Street Sharks S3E7: “A Shark Among Us”

Three episodes ahead into this...I was going to call it a fever dream, but fever dreams tend to have better visuals...whatever the hell this series is. The third and final season of Street Sharks included 13 episodes, so this is pretty near the end of the show. It may be part of the buildup to a climax, possibly involving the president, but something tells me that the writers just put that whole subplot on hold until the very, very end if ever, and that in the meantime everything was just business as usual. Well, maybe I'll be wrong, let's watch.

This episode starts with a teaser. A pair of musclebound youths are shaking a big metal...box type thing? I guess? It looks sort of like one of those big aluminum dumpsters, but not quite. Maybe an oversized safe?...around in an alley. Their rocking it back and forth eventually causes it to rip open at one corner, somehow, and what looks like a bunch of comic books and candy comes spilling out.

Maybe this is just the sharkverse version of a piñata or something.

The two boys kneel down to claim their winnings, when suddenly the street sharks interdict them. The kids are remarkably nonchalant at being accosted by a band of hideous anthropomorphic shark monsters. They just kind of smugly grin at them and say "none of your business, pal!" as if this was just some normal rando coming up to them. When the sharks start marching forward though, their expressions turn panicked and they begin running.

Maybe the sharks were supposed to have been hidden in the shadows at first, so the two guys could only hear them? That would explain this. The art absolutely failed to capture this, though, or even seem to attempt it.

One of the fugitives is caught quickly, while the other escapes into a metal door on a nearby terrace and locks it behind him. I guess they were opening their piñata right outside their gang's safehouse, or something. I'd assume this was a stolen safe, but the fact that it's bigger than both of them put together, too heavy for them to do more than rock back and forth, and without a vehicle in sight makes me unsure what the story is supposed to be exactly. I'm going with street gang birthday piñata for now, with the sharks' attack being total coincidence.

Whitey tears through the metal door after the guy, and sees a gaggle of downtrodden-looking, mostly young, people warming themselves over makeshift campfires in an abandoned factory.

"What a nightmare," Whitey says to himself, presumably referring to either the destitution or the fire hazard. Then the guy who he chased in here slips through the sixth dimension and comes through the broken door behind him, swinging a club.

This show has a problem with chase scenes, I'm noticing. You'd think that one party chasing after the other and therefore being behind them would be an easy principle to remember, but oh well.

Tiger hears him coming, and knocks him down before he can land a blow. When he falls, the guy drops a bunch of...coins? Bottlecaps? Oh, okay, Tiger clarifies a second later, they're supposed to be pills. I would never have guessed by looking at them. He surmises that his opponent's unusually muscular physique was caused by the pills, and said opponent - seeming to have lost all fear of him again - just goes "none of your business, shark!" and is then backed up by several of the dumpster fire attendants. All in various states of overmuscled-ness. They close in around him, and then Tiger says "you guys have got enough problems, you don't want to mess with me!" before...turning around and walking out of the building, without having accomplished anything.

Lmao what a sore loser.

The next day, Lena the grad student from the pilot (remember her? Probably not. Her only plot relevance was making a couple of phone calls. Why do I even remember her name?) dropping her teenaged brother off at a bus stop. She's going to be off on a research trip for three months, so this is goodbye for now. Well, actually she says she's off on a research grant, which I guess would mean she's going to spend three solid months camped outside the university grant office until they fund her project. Equally plausible, in my experience.

Wearing your labcoat outside? Bad lab safety. Very bad lab safety. No wonder people keep getting horribly mutated.

The way this is written gives me the impression that the parents are dead, and she's basically been raising him in her absence. So she's dropping him off at a...boarding school? Live-in youth center? Somewhere other than the hallway outside of the grant office, whatever. She asks if there's anything he wants when she picks him up again in the spring, and he asks for a laptop with high 90's specs, which she laughs off.

Fastforward to three months later, when she drives up again with some fresh battle scars hidden under her labcoat and waits for her brother. He doesn't emerge. I think the implication is that he joined the muscle cult and is off popping steroids in abandoned buildings with them.

Is this going to be a Very Special Episode? It's starting to look like it.

Well, the problem isn't as serious as I thought it was going to be, because just as she's starting to get really nervous he does come out. Looking healthy and happy to see her. Just, he's also three times as muscular as before.

She asks him how he managed this, and he tells her that he and his friends have just made it a mission to get shredded these last few months, and they've succeeded. One of said friends calls him over, and he tells Lena he needs to go make their lifting date and that he'll see her later.

