Sonic the Hedgehog (1993), Episode 2.11: Drood Henge

Sonic the Hedgehog (1993), Episode 2.11: Drood Henge
Original Air Date: November 19th, 1994

Welcome back, Hedgehogs Can't Swim readers! First off, I want to thank you for sticking with my humble “Sonic” blog through this latest delay. I'm sure some of you know what's it's like when life changes and you find yourself with less time than you use to have to devote to your various hobbies. Hopefully, there will be no further delays for the time being. At the very least, I'm fairly confident I can get through the rest of my “SatAM” reviews without any issue, seeing as how there's only three episodes left at this point. Let's get back to business as usual and start talking about “Drood Henge.”

Now, you might be asking: What the hell is a Drood Henge? Let me illuminate. Drood Henge is an ancient relic site that is the mythical home of the Deep Power Stones, magical objects that are a source of great power or destruction. Robotnik seeks the Stones to power his Doomsday Project. And he's dangerously close to locating them, after tracking down the various scrolls that point towards Drood Henge. Uncle Chuck warns Sally about this. After picking up Sonic and Tails, previously on a training mission, the group heads off to stop the bad guy.

“Drood Henge” is another “SatAM” episode that seamlessly mixes science fiction and fantasy concepts. Much like “Sonic and the Secret Scrolls” or the first half of “Blast to the Past,” we have an ancient ruin of indeterminate origins that houses a magical relic of some sort. I guess the world of “SatAM” is just riddled with this stuff. Of course, randomly mixing robots and magic is totally typical of the “Sonic” franchise. After all, the Chaos Emeralds – which the Deep Power Stones bare more than a passing resemblance too, which may or may not be a coincidence – have been around since the very first “Sonic” game. Unlike those two earlier episodes, the fantasy elements here are really just a MacGuffin, as the magical properties of these objects don't actually affect the plot much.

We are two episodes away from “SatAM's” grand finale and the plot is relatively serialized by this point. The Doomsday Project, Robotnik's much-referenced but vaguely defined machine that ensures total catastrophe for the planet, is the main driving point of the story. Snively's simmering resentment, and plotting betrayal, of his uncle continues to be hinted at in passing dialogue exchanges. Yet the show and Ben Hurst's script, even this late in the game, continues to pull off a pretty good balancing act. A newcomer could leap in here and not be too lost. Those twin attributes of building plot momentum and accessibility is actually tricky to achieve, if the increasingly number of shows that require you to watch everything from the beginning are any indication.

It's clear the reoccurring plot point closest to Ben Hurst's heart is Tails' growing maturity as a Freedom Fighter. Tails shows his growing cunning by out-thinking a surveillance drone. Later, he talks Sally into paling along for the big mission. There, the speed he's learned from Sonic and the technical know-how he's learned from Sally come in handy. On one hand, it's very satisfying to watch Tails come into his own as a Freedom Fighter.  On the other hand, Tails has not entirely overcome his status as an annoying kid sidekick. At one point, he gets briefly captured by Robotnik, leading to some whining from the two-tailed fox. He similarly whines when begging Sally to join them on the mission. I'm glad Tails is a useful, contributing member of the team but I wish he still wasn't so petulant.

An issue all throughout season two of “SatAM” has been the role comic relief has played. “Drood Hedge” is light on the obnoxious slapstick, thankfully. Early on, Dulcy has a crash-landing in Uncle Chuck's junkyard. That's about it. Otherwise, the humor here is actually fairly cute. Dulcy gets a little teary-eyed when she sees how far Tails has come. Which is adorable and maybe the most amusing element of character development the dragon has gotten thus far. Later, while badgering Nicole for exposition about the Deep Power Stones, Sonic gets the computer to speak in his hip surfer bro slang. This is not the first time the show has used that gag but it always makes me chuckle. (Though maybe we could've done without Sonic's fourth wall breaking gags and a random Robert DeNiro impersonation.)

“Drood Henge” also has Sonic and Robotnik directly interacting. It feels like that's something we haven't really seen in a while, since at least “The Void.” The egg-shaped dictator and the super-fast blue hedgehog come face-to-face here, Sonic easily outmaneuvering the bad guy, much to his frustration. As always, Jim Cummings' performance is a great benefit. When bested by Sonic, Robotnik screams like a lunatic in wild, anguished defeat. Cummings is extremely good at that, if you hadn't noticed yet. In fact, Robotnik is delightfully villainous all throughout the episode. He feels his victory is near-by, which makes him even more slithering and wicked than usual.

Generally speaking, “Drood Henge” is a standard MacGuffin chase plot. Both the good guys and the bad guys are after the same plot device, with the decorating details not really being that important. The sole swerve in the story is how Sonic and the gang outsmart Robotnik, which is also fairly easy to predict. Yet there's nothing wrong with a standard story being told in a  satisfying fashion sometimes. “Drood Henge” moves along at a steady pace, never feeling too long or too short. The action is exciting. The animation is decent, save one or two jerky moment. Even the corny moments – Sonic using his anti-gravity shoes to get out of yet another scrap, the episode ending by irising out on Tails' smiling face – are kind of charming.

What really seals the deal is, even in a boilerplate episode like this, Hurst still finds some time for character development and emotion. I'm not only talking about Tails' growth. The information about the Deep Power Stones is delivered via a recording of King Acorn. Simply hearing her father's voice is enough to make Sally's heart catch in her throat. That is a surprisingly poignant way to make what would otherwise just be some awkward exposition actually meaningful. See, it doesn't take a lot to remind the viewer that these characters have inner lives, thoughts and feelings. But those little moments count for an awful lot.

“Drood Henge” is unlikely to be any “Sonic” fan's all-time favorite episode of “SatAM.” Yet this is exactly the kind of episode that made me fall in love with this show. It's lively, smoothly executed, with just enough heart to make it special. Sometimes that's all you need, man. [7/10]