M.A.S.K. S1E58

The Creeping Desert

Miles Mayhem, Nash Gorey, Sly Rax and a tuxedoed man stand by a walker with a blue hose.

Gloria phones Matt from a holiday in Acapulco, where the resort is drying up and the sand is spreading. Matt leaves a planned ski weekend and brings Alex and Jacques, and Scott and T-Bob come too. A map of the spread shows that one property, the Acapulco Arms, will not be touched, and its owner, Jose Sanchez, turns out to have hired V.E.N.O.M. to make the desert with a machine so he can buy the ruined land cheaply and then bring it back with a second machine, a rehydrator. Scott and T-Bob try to take the rehydrator, and M.A.S.K. goes after both machines.

It's the snakes in V.E.N.O.M. I'm thinking of.

Most M.A.S.K. villains steal something. In "The Creeping Desert" a hotel owner hires V.E.N.O.M. to ruin the land next to his property and then pay for the cure, which makes the crime a business plan, and it is Matt's map that gives it away. The opening is a phone call from Gloria, on holiday in Acapulco, who sends photographs of a resort that has dried up and filled with sand. Matt had promised to take Scott skiing that weekend, and the frames of a snowy cabin against the later cracked pool and tilted hotel make the change of scene feel real.

The episode is about who benefits, which is where a crime story with no stolen object has to start. Everyone at the resort is a victim, and the only party who comes out ahead is the one whose property is spared. Matt gets there by working out what the desert will not touch.

The best scene is the diagram. Matt and Alex look at the spread of the dryness across a map of the resort, Alex says that Acapulco will look like the Sahara in a matter of hours, and Matt spots that the calculations do not cover everything, and Alex puts the shortfall at about two thousand feet. The computer finds what lies in the gap, the Acapulco Arms, which is the hotel where Scott and T-Bob have been left for safety, and a check on the owner gives a name, Jose Sanchez. Then comes the deduction in two short steps: a man who could sell a machine that makes a desert could sell another that unmakes one, and a hotelier who buys up worthless land and restores it would be the richest man in town. Nobody argues; the map has done the work of a confession.

The animation supports the idea with a clear gallery of images. A swimming pool stands empty in cracked ground under palm umbrellas, a hotel tower tilts among beams crossing the sky, and the V.E.N.O.M. walking machine is a six-legged thing on suction feet with a glowing blue tube. The rehydrator is a plain yellow machine with a round blue port.

The jokes land softly rather than loudly. Matt and Alex trade the line about a reptile haven and the snakes in V.E.N.O.M., someone wonders whether Mother Nature took her lunch break, and T-Bob complains that working as a hairdryer really burns him up, a gag that suggests his hands have been swapped for blowers.

The weakness is how the threat ends. Matt simply tells Alex and Jacques to get rid of the desert machine, and the transcript shows no scene of them struggling with it, so the mechanism the plot rests on is dealt with in a single order. The chase for the rehydrator, with Scott in swimming trunks and T-Bob on the ground beside a yellow machine in the frames, carries more of the tension.

Placed in the season, it is an unusual one, a mystery whose answer is a motive. The talk between Mayhem and Sanchez puts regrowth at six months, and the episode never pretends that this is quick; it makes the man with the cure the one who caused the disease.

The M.A.S.K. wiki lists two errors in this episode: Alex Sector is seen in the passenger seat when Rhino pulls up next to Volcano, although he should be driving, and Scott is in swimming trunks when he and T-Bob try to take the Rehydrator but is wearing his usual shirt, jeans and sneakers when Sanchez flees in the jeep.
The M.A.S.K. wiki's episode page gives the safety tip as Scott planning to spend his allowance on fireworks to blow up toys, with Matt refusing to allow it.

Matt Trakker

Jacques LaFleur

Alex Sector

Gloria Baker

Miles Mayhem

Sly Rax

Nash Gorey

Scott Trakker

T-Bob

Scott Trakker rides T-Bob in wheel mode beside a snowy cabin.

Matt Trakker looks at beach photographs on his desk beside a yellow phone.

Matt Trakker talks on the phone at his desk as flames lick the foreground.

Scott Trakker and T-Bob stand in the open doorway of a study.

Scott Trakker stands with hands in his pockets beside T-Bob, eyes lowered.

Matt Trakker sits at his desk by a fireplace as Scott Trakker and T-Bob stand nearby.

Scott Trakker gestures toward T-Bob while Matt Trakker watches from the desk.

Scott Trakker winks and pats T-Bob while Matt Trakker listens.

Scott Trakker points a finger up as T-Bob stands by the door.

Matt Trakker types at a control console.

A hand carves a wooden horse with a knife in the woods.

A man in overalls steps over a log as a small animal and a red bird nearby.

Alex Sector signals with a white flag in front of scouts holding red flags.

Scouts raise white flags in line as Alex Sector watches.

Alex Sector bends low behind a row of scouts.

Boulder Hill's gas station sits at the foot of a snowy red cliff under a sign.

Matt Trakker looks to one side from his harnessed seat.

A round yellow seating chamber is seen from above with a black square in the middle.

Scott Trakker and T-Bob stand at a doorway in the snow with two towers nearby.

Scott Trakker smiles and holds a box of dirt beside T-Bob.

Scott Trakker and T-Bob stand at a door beside Thunderhawk.

T-Bob looks up with wide eyes.

Matt Trakker and Alex Sector sit in a vehicle as pink beams cross the glass.

Scott Trakker reaches over a seat inside a cabin as T-Bob watches.

Scott Trakker waves beside T-Bob in a metal bay.

Cracked dry ground surrounds an empty resort pool with palm trees and umbrellas.

A tilted hotel tower stands among palm trees as light beams cross the sky.

Matt Trakker smiles in his harness.

A woman with glasses looks toward rocky hills.

A woman in blue watches Matt Trakker sit in a red car beside Rhino.

Beachgoers with surfboards crowd a glass-roofed walkway.

Matt Trakker and Alex Sector examine papers on a table as Scott Trakker and T-Bob look on.

A small red car drives across cracked desert toward distant ruined buildings.

Rhino and a dark blue truck kick up dust behind a half-buried red car.

A red car carrying three people races between Rhino and a dark blue truck.

Matt Trakker drives in a visored mask with a red scarf.

Binoculars frame Rhino, a dark truck and a red car on the desert.

A man in a tuxedo stands with V.E.N.O.M. agents beside a legged machine.

A dark blue jet with an orange canopy flies low with a purple-suited pilot inside.

Scott Trakker and T-Bob lean between two masked agents in a vehicle cab.

Sly Rax and a man in a tuxedo stand beside a legged walking machine.

Sly Rax rides a legged walker over yellow rocks.

A blue truck lurches away from a pink blast as a red laser streaks past.

A purple-masked V.E.N.O.M. driver with orange eyes looks down at his controls.

The purple-masked driver stretches an arm out beside a metal panel.

A dark blue truck with guns sits at the edge of a rocky cliff.

The purple-masked driver works a control lever beside a cannon.

The purple-masked driver grips a lever beside a large gun on the yellow cliffs.

A man in a teal vest splashes into blue water.

Rhino sits angled beside the purple-masked driver at his cannon.

A crowd of beachgoers in swimwear and sunglasses stands together watching.

T-Bob looks worried with downturned yellow eyes.

A dark blue truck and a motorbike sit in a forest clearing beside a person.

A six-legged walker machine stands in the woods on suction feet.

A walker machine and several figures stand on a brown patch of forest ground seen from above.

Miles Mayhem and a man in a tuxedo stand under bare trees.

Miles Mayhem points toward a man in a dark suit seen from behind.

Miles Mayhem frowns at the tuxedoed man seen from behind.

Nash Gorey and Sly Rax stand together in the woods with Nash holding a teal helmet.

Nash Gorey lifts a teal mask as an orange container tips above it.

Miles Mayhem and the tuxedoed man watch a teal-masked agent and a man in white.

A tilted ruined tower stands in cracked desert with distant buildings.

Alex Sector and two M.A.S.K. agents stand before Rhino's front.

Matt Trakker and Alex Sector gaze at a coastal city from a hill.

Matt Trakker smiles with the coast behind him.

Alex Sector's face appears on a screen with red grid lines.

Matt Trakker and Alex Sector face each other closely with Matt's red glove at Alex's shoulder.

Matt Trakker and Alex Sector sit with two agents inside Rhino's command room.

Matt Trakker, Alex Sector and a dark-haired agent look worried, one with a raised fist.

Alex Sector pushes a card into a slot as Matt Trakker and two agents watch.

A dark-haired agent and a woman in a green vest look toward Matt Trakker.

Matt Trakker looks forward with a firm expression.

Agents gather around Alex Sector in the command room.

Rhino's front faces the viewer in the desert.

A resort pool with palm umbrellas and swimmers fills the frame.

Scott Trakker, shirtless, steps out from a palm tree beside T-Bob.

Scott Trakker leans out from behind T-Bob beside a palm trunk.

T-Bob wraps an arm around Scott Trakker beside a palm tree.

Scott Trakker hugs T-Bob's dome with a worried look.

T-Bob peeks from the bushes as Scott Trakker grips a tube behind him.

A man in a tuxedo with a briefcase and Miles Mayhem stand before a hotel building.

A grey-haired man in a tuxedo smirks in front of the hotel.

The tuxedoed man with a briefcase talks with Miles Mayhem among palm trees.

Alex Sector drives Rhino, seen through the windshield.

A six-legged machine with a glowing blue tube stands in a bare forest.

Miles Mayhem and the tuxedoed man stand beside a yellow machine with a wheeled arm.

Scott Trakker and T-Bob hide in green bushes.

A yellow machine with a round blue port fills the frame beside a man in a dark vest.

Scott Trakker runs barefoot across a pale road.

T-Bob lies on his side on the ground beside a yellow machine.

Scott Trakker kneels over the fallen T-Bob.

Scott Trakker touches T-Bob's front panel with a worried look.

Scott Trakker looks up beside T-Bob.

Alex Sector kneels in a blue mask beside a walker as a purple-masked V.E.N.O.M. agent stands over him.

Alex Sector falls forward as the purple-masked agent leans over him under a red beam.

The tuxedoed man stands beside a blue jeep loaded with a yellow machine.

A white sleeve swipes across T-Bob, who glares.

The blue jeep drives along a jungle road with the yellow machine and a driver.

A masked rider sits on a motorcycle with a sidecar among bare trees.

Rhino faces the viewer among bare trees.

A teal-masked agent drives as a masked V.E.N.O.M. agent hunches beside him.

Rhino sits at the base of a rocky cliff against the sky.

Two agents splash in water, one raising a gloved hand.

A yellow-suited masked agent raises a hand inside a vehicle under a red strap.

Paper bills flutter down over a forest.

Two agents struggle in splashing water.

Miles Mayhem grips the sides of his head with purple gloves, scowling.

A helicopter skims the water, leaving a spray trail.

Alex Sector and Matt Trakker stand with two other agents under bare trees.

A brush cleans the circuit board inside T-Bob's open panel.

Scott Trakker grins in front of Matt Trakker, Alex Sector and two agents.

Small figures stand among bare trees on a hillside near a city.

Rhino sits parked on a dirt road with big letters on its trailer.

Matt Trakker talks with Scott Trakker in front of a sunset painting.

Matt Trakker leans toward Scott Trakker.

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