So let's just jump straight into this next episode, which left me with a strange moral dilemma: Should Carmen have been allowed to get away with it?
The episode opens in London, where the most horribly stereotypical British police and guards arrest two of Carmen's henchmen attempting to break into the Tower of London. I kid you not, they even go "Wot's this?" and "That'll show her, eh wot?"
The two guards discuss how boring the news is lately since the front page headline is "white lion cubs found in Africa" (surely that won't come up again), when the whole tower shudders. The two decide to step outside for some fresh air, just to find that Carmen, not content with stealing just the crown jewels, decided to simply lop off the top of the London Tower and haul it off with balloons.
After some verbal sparring between Carmen and "the Player," we get a history of the Tower of London and are notified that Carmen dumped it in Mongolia, smack dab in the Gobi desert.
Upon arrival, Zack and Ivy are immediately attacked by a couple of Carmen's henchmen, but make their way into the tower. They're "saved" (I use the term here loosely) by "Inspector Sir Nigel Fenwick" of Scotland Yard. His method is to "fire a flare gun to scare off the people chasing the ACME detectives." Crude, yet apparently effective if the bad guys have no idea what a flare is.
It appears that Carmen stole the tower from the Tower of London in order to just steal two diamond necklaces and left the rest of the crown jewels behind. Fortunately, not only has Nigel (who also speaks with a very poorly done British accent) saved the two detectives, he's also already found Carmen's first clue and figured out where they need to go next. However, after he leaves, Ivy tells Zack that she thinks Carmen is going somewhere else instead. Sadly, a quick review by the Chief of steam clocks in the western time zone, plus the fact that Carmen's henchmen have been spotted in Vancouver, show that "Nigel" was actually right.
Ivy doesn't take the fact she was wrong very well.
Oh, and something else Carmen stole? The Punaluu Black Sand Beach of Hawaii. Yes, she stole an entire beach. No, I don't know how she did it.
Zack and Ivy teleport over to Vancouver, where they discover that apparently Carmen Sandiego finally got that cloning establishment working, and now all of her henchmen are genetic crossbreeds of Jacques Rougeau and Robert Remus (The Mountie and Sgt. Slaughter, for those of you not alive in the 80s and early 90s).
The two are chained to some logs on a logging truck and taken to the woods, but Ivy and Zack make a desperate getaway and wind up riding down a log flume. I like the fact that the bad guys say "Don't let them get away, Carmen went to a lot of trouble to lure them here." It's not "stop them or they'll ruin everything" or "stop them, the boss wants them dead" or even just "stop them, tie them up, and dump them into a mine somewhere until we're done." Carmen wants them there where she's pulling off this crime.
Zack and Ivy hide out in a beaver dam until they're sure the bad guys have left. Ivy, somehow, landed on a ticket the bad guy was holding when she fell up above there, and during the transportation where she's lying with her back on some trees, the ride down a log flume, and the time underwater hiding in the beaver dam, it didn't wash off or get smeared or anything.
Zack is able to translate the words from the Cyrillic alphabet to find that the next stop is the Trans-Siberian
Zack and Ivy teleport directly into the engine car of the train, and the conductor has the appropriate reaction when two strangers arrive in a flash of light.
Apparently the "Charlie Brown stripe" is a popular fashion choice in Russia.
Through some rather bizarre logic jumping, Zack is able to figure out that Carmen is after a crate of expensive caviar being transported by the train. He figures out that the diamond necklaces are cat collars, the totem pole Carmen stole in Vancouver (did I forget to mention that?) is a scratching post, and when Ivy asks what the black sand is for, Zack just says, "If you don't know, don't ever have a cat."
