The Backroom

Commander Stargazer goes undercover at the Starship Casino, which lies beyond the Light Year Limit, and talks his way into the owner's office by claiming that Mon*Star sent him. Poker-Face recognises him, reminds him that the Galaxy Council agreed nothing beyond the limit could be touched by the law, and has Mumbo Jumbo throw him out into deep space. The SilverHawks pick up his signal and bring him home.

Poker-Face then clears the casino to welcome Mon*Star and shows him what is in the back room: a slot machine whose symbols stand for every planet in the Galaxy of Limbo, real or man-made. When the symbols match, the real planet blows up. Mon*Star is delighted, and each try costs a billion. A supernova near Hawk Haven makes Stargazer suspicious, but the SilverHawks have no jurisdiction past the limit, so Bluegrass goes in alone on the Hot-Seat, forbidden to use his weapons, to photograph the casino in infrared. Hardware is sent out to deal with him and cuts his power, and Bluegrass gets home by adjusting the laser in his guitar for emergency propulsion.

Mon*Star sits down with a trillion in gold discs, meaning to play until Hawk Haven comes up. The photographs show that the back room is shielded, so the Copper Kidd comes up with the answer: tow the casino back into their own territory. While Mumbo Jumbo recharges, the team glides in with the power off, fixes a tow line using magnetic shoes, and starts hauling. Poker-Face raises the alarm when the casino is nearly over the line, and Mon*Star transforms and comes after them. With no weapons allowed, the SilverHawks try to hold him off with smoke screens until the tow is done. By the end the machine is in their hands, and the Steel twins are told to take it apart.

The Stargazers investigate a Mob machine that has the power to destroy every planet of Limbo Galaxy.

Mon*Star: "I love this game! I want to play it again!"

Bluegrass: "Oh, shoot, Commander. Trouble's an old buddy. Been traveling with me since I was a tad."

"Violence, mayhem, and random destruction on a scale you can't imagine."

Every frontier story needs a line the sheriff cannot cross, and William Overgard draws one in the first scene of "The Backroom". The Starship Casino hangs beyond the Light Year Limit, a place its owner sums up as "Out of bounds, no man's land, neutral territory". When Commander Stargazer turns up there in disguise, Poker-Face does not have to fight him; he only has to remind him that the Galaxy Council agreed nothing past the limit could be touched by the law. Then Mumbo Jumbo throws him out into deep space, and his team has to go and collect him.[1]

In the back room Poker-Face keeps a slot machine, the best villain gadget the show has had so far: every planet in the Galaxy of Limbo, real or man-made, has a symbol on its reels, and when the symbols match, the real planet blows up. Mon*Star, who has just told his host that money means nothing to him, pulls the handle once, watches a world go, and roars "I love this game! I want to play it again!" The law stops at a line and the heroes will not break it, so Overgard has them bring the crime back across the line to the law. The limit is why Stargazer goes in disguised and why Bluegrass is sent in without his weapons, and when the answer finally comes, it is a tow line.[2]

The casino is a long liner trimmed in marquee bulbs, with its name in lights and a pink spade ringed with stars. The back room opens through a doorway cut in the shape of a gold star. When Poker-Face welcomes the transformed Mon*Star in front of it, the slim figure in tuxedo and cape barely reaches the thigh of a wall of red armour. The best image comes later, when Mumbo Jumbo is sent off to recharge his batteries and we find him under the casino's giant neon letters, crackling with current like a bulb that has grown horns.

The standout is Bluegrass's run in on the Hot-Seat, the one stretch where the no-weapons rule costs anybody anything. He volunteers with "Oh, shoot, Commander. Trouble's an old buddy. Been traveling with me since I was a tad.", photographs the casino in infrared, and gets Hardware sent out after him with orders to "Go swat it!" When the power goes, he adjusts the laser in his guitar for emergency propulsion and flies himself home on it. The line that stays with us is from the cockpit: "They can shoot, but I can't". The idea that wins the day belongs to the Copper Kidd, who cannot say a word of it; he points at the casino on the monitor, and the room answers "Kid, you're a genius."

Mon*Star makes a poor gambler, and his scenes at the machine have the right sour comedy; told that he came close, he promises Poker-Face that "your chances are zero if I don't win tomorrow".[3] The weakness is how the story gets past that tomorrow. The SilverHawks tow a casino through space while its crew are "sleeping like babies on that tub", and nobody aboard notices until the line is almost reached. The likely reason is the twenty-two minute slot, because the script has to set up the limit, the machine, the rescue and the reconnaissance before the plan can be proposed, and the last act gets what is left.

The resolution is a technicality answering a technicality. Poker-Face built his back room on the promise that the law stops at a line, and the SilverHawks, who never fire a shot past it, beat him by moving his casino instead of breaking their own rule.[4]

1 ^ Somebody on the rescue team remarks that "He's getting kind of old for undercover work", a line the Commander is not there to answer.

2 ^ The limit has been used against the SilverHawks before: in Stop Timestopper the Mob leads Bluegrass into it on purpose to lose him.

3 ^ The jackpot he is playing for is Hawk Haven itself, as the pre-title narration warns, since Mon*Star means to destroy the SilverHawks' home "with the deadliest slot machine in Limbo".

4 ^ Poker-Face's immunity does not last. In Magnetic Attraction Steelheart is escorting him to Penal Planet 10.

1. The pre-title narration calls Poker-Face "the gambling king of Limbo" and gives away the opening: Mumbo Jumbo hurls Stargazer into deep space.
2. Poker-Face's defence is legal rather than military: the Galaxy Council agreed that anything beyond the Light Year Limit could not be touched by the law, so the SilverHawks are told they cannot use their weapons.
3. The slot machine's symbols represent all the planets of Limbo, real or man-made, and the house charges a billion for each try.
4. Bluegrass's guitar carries a laser blaster, which he adjusts for emergency propulsion when Hardware cuts the Hot-Seat's power.
5. The tow is credited to the Copper Kidd, who is shown pointing at the casino on the monitor as the idea is spoken aloud; magnetic shoes go on for the job.
6. Poker-Face's immunity is short-lived: in Magnetic Attraction Steelheart escorts him towards Penal Planet 10.
7. In the group shot at 19:38 the Copper Kidd is painted red rather than copper, the same colour slip seen in Darkbird.
8. Bluegrass's closing quiz covers orbits and gravity, and the Copper Kidd finishes on sixteen points for the day.

3 names enter the series in this episode.

• Undercover Informant
• Poker-Face
• The Starship Casino

Appearance lists compiled from the episode articles on the ThunderCats wiki, checked against this site's encyclopedia. Names we have no entry for are shown without a link rather than left out.