Post by Yuri Petrovitch on Apr 16, 2014 10:22:30 GMT -5
For the first time. For the last time.
SYNOPSIS
Our story opens with a lingering shot of a gorgeous woman (sporting that weird bubble perm that damn near every girl in my high school thought was the bleeding edge of fashion back in the early 90's. Why yes--I am aware I am old) The girl is Kelly Masterson, and despite her pose as a bubble-headed ditz, she immediately sits down to a game of seven card stud and sharks the hell out of everyone at the table while making goo-goo eyes at the dealer, Matt Young. When the game's over, they pause for a moment outside of the place (called the Lady Luck, because metaphors) and Matt gets fatally slapjacked and robbed.
After the credits, we get a little more B-Roll (and some new shots!) of Scandal driving around, ruminating on money, life, and his dad (of course) on the way to Cobra HQ, where Matt's father is begging for their help. Seems Matt's belonging's won't be released to him by the owner of the Lady Luck, Martin Chappele. Chapelle is a famous recluse, who stays in his building and never goes out, is rumored to be involved in Something Dirty (because of course he is, this is Cobra, for heaven's sake) and has a weakness for playing cards.
Scandal checks out the Lady Luck and makes contact with Kelly by pretending to be a friend of Matt's. Kelly's initially a bit standoffish, but Scandal, being the main character of the show, has +10 Charm, and eventually she agrees to meet him so he can pump her for exposition. After that, he tries to get into Matt's room, only to rebuked by the bouncers, which immediately leads to fisticuffs and Martin Chapelle himself popping out of an adjoining room with a shotgun in hand. Chapelle threatens to blow Scandal's face off next time he sees him.
Later, during their planned meeting, Scandal and Kelly run into the man who killed Matt, and after a brief scuffle, Scandal makes him drop a hotel keycard. After that eventful beginning, they retire to Scandal's place so Kelly can teach him how to be a better card shark in that flirty, sexy way that only happens on TV shows. Later that night, Scandal gets Danielle to run a trance on the keycard he found and tries to get a sketch made of the man he saw, an unusually practical amount of detective work on a show that so rarely goes beyond "hey duckie, let me stick this 7 inch into the computer" Naturally, Danielle complains about this, as if she's really had a lot to do this week, but as we're getting to the middle of the show, we really have to start pulling all this disparate plot threads together and lurching towards some conclusion.
Dallas, likewise, has his own clue--apparently Matt sent a mysterious message about employees washing their own hands, and this inspires Scandal to break into the Lady Luck (man, they are getting a lot of use out of that set this week) and, hidden in the hand soap container, finds a roll of film. Upon developing the film, they discover that Chapelle holds a lot of meetings with men with cases, who leave empty-handed. Mind you, this is not really news, given we've been told a couple times that Chapelle is into Bad Stuff, so it's really not news, but the final photo, of Chapelle and Kelly together is.
Scandal confronts her about it and Kelly reveals that her father cleaned out Chapelle at a card game once and in revenge, Chappelle ruined him. To pay him back, she's planning to clean him out and asks Scandal for his help. Scandal gets Dallas to get some flash money to make an impression at the Lady Luck (and this being a TV series that is ruled by conventions in the same way the capricious deities of Olympus shaped Man's ends in days of old, you and I both know he's gonna lose all of that in short order) Thankfully, his losing streak is enough to attract Chapelle's attention and he gets invited to his big game, wherein, with Kelly at his side, he starts winning, then fakes a tummyache so Kelly can take over. Scandal gets called away for him and Danielle to go arrest the Matt's killer.
Meanwhile, Kelly and Chapelle are getting along to the point where "cardsy cardsy" has detoured to "sexy sexy" and she's putting the moves on him. She's also pointing a gun at him, because Chapelle didn't just ruin her father, he had him killed, and she's here for revenge. Scandal, a bit chastised that he's just delivered her to her target, shows up at a propitious moment and gives her the "justice or vengeance" spiel that every TV hero must give at one time or another to someone, and because it allows Chapelle to hit Kelly with a golf club, because lol women. Scandal beats the tar out of him and justice is served. Somehow.
Over our last lingering look of B-roll footage of Scandal driving around thinking Really Deep Thoughts, Scandal ruminates on Oliver Wendell Holmes, his dad, and the fact that, based on what happened, "Today I am a very wealthy man." These are the last lines spoken in Cobra, and no, I don't really know what he means either.