Now, here's where I get some real respect for Carmen's operation. By the time Zack and Ivy get back to the train car where the caviar is stored, Carmen's henchmen have already put their plan into motion. Several of her henchmen are at a bridge over a river, cutting large rectangles out of the tracks with chainsaws at specifically-spaced intervals. Meanwhile, the ones on the train cut a hole in the bottom of the train and note that "the holes should be five seconds apart." When they see the first hole, they count to five and toss a crate out, count five seconds, toss another crate. That's an extremely high attention to detail that I actually appreciate from the show, because otherwise I'd be wondering how they knew when to toss boxes.
Don't worry about the crates, though, they're equipped with gliders so they land on a boat. Plus, when Ivy and Zack come through the door, the two goons count to five and then jump through the hole themselves, gliding to safety. Inspector Fenwick walks in, bemoaning the fact that he's also too late to do anything, when the Chief pops up and shows Zack and Ivy two photos. One is of Inspector Fenwick, and the other is of "Frank M. Poster" (get it?).
Despite the Chief not actually giving any real context for the photos, Zack and Ivy immediately conclude that Fenwick is a fake, and he pulls off his mask and makes a daring get-away (begging the question of why he was on the train to begin with), and Zack and Ivy are unable to catch him.
The two look over their evidence when, surprise surprise, they conclude that Carmen must be after some pretty rare cats like the two white lion cubs. They immediately make the jump to Zimbabwe, where the two cubs are being cared for.
They arrive too late, however, and are just in time to see Carmen lead the two lion cubs into a jeep and drive away. So, rather than simply use their instantaneous teleportation technology to move about 100 yards up the road and keep following Carmen, the two decide the best way to follow is her to ride two ostriches and I'm just now realizing how silly this episode has become.
The whole chase culminates with Zack, Ivy, and Carmen all in a canoe together approaching Victoria Falls. Ivy grabs one lion cub while Zack grabs the other. Carmen tries to hold onto the leash of one of the cubs, stating that she's made a special place for them to grow up on her own private game preserve, but Ivy yanks the leash back a-
Hold on a moment.
Carmen Sandiego is many things, but above all else it seems she appreciates natural beauty. I mean, sure, she wanted to spray paint her face on the moon, but considering how rare white lions are, is letting someone keep them on a private game preserve really such a bad thing? This is a woman who stole an entire beach to make these two lion cubs a litter box and ripped a totem pole out of the ground to be a scratching post...I'm pretty sure she'd spare no expense to make sure the cubs were well cared for.
I mean, I'm not saying it's okay for her to steal them, I'm just saying I don't think it's quite as bad as if your standard animal smugger was grabbing them.
Anyway, Zack grabs a branch and holds the boat in place with a foot while Ivy climbs aboard with her cub. She immediately grabs Zack and pulls him up, leaving Carmen Sandiego in a canoe to fall over the falls.
I mean, sure, she calls for Carmen to take her hand after the canoe is released, but you'd think they could have found some way to keep the cubs safe while holding the boat in place. Like, say, taking the leash off of a cub, letting it go, and handing Zack the other end so he could brace himself in the boat while Ivy tied it off at a branch.
Carmen, naturally, takes the idea of plummeting to her death rather calmly.
Of course, this is Carmen Sandiego we're talking about here, so if I said that her plan apparently involved a speedboat shooting down the river and launching itself off of the falls after she goes over, then suddenly sprouting wings, catching her, and flying off...are you really surprised?
Lots of respect to the guy piloting that boat, though. To just go off the edge of the falls like it's nothing....total baller move.
Zack and Ivy get down on the ground with the cubs, and Zack comments that at least they got back everything Carmen stole, so-
Hold on.
We have no idea where this game preserve is. The diamond necklaces might be around the necks of the cubs, but we have no idea where the beach, the totem pole, or all that caviar went to.
...huh.
Pretty big plot hole there, show.
We get a little banter between Carmen and the player (and he seems rather disappointed she didn't die there...creepy, kid), and the show comes to an end.
So what did we learn? Steal things in shifts, so that even if you lose one or two things, you still get some rather priceless treasures from around the world to keep as consolation prizes.
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