There's an incredibly over-the-top tragic/scary musical score here. More bombastic than anything that's played during battles or when Dr. Paradigm is revealing horrific new inventions. Yeah, this is DEFINITELY a very special episode.

I'll give props to the episode, though. Greeting your months-gone close family warmly and then blowing them off within literal seconds to scurry away with a mysterious friend to a mysterious place is pretty much what early/mid stage drug addiction looks like. Aside from the cartoon super-steroid nature of the drug in question and the bad voice acting, this feels pretty real.

Lena knows there's something wrong, and that night while playing pool with Whitey (I guess that's a thing they do. Is the sharks' secret clubhouse on campus or something, if Lena and Bends are always checking in on them? This was probably established in early season one or so) she tells him she's worried about her brother Malak. His name is Rip, by the by. So, Slammu the...whale shark, maybe? The spots say whale shark, but the teeth disagree...Rip the great white shark, and then there's Hammy and Tiger. He says he'll snoop on Malak for her, and then we cut immediately to him openly approaching the kid and his friend while they're talking to a shady looking older guy in an alley at night, only for them to run away.

Having broken into the muscle-cult's safehouse a few months ago probably isn't doing him any favors now. Neither is being a shark monster, I suppose.

...why were they harassing the musclekids, in the opening scene? Did they just take a break from Dr. Paradigm to terrorize some random petty criminals? Is that a thing they do? Do they leave them tied up in...shark...silk?...for the police?

The next time we see Malak, he comes home and calls his sister's name. When there's no response, he pads over to where her handbag is hanging and takes some bills out of the wallet.

Real talk here: I've been Lena, and this is actually hitting pretty close to home. This is exactly how it goes when a family member gets addicted to something.

She walks in on him, though, and he's not able to hide what we was doing. The way it plays out, with her not responding to him calling her name and then approaching silently with a suspicious expression, it comes across like money has been going missing ever since she came back (however long ago that was, now) and she's trying to catch him at it. Should have been established onscreen, but eh. She cuts through his babbled, contradictory explanations, and says that just because he's a beefmonster now doesn't mean she won't "whup" him. It...actually probably does mean exactly that, but her force of personality is sufficient to cow him regardless. He babbles some more excuses, before saying he needs more money to afford his weightlifting vitamins. She asks for a sample of those "vitamins" so she can test and ID them, and...he just hands them over.

Damn. That's...pretty impressive, on her part.

When she catches him outside of his school (I think? It looks like the same place she dropped him off at the beginning before going to harass the grant department for three months. Maybe he was just living at home alone for those three months after all) sometime later, she tells him that the steroid he's been taking comes with a risk of cardiac arrest. He seems legitimately shocked by this, and babbles "b...but everyone is doing it," to which she replies that they're all playing with fire.

Damnit. The addiction stuff was actually being pretty realistic (effects of the drug aside) until this scene. Is this kid supposed to actually not have know that drugs are dangerous? "But everyone else is doing them?" Yeah, realism over, we're in GI Joes Public Service Message land. Oh well. It was surprisingly good while it lasted.

Cut from there to Lena playing pool with the sharks again. We didn't get to see if Malak found her argument convincing or not, or if he's trying to get clean. She and Rip discuss the danger that this "superblue" pill poses to muscle-obsessed teenagers, and he announces that they're going to have to take drastic action here.

Still no word on how that exchange between Lena and Malak is supposed to have ended. The fact that she's still this concerned about it implies that he's still using, but it also could just be concern for his social group or general civic responsibility now. The end of that conversation outside the school was a very bad thing to skip.

Also, Rip's idea was for himself to go undercover and infiltrate the superblue-junky subculture so they can catch the distributors. Which he thinks he can do by putting on a trenchcoat and shades.

He also says he'll have to do the undercover part alone, because no one would believe it if all four of them claimed to be interested at once. So, he doesn't expect the disguise to actually fool anyone, then, if he's saying that "all four of us" would look too suspicious. I guess this is supposed to be a joke? Maybe? It's a joke with one too many punchlines, if so.

Also, wouldn't the four of them being interested in a drug that boosts physical strength actually make a ton of sense? Since they're seen as unstable outlaws, and they're always getting into fights? They're superhumanly strong already, obviously, but being interested in the possibility of getting even stronger...if I was a superblue dealer I'd fall for it.

