“Heist Society”

Thunderbirds Are Go allows the Hood to resurface as he tries to steal a scientific breakthrough from under Lady Penelope and Parker’s noses.

This episode probably amounts to a fairly typical episode of Thunderbirds Are Go but I don’t mean that in a bad way. It features multiple Thunderbirds working together to accomplish the same goal, villainous intrigue from the Hood and an excellent looking problem to overcome.

It also heavily features Lady Penelope and Parker who are tasked with accompanying Brains’ “friend” Professor Moffat as she transports the scientific breakthrough that exists as a result of the events in “Heavy Metal“. For some tech tech reason it can only be transported underwater which conveniently allows for the underwater Hyper-Loop train to come into play.

Of course since it’s a vulnerable metal tube under the water it becomes a prime target for the Hood to attack. Being so concerned with energy, this breakthrough is something he absolutely needs to have and he gets to it with his really cool submarine.

I love how hammy the Hood is in this episode. It’s silly but fits the tone of this episode well and I like to see villains really enjoy what they do. It comes from enjoying watching Power Rangers and other similar shows when I was younger. I guess admiration for hammy villainy never really leaves you.

The Hood works as a villain because he’s competent as well. He isolates the necessary compartment, uses a disguise that would have worked if Lady Penelope’s dog hadn’t rumbled him and manages to engineer his escape using a handy gadget to disorient Parker. This allows the heroes to be competent while the villain is just that little bit ahead of them.

Lady Penelope conducts herself really well in this episode as she relentlessly pursues the Hood and shows that her spy skills are something that she had honed really well. The fact that the Hood escapes is because he is smart and has more resources, not because Lady Penelope and Parker are written as being idiots. I love that FAB 1 can also function as a submarine and that it is well equipped but not so much that it can stand up to the Hood’s submarine. It’s all very James Bond and is a lot of fun to watch.

From the International Rescue side of things, I am always going to enjoy a use of Thunderbird 4 as it has always been my favourite for whatever reason. Part of it might be that it automatically makes the job a little more difficult since it’s the only vehicle that can function underwater. Granted Gordon has some help from other tech but on the whole Thunderbird 4 is on its own dealing with this problem.

As always the solutions is pretty inventive with the other tech combined with Thunderbird 4 being able to raise the compartment to a depth that can be reached by Thunderbird 2’s towing cable. I also like that without hesitation the Tracy brothers focus on saving people rather than catching the Hood. I like that there is no time spent dwelling on the moral question. International Rescue is there to rescue above all else so as far as they are concerned the Hood can wait.

There aren’t really too many missteps in this episode. As usual it’s a bit light on character development but I’m alright with that since the focus was more on the crisis than the characters reacting to it. The lack of hesitation when a choice was presented only reinforces the fact that Virgil is professional but doesn’t really bring anything new to the table for him. In general this episode does exactly what it sets out to do really well.