Curtain of Cruelty (Courage the Cowardly Dog)

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Curtain of Cruelty is a season 3 episode of the Cartoon Network animated series, Courage the Cowardly Dog.

[edit] Plot

A strange red curtain is going through all of Nowhere, which Courage and Muriel notice after they have done some washing. Whenever it hits someone, no matter how kind they are, they turn cruel afterwards, and soon the whole of Nowhere has been hit and it becomes a town of rough hooligans. Eustace is not affected since he is the maximum of cruelty already, but, for some strange reason, neither are Courage and Muriel. Eustace is still crueller than everyone in Nowhere, and since he is as cruel as possible, the cruel residents of Nowhere elect him mayor. The villainous people kidnap Muriel and take her to their training camp where they try to turn her cruel just like the rest of them. Courage tracks the source of the mysterious red curtain and finds it leads to the Old Man, who is extremely unhappy in life, and is using his scientific talents to build a machine that turns everyone cruel so that they will be in a similar situtation to himself. He is furious that Courage hasn't been affected and fights him. During the fight, Courage realizes that the fabric softener he and Muriel used before made them immune to the Old Man's red curtain. Courage puts the fabric softener in the Old Man's device and creates a new, blue curtain. Just as the Old Man is about to finish him, he is hit by the blue curtain and