Well, Rip wears his stupid outfit, tells the others to jump out of hiding when he gives the signal, and enters a shady club. "This is the low life, guys," he whispers into the mic he's wearing when he beholds the contents of the bar.

It, um. It looks like their own hideout, only cleaner and with worse lighting.

I actually am not sure if that's supposed to be a joke, or if the creators just didn't notice.

Rip plays pool with a suspiciously muscular looking fellow, and then asks to buy some vitamins off of him, which he's happy to sell. Rip pockets them, and they play another round. Then he gives the signal, and the other three sharks burst into the bar, accuse him of screwing them over for drug money, beginning a staged battle. The fight moves out into the street, with Rip (who pretended to swallow some of the pills) throwing the other three off of him again and again despite their relentless assault. It's probably the most intense, fast-paced, and well choreographed battle out of the episodes I've seen. Which is barely saying anything, but still. The fight goes on for...quite a long time, really...with bystanders awed at the Street Sharks actually fighting EACH OTHER for once.

Then the battle moves into that abandoned factory. The muscle cultists abandon their dumpster fires and flee the building as the sharks tear it apart from the inside. Then, some chemicals from the old machinery come splashing out as the pipes break. Wait, those were still full of chemical fluid? Or are we supposed to infer that the machines have been repurposed for making superblue, and that that's what they're full of? The liquid is a different color, which is sort of a misleading detail if so given the way cartoons usually telegraph these things. Whatever. Whatever the stuff is, it flows into the dumpster fires, catches, and the building goes up. Rip burrows away into the floor, and the others shortly follow suit.

This was all part of the plan, I guess? They knew there was highly flammable liquid pressurized in those old pipes? I guess?

I thought they were faking one or more of their deaths, but apparently not. They all unburrow outside of the burning ruins, and the other three sharks tell Rip that he's not worth their trouble anymore before leaving.

This seems to have impressed the drug dealer. Somehow. For some reason. He starts schmoozing up to Rip, and leads him away somewhere. Apparently, THIS is what the plan was meant to do. Erm. Okay?

The dealer brings Rip into a radio dead zone, so his mic stops transmitting, which worries the others who have regrouped in Lena's car. The secret lair with the radio deadzone that he's led to is...the upper floor of the club this whole scene started in. Um. Okay then. Guess it's only the top floor that has its airways jammed, somehow. There's a drug kingpin lairing up there, with a lavish office setup that includes a shark tank. With cute little sharks swimming around in it. Not the kind that could threaten a person, even in a show that didn't cast sharks as friendlies in general. He even feeds them fish food pellets, d'awww.

Crimelord guy introduces himself as "Jackal," and says he has a business proposition for Rip, but first he has to prove that he isn't just some dumb schmuck like everyone says he is. Rip responds by flying into a rage (I can't tell if it's supposed to be affected or not...) and tears the dude's office apart, which...seems to impress and satisfy him. These drug dealers are really attracted to property damage. Even if it's their own.

Jackal then answers on old school mobile phone (wait, I thought they were in a signal dead zone...) and seems to be reporting to someone higher up in the chain of command about this great new product endorsement he's landing them. I guess Jackal's not the head honcho then, just a highly-placed lieutenant or such.

Jackal leads Rip into an armored car and hands him another bag of superblue. Random pool hall pusher is their chauffeur, it looks like. Man, Rip really was lucky that he just happened to start playing with that guy, wasn't he?

I'm guessing they're off to meet the big boss now. Lol, it's totally going to be Paradigm, isn't it?

Before bringing him officially aboard though, Jackal wants Rip to prove he's good for this. His initiation test is to shake down some customers who owe Jackal money. One of them a young teen who's been giving him his entire allowance, on top of whatever other money he can get his hands on. Still not enough, though, and a six and a half foot tall sharkman is now screaming as much right into his face.

Rip brings the meager amount of cash back to Jackal, and tells him the kid will be taking the balance of his debt a lot more seriously now. However, Jackal isn't ready to introduce him to the big boss after a mere milkrun like that. That was just a preliminary test. Next, he wants Rip to rob a bank.

Goddamn is this show "extra."

Also, I'm not sure what they're even waiting for at this point. They have more than enough to bust this guy. Not that they ever needed to "bust" him at all, given the sharks' ability and willingness to just destroy villainous organizations by force on their own. They actually want to bring down the overboss, who seems to be a much more general crimelord and beyond the scope of the initial conflict? Like, "my friend's little brother god hooked on drugs, so now I'm going to destroy the entire mafia?"