ANALYSIS
Well, in the best tradition of its episodic, throwback nature, Cobra ends with just another episode. There's no attempt at closure, no advancement of character relationships, and no cliffhanger ending, it's just . . .this. And "this" is actually not that amazing an episode, as it is astoundingly padded (it actually uses stock footage from itself, which is the meta-joke to end all meta jokes, as the scene where Kelly's putting on her makeup is repeated at the beginning and end of the episode) there are multiple "Scandal's thinking deep thoughts about the plot this week!" scenes, a sure indicator that the runtime came up really short (though the narration tries REALLY HARD to noir it up and make this seem deeper than it really is), and about 60% of the script is bulked out with the usual cliches you hear every time a TV show does a show about poker--"Poker is not about having good cards, it's about making your opponent think you do"; "If you can't tell who the sucker is in the first five minutes, it's probably you" etc.--and in general, it's very much an identikit Cobra episode.
And yet, it's not without it's charms. Barring her sudden "five minutes to the end loss of agency so Scandal can save her" Kelly is actually pretty awesome, as she's concocted this revenge plan so airtight that really, Scandal's along for the ride more than in the driver's seat and she seems to be substantially ahead of everyone for most of the runtime, and when you remember the kinds of women who've been presented on this show before--even the tough "liberated" types like Danielle who don't actually do anything proactive but we are told they do to take the curse off the regressive gender politics that are actually on display. Not that I wanted Kelly to blow Chappelle's head off or anything (that woulda been a bit dark for an early 90's syndicated TV show) but she just starts blubbering so Scandal can tearfully embrace her and throw to the button.
It's a good thing that Kelly's such a strong character, because there's not much else going on here--Scandal's purely in reactive mode, Danielle and Dallas are there to provide exposition, and Chapelle's there more as a one-shot end boss. It's not helped that Kelly's mission of revenge is probably enough--Chappelle's Bad Stuff is too high a stakes to have Kelly's mission of vengeance running parallel to it and they never quite line up as they should (Chappelle never really seems to be brough to justice as much as knocked out so we can run to the button of the episode.) It's weird that, in light of all the padding, they didn't try to connect the two things a bit more, but Cobra was never a show that tried hard, was it?
In all, "Aces and Eights" was the perfect end to Cobra, and the eerie trumpet call over the lost battlefield that the show was in general. It rose to life, stitched together with cliche and stock footage and surged to life for 22 episodes, only to disappear quietly into the night. Syndicated television was due to change, then swiftly consume itself over the mid-90's, and there was no place for shows like this in the world that was coming. And the show was an adequate explanation as to why, in addition to being a passable way to kill some time on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.
DAD WISDOM/THE QUOTABLE COBRA
"I know the rules. I just don't always play by them."
"My father used to say that money comes with trouble--peace of mind comes for free. Needless to say, he never had a dime to his name."
"I hope you two are good at brainteasers"
"Well, we haven't figure YOU out yet, Dallas"
"I guess that proves your perspective depends on where you come from, where you wanna go, and how much it'll cost ya to get there."
"They say that money won is twice as sweet as money earned."
"I've solved enough puzzles to know a missing piece when I see one."
"You must think we're some sorta giant ATM machine at your disposal
"Well yeah."
"When a loved one dies, their personal belongings are all you have left of them, apart from the memories."
"I hope to hell you're gonna use this cash wisely?"
"Of course--I'm gonna gamble."
And the last line of the series
"Oliver Wendell Holmes once said 'when lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.' I guess that's how I feel about money. It can't buy you love, or happiness, or peace of mind, yet men still fight, steal and kill for it. My dad used to say 'A man's wealth is measured by what he has, it's what he is.' My dad never met Oliver Wendell Holmes, but I think he would have liked him. And if what they said is true, well, then today I'm a very wealthy man."
CLOSING REMARKS
It's been a lot of fun going over this show with you guys I know it was beyond an obscure choice and a dubious pleasure at best. For all y'all that stopped by, stuck with me, chuckled at my insouciance, and maybe learned a bit about how times change out from under you, I enjoyed very much bringing this to you and I hope you enjoyed my ramblings on the show. I'm still around for the Kamen Rider reviews (my week off last week notwithstanding) and I hope you'll pop 'round and have a look there, perhaps. See you around!