Dirty Pair (1985) Retrospective - Episode 5: The Heartbeat of Criados

This episode opens with Kei listening to music but this annoys Yuri, who can't concentrate on her reading and has a small fight with her partner and friend, ending up with Kei hurting her nose when the zero gravity mode is deactivated. Kei then reveals that she has a date with a boy younger than her at Planet Antares, where they are heading in their rented spaceship. 

They are intercepted by a huge unknown thing that causes turbulence and flashes. The event disturbs the girls who land safely at a space station. Kei gets told she can't leave the station, ruining her plans and getting upset about it. The girls identify themselves and manage to enter the city. 

Kei takes a shower while Yuri walks around the streets and gets sudden visions, flashbacks to the incident, and a strange voice cries: “Die!”

The redhead is preparing for her date but something attacks her and she shoots it, causing a commotion. A bunch of ships also start attacking the city, specifically Yuri. Kei then shoots at a ghastly device and chases it throughout the city, in her undergarments no less, in fact, she's in her underwear throughout half of the episode. Yuri also faces off against some machines.

Yuri saves Kei and both of them leave the planet and engage in a space fight against the ships that are following them, Yuri theorizes that they are trying to capture them alive for unknown reasons. They are then taken to a disposal station for nuclear waste, the girls then evacuate the ship in their space suits and they are swiftly attacked by the mechanical enemies surrounding them.

They realize that the creator of the disposal station was a mad scientist named Criados who designed the place like a technological nightmare, a doom trap created to get revenge on the Dirty Pair since the gals defeated him in a previous case. A countdown begins and the Lovely Angels then are forced to escape the traps set there by the deceased madman.

Their little companion robot, Nanmo, gives them its memory disk. They use the robot's self-destruct feature in order to blow up the center of the station and get rid of the AI that controlled the place. After that, Yuri is left alone in the rubbles by Kei, who promptly flees to get to her previously mentioned date. 

The mystery unfolds in quite an engaging manner, you never really get a true sense of what's going on and the investigation actually becomes rewarding because of how unpredictable it is. The animation is again top notch and the actual designs and details of the ships and the giant fortress in this episode are some of the best in the series. 

It's an outlier in the sense that it sets the comedy and the fights aside in service of the procedural and astounding vehicle and mechanical designs but it works despite some small contrivances that are inevitable because of the quick nature of the format. Another great episode overall.

Heroine Spotlight: Drew "Mom" Saturday from Secret Saturdays

Among the many cult cartoons from Cartoon Network my favorite was always Secret Saturdays back in the day. With sci-fi, fantasy and retro influences, it surely captivated the imagination of kids. However, one of the things that captivated me as well was the beautiful Drew Saturday, the mom who could kick ass. 

The show follows the adventures of this secret agent family, most specifically the journey towards maturity of Zak Saturday, the 11-year-old protagonist. Along with their monster pets, the family goes on missions encountering cryptids and hiding their existence from the public, all while battling against the villain known as Argos and his creatures.

Captured by Argos.

Pretty routinary genre stuff but with a "saturday morning" feeling to it as well, something quite intentional and effective. The show is mostly episodic but there is some slight serialization that makes it perfect to binge without worrying much about filler episodes. 

As I said before, the highlight was probably Drew Saturday, who became something of a childhood crush for a lot of young viewers. Her motherly wisdom and amazing fighting skills make her an ideal parent and action companion as well, she also has a savage and wild side to her that comes out briefly on certain occasions but she's mostly collected and serious. 

Drew being flirty.

While you might argue that she could come close to the "nagging and strict mother" stereotype, Drew kind of escapes it by being equally as impulsive and reckless as her son, making Drew a rounded character with more facets to her than just the disciplined parent, a role she often shares with her husband, who also escapes the "dumb dad" stereotype. 

Ready to fight.

Her weapon of choice is a Tibetan Fire Sword she uses in almost every episode but she can employ guns whenever necessary as well. She's one of the world's leading experts in the pseudo-science of cryptozoology, a title she shares with her husband and most likely her knowledgeable son. Being also an expert pilot and trained to survive in the wilderness, she's probably a role model for all mothers and even little girls who rarely get to see women this prepared in animation. 

A running joke is her breaking their TV during fights. A small but cute gag.

"Sorry about the TV, sweetie."

Mature women don't often get enough action roles in animation, Drew is in her mid to late thirties and in a space occupied by nagging older women and bratty or airheaded young women, Drew is kind of a refreshing version of the typical cartoon mother, Secret Saturdays actually does that with every other member as well, giving them a new spin that elevates these old archetypal characters and updates them. 

She appears briefly (along with the rest of the family) in the Ben 10 Omniverse episode T.G.I.S, where the Saturdays meet Ben and they fight against Argos while investigating the chupacabras. It’s a good episode with decent action and monsters but it follows mostly the teen boys in their adventure, Drew is just there for a couple of fights and to be the butt of the joke since Ben has the hots for her, dialogue like “Dude, that's my mom!” it’s uttered more than once. Kind of awkward.

The redesign caused a lot of controversy and as far as I can tell, the designs for the show in general were not very well liked by some people, but I don't personally like how she looks here, it’s not a bad design itself but it doesn't say “Drew Saturday” to me. 

Definitely check out the series, if anything just to witness one of the best animated mom characters in media.