I mean. Destroying the entire mafia wouldn't be a bad goal for a superteam like the street sharks. But...them deciding to do so over this?

Well. Anyway.

Rip agrees. Jackal tells him to stay here in his own lair overnight, where his boys will keep watch over him. He also makes another radiophone call to the overboss, and the whispered snatches of conversation we overhear suggest that this is actually a long con to get Rip killed or arrested during the robbery. Um. Okay? Long con verses long con, I guess. Which parties were expecting which series of events? How did anyone get the intel needed to plan this stuff? I'm getting lost.

Jackal leaves, and Rip plays pool against himself until the guards fall asleep, at which point he makes his quiet-ish exit. He returns quickly afterward, though, and (somehow?) hides the evidence of his burrowing.

Also, when a guard nearly catches him at this, he...tells him he was just rummaging behind the liquor cabinet in search of hamburgers. Those were a recurring topic of discussion in the last episode, too. I guess hamburgers are this show's lazy knockoff of the Ninja Turtles' pizza fetish.

So, the next day Rip burrows into the bank as instructed. Jackal and Co are watching from across the street. A limousine is also roaming around, as the overboss is also observing, and yep, it's Paradigm.

Isn't he basically running the US government at this point? I guess he still finds time to sell drugs to kids as part of a convoluted shark-baiting scheme.

Shortly after tunneling under the bank, though, Rip goes radio silent. After a few minutes, Jackal gets antsy, and he and his goons approach the breach, which all four street sharks promptly pounce from.

Paradigm flees the scene in his limo, without the sharks ever realizing he was behind this operation. His drug dealers, meanwhile, are easily and comically caught and manhandled by the sharks until the police arrive. It seems like it would be the easiest thing in the world for Jackal and Co to point at the characteristic street shark damage to the bank at say that they were the instigators here, but...the local PD actually seems to be on good terms with the sharks. I'm confused about their legal status. Did things get better for them in the last three episodes? Or was this always a City vs State/Federal dichotomy, as far as their perception goes? IDK.

End with Malak, who I guess is clean now, convincing all his friends that drugs are uncool. The sharks eat some burgers. The end.

Two out of the three episodes I've now seen share this pattern. They start out like a normal TMNT clone, then just get completely away from themselves in the second act, and only come down again in the last sixty seconds of screentime. In this case, this was clearly supposed to be the PSA drug episode that every 90's cartoon felt obligated to do. It started as that. In fact, it started as an unusually poignant and well-written example of it. The last minute or so went back to being that, for about ten seconds or so. But in between it was...an extended intra-street sharks battle in which a factory explodes for no reason, and Rip doing undercover gangster shit with only a very tangential (AT BEST) connection to the drugs. It's like it just totally forgot what it was doing, and only remembered barely in time for the end.

And then there's just...the ever-escalating, fever dream-like incoherence of it all. Was the ENTIRE superblue peddling operation just bait to lure in the street sharks? It kiiiind of seemed like it, with how quickly Dr. Paradigm seemed ready to set Rip up. How did the sharks know that having a big stupid fight and destroying the random drug addict building would get them a recruitment offer? Why did they even go as far as the bank, when they could have busted Jackal just as easily the night before? I'd thought they were waiting to meet the overboss and take him out too, but...nope?

Speaking of the overboss, why was it Paradigm? Like, I totally called it, but it was such an irrelevant detail that ended up having zero payoff. I guess it fits with the drug having such...mutagenic...properties, but that was just yet another bizarre detail that didn't go anywhere. Why the muscle thing? That had no bearing on the story at all, and just sort of mixed the messages about what kind of drugs the superblue is supposed to be analogous to. Why couldn't it have been, you know, just a drug? That kids get attracted and addicted to for normal drug reasons? Wouldn't that have been a way better PSA than muddling things up by making it an exaggerated steroid?

It's really too bad this show is so cheap and hacky. Were it not for those things, the stream-of-consciousness insanity of this shit would make for some honest to god entertaining material. But on the other hand, something about the way this is written and directed makes me think that the writers ACTUALLY DIDN'T REALIZE how absolutely what-the-fuck their creation was. And, that kind of supplies a part of the magic.

I'm surprised this show doesn't have a bigger meme footprint. It does have some, but it deserves a hell of a lot more.

"A Shark Among Us" was definitely the best of the three episodes commissioned. An almost perfect bullseye of so-bad-it's-goodness and psychedelic spectacle.