The Hardware Trap - Part II

Hardware is asleep in his cell on Penal Planet 10, and in his dream Quicksilver springs the trap from Part I all over again and reads out the charges, "under arrest" echoing until a guard's bed check wakes him. At Hawk Haven, meanwhile, the Mirage is sent out on a night border patrol to the Light Year Limit with infrared scopes, to cut Mob smuggling to zero.

A buzzing in the wall turns out to be Buzz-Saw, who has cut his way in to free Hardware. The alarm goes out, Warden Lock-Up orders them to give themselves up, and the pair run for a getaway cab: Yes-Man has hired Seymour and his Space Hack, but when the guards open fire Seymour worries about his paint job and bolts, leaving the Mob to get out any way they can.

That night an intruder alert sounds in the Hawk Haven gateway. It is Hardware, who traps Quicksilver in revenge for sending him to the penal planet, puts Commander Stargazer to sleep, and fixes a light-activated detonator to the Sprinthawk so that the next SilverHawk to fly it in daylight will be blown up. Tally-Hawk frees Quicksilver, who corners Hardware, loses him, sends Tally-Hawk to alert the Commander, and takes the Sprinthawk in pursuit.

Stargazer wakes, finds the sabotage on the security scanners, and, unable to raise the Sprinthawk, orders the Mirage to intercept. Hardware counts down the seconds to daylight while Quicksilver tries to harpoon him with a laser line, and Bluegrass radios his skipper to bail out. The team makes an emergency pickup and Quicksilver comes home safe. He apologises to Stargazer for letting Hardware get away, and the Commander tells him that the important thing is that Hardware did not get him.

Quicksilver chases an escaped Hardware on a sabotaged Sprinthawk, unaware that his vehicle is rigged to explode. Second of a two-part episode.

Commander Stargazer: "Because you're a lieutenant, and I am a commander."

"The next SilverHawk to fly this thing in daylight will sure get a bang out of it."

Commander Stargazer: "He got away, but he didn't get you."

Part I ended with Hardware behind bars, swearing that he would get out one day and come for the SilverHawks wherever they were, and Lee Schneider's second half takes him at his word.[1] It opens inside Hardware's head, on a dream of the capture played back with "You're under arrest" echoing until a guard's bed check breaks it. It is a neat way to carry a cliffhanger across a change of writer, because nobody needs a recap narrator when the villain is lying awake reliving his defeat.

The breakout that follows is the funniest stretch of the two parts. Buzz-Saw arrives as a buzzing in the wall, Warden Lock-Up tells the escapees over the loudspeaker that they are surrounded, and the getaway rests on Seymour, who has been hired by Yes-Man and does not care for the address: "I mean, it's suspicious." When the guards open fire, his first thought is his cab's paint, and he abandons his fares to the searchlights. The comedy also moves the plot along, because the Mob loses its ride and is left to get off the planet on its own.

Two men come close to being ruined by a grudge in this half, and Hardware is only the first of them. Hardware's revenge is personal down to the wording, since he reminds Quicksilver who sent him to the penal planet and promises to send him to oblivion in return. In Part I the SilverHawks wished him sweet dreams as the cell door shut; here Hardware sends Stargazer off with "Pleasant dreams, Commander!" His weapon is the best idea in either half: a light-activated detonator that turns daybreak itself into the trigger. When he taunts "15 seconds to daylight, SilverHawk", it is a threat and a countdown at once!

Quicksilver's side of the grudge is his refusal to let go. Having told Tally-Hawk "I'll follow him. You alert the commander," he takes the Sprinthawk, the one craft in the base that Hardware has just rigged. He chases alone, while Stargazer shouts into a radio he bets Hardware has sabotaged too. The standout scene crosses those two threads. Hardware gloats over the countdown while Quicksilver tries to harpoon him with a laser line, and then Bluegrass cuts in on the radio with "Bail out, Skipper. Bail out."[2]

The weakness sits just before it. Hardware leaves Quicksilver in a trap with "You'll never get out of that alive!", and the next thing we hear from our hero, after a cry for help, is a word of thanks. Tally-Hawk deserves the credit, but the peril is undone before it has had time to register. The Sprinthawk sequence is left to carry the suspense for both. The likely reason is the shape of a two-parter: this half has to spend its first act getting Hardware out of prison before it can put anybody in danger, and the trap is the scene that got squeezed.[3]

The resolution comes in the last conversation. Quicksilver comes to Stargazer to apologise for letting Hardware get away, and the Commander tells him: "He got away, but he didn't get you." When Quicksilver asks why he did not think of that, the answer is "Because you're a lieutenant, and I am a commander," and it is a joke. Hardware will keep his grudge, and Quicksilver is being told he can afford not to. The chase is rushed, but the ending is a wise one.

1 ^ Mon*Star also vowed at the end of Part I to free Hardware, and here Buzz-Saw carries it out by cutting his way into Penal Planet 10.

2 ^ Bluegrass calls Quicksilver "Skipper" on the radio and "Skip" after the pickup, which comes with a promise of "a little fancy roping".

3 ^ The trap is sprung inside Hawk Haven itself, and the base's security does not come out of it well. The intruder alert in the gateway is waved off at first as probably nothing, and Hardware is only spotted afterwards on the security scanners.

1. The episode opens on Hardware's dream of the capture from The Hardware Trap - Part I, replaying its lines, from "Looks like we got you" to the list of charges.
2. Mon*Star's vow at the end of Part I to free Hardware is carried out here by Buzz-Saw, who cuts his way into Penal Planet 10.
3. Warden Lock-Up orders Hardware and Buzz-Saw to surrender over the loudspeaker as they run for it.
4. Yes-Man's getaway cab is Seymour's Space Hack; Seymour flees when the guards open fire, complaining that a laser blast kills the paint job.
5. Hardware's light-activated detonator is set to go off when the Sprinthawk is flown in daylight, and he counts down the seconds to sunrise over the radio.
6. Stargazer finds the sabotage by checking Hawk Haven's security scanners, then bets that Hardware has sabotaged the Sprinthawk's radio as well.
7. Hardware's "Pleasant dreams, Commander!" as he puts Stargazer to sleep answers the sweet-dreams farewell he was given in his cell at the end of Part I.
8. The closing quiz covers Earth, the water that covers most of it and the life it supports, and the Copper Kidd finishes on 13 points for the day.

One name enters the series in this episode.

• Warden Lock-Up

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.