night growing more and more worried about Tygra. The Sword of Omens apparently has a very high standard for "danger," since it doesn't alert Lion-O that Tygra's in trouble until he's already strapped into the death trap. Lion-O uses Sight Beyond Sight, sees Tygra locked up in Castle Plun-darr calling his name, and immediately leaps out the window, rappels to the ground using the Claw Shield, and dashes off into the night, too fast for Jaga to even show up this time and tell him stop and think about what he's doing.
As Tygra waits in agony for either rescue or the most painful death the Mutants could design, Lion-O reaches the castle, Willa warning him just in time to save him from becoming the fireballs' next casualty. She shows him Tygra's whip she fished out of the moat and explains what's going on. Lion-O prepares to scale the castle wall with the Claw Shield... only to realize he left it behind. "Blasted!" Fortunately, Willa has an alternative — a giant treetop spider friend she brought along in her quiver whose thread is strong enough to hold them both. Bushy, as she calls him, climbs to the top of the castle and effortlessly pulls Lion-O and Willa up behind him. They stop to eavesdrop when they see Monkian and Slythe talking at a window and learn that they plan to aim their new fireball launcher at Cats Lair at sundown, hoping to destroy the lair and all the Thundercats inside. They stay just a little too long, as Slythe spots them and turns out the guards. They'd better hurry because it's almost sunrise...
Of course, the two rescuers make it to Tygra's cell at the very last second. Just as the first rays of the sun hit the mirror, he braces himself for the end, when Lion-O leaps in and hacks off the lever. He cuts his friend free just in time for the three of them to fight their way past the guards. Tygra directs them to the room containing the fireball launcher, and he and Lion-O break the door down. Now that they've found it, they have to destroy it, but how? It's now that Lion-O pauses long enough to realize they need help and signals for the other Thundercats.
The Mutants grab flamethrowers to burn through the barricaded door, almost getting through before the Thundertank pulls up. Cheetara and Panthro fire a grappling hook and rope into the room where they see their friends, who slide down to safety one by one. The grappling hook hits a fuel line, causing a huge leak, which should be helpful. Tygra, the last to leave, stays behind long enough to make sure the leaking fuel starts a fire, then gets out just as the whole wing of the castle explodes.
The Mutants aren't going away any time soon, but at least the Warrior Maidens are safe from any more firebombs.
This episode provides examples of:
- Awesome, but Impractical: Jumping out a window and rappelling down the wall may look and feel cool, but then you can't get the cable back when it would have come in handy later.
- Badass in Distress: The second time this happens to Tygra.
- Battle Amongst the Flames: How the episode starts.
- Bond Villain Stupidity: The Mutants could have killed Tygra by simply leaving him in the cage that caught him underwater until he drowned. After they brought him inside, they could have killed him any number of ways while he was unconscious. If they really wanted to use their death trap, they could have just done it immediately, but, no, they set it on a timer for hours away and leave the room for absolutely no reason. They were just asking for him to be rescued.
- Call-Back: Tygra lassos Monkian with his whip and leaves him dangling from a tree before dropping him, exactly like Willa did in her first appearance. You've got to figure Monkian must be thinking, "Oh, No... Not Again!"
- Cue the Sun: Another inversion where the sun cues a very bad thing.
- Deadly Disc: Monkian slices through several tree trunks with buzz saws built into his Sky Cutter.
- Defiant to the End: When the Mutants strap him into the death trap, Tygra doesn't beg for mercy or panic. He spends hours lying there in silence, sweating but not crying out or screaming in horror at what's coming for him, gritting his teeth and glaring in defiant rage.
- Destructive Saviour: The Thundercats aren't intentionally or willingly causing harm to the denizens of Third Earth, but the Mutants never would have come here if their enemies hadn't landed here. While they can't be held responsible for the what the Mutants do, their victims can't deny they wouldn't be in any danger if the Thundercats had chosen some other planet to live on.Willa: Our world has changed since you and the Mutants arrived.Tygra: We are your friends.Willa: Yes, but we Warrior Women are caught in the middle of your battles with the Mutants, and we are being destroyed!
- Didn't Think This Through: We can understand how badly Lion-O wants to save his friend, but he just runs off into the night without a plan or bringing his friends to help or even making sure he has all his weapons with him. If Willa hadn't been at the castle (which he didn't know about), he probably never would have it to Tygra in time to save him.
- Distressed Dude: Tygra, saved by Lion-O this time.
- For the Evulz: This is the only possible motive why the Mutants didn't kill Tygra at any of the multiple opportunities they had rather than using a time-delayed death trap.
- Forgotten Phlebotinum: Lion-O spends hours staring out the window worried sick about Tygra, not even going to bed all night, yet he apparently never once thought to use Sight Beyond Sight!
- Friendly Neighborhood Spider: Bushy.
- Furry Reminder: The only sounds Tygra makes as the hours towards his violent death tick away are a few soft, low growls.
- Gender Flip: On an American children's cartoon in 1985, you'd 100% expect the character in Tygra's situation to be the hero's female love interest.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The Mutants' firebomb launcher is blown up, taking out a good portion of their own castle.
- I Know You're Watching Me: Tygra calls out Lion-O's name while he's locked in the death trap. Well, what would you do if you knew the hero had the power to see you in danger?
- "It" Is Dehumanizing: Averted, Bushy prefers to be called an "it". It might have no gender.
- Kill It with Fire: How the Mutants plan to kill the Thundercats.
- Let's Split Up, Gang!: Tygra tells Willa to wait outside while he tries to infiltrate the castle first, so she has a chance to try to stop them on her own if he gets caught.
- More Expendable Than You: Tygra makes Lion-O slide down the rope from the burning castle before him; the Lord of the Thundercats finally seems to have learned that it's pointless to argue when his friends insist on protecting him.
- Mooks: Castle Plun-darr is suddenly full of additional and warty, gray creatures that otherwise resemble Slythe, no introduction provided.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: While she doesn't blame them, Willa doesn't sugarcoat the fact that it's only because of the Thundercats that her people are being attacked and her home destroyed by the Mutants. Though Tygra states the Thundercats haven't done anything to provoke this latest attack.
- No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: The Mutants made their new weapon out of the engine they salvaged from their wrecked spaceship. With it destroyed, they truly have no means of building another one.
- Oh, Crap!:
- Willa, when she found Tygra's whip floating in the moat, fearing the worst.
"Has he been... ? Shall I follow?"- Slythe tries to warn his men not to keep shooting their flamethrowers into a room containing a massive fuel supply and firebombing weapon (the operative word being "try").
- See the Invisible: The phosphor-R in the moat allows the Mutants to see a golden outline of Tygra's body when he's invisible.
- Silence Is Golden: The episode successfully hits the
Catharsis Factor with silent shots of Tygra sweating and trembling in the death trap throughout the second half — no dialogue, no inner monologue, just music and suspense. - Spiders Are Scary: The fact that Bushy is friendly and helpful doesn't stop Lion-O, Panthro, and a random Mutant mook from being scared of him.Slythe: What was the matter with that jabbering guard?!
Monkian: He said he saw a giant spider.
Slythe: Ha! The fool! He saw it in his dream! - Stay in the Kitchen: Defied — Willa at first thinks is why Tygra tells her to stay behind. He quickly corrects her that he wants them to go in separately so they won't both be captured if he fails.
- There Was a Door: As soon as the sword shows Lion-O where Tygra is, he leaps out the nearest window. Because his friend is in danger and taking the time to use the front door would just be too slow!
- To the Pain: Slythe generously gives Tygra a demonstration, using an appropriately shaped sand-filled dummy, of what the Four Winds will do to him when the sun rises.
- We Have Forgotten the Phlebotinum: Lion-O's prepared to use the cable in his Claw Shield to climb to the roof of Castle Plun-darr.... only to remember he forgot it after making his dramatic exit from Cats Lair! Oops...
- Would Hit a Girl: The Mutants have no qualms about testing their new device on a tribe of women.
- Would Not Shoot a Civilian: Notable aversion — the Mutants are perfectly willing to test their destructive, fiery weaponry on civilians before using it on their intended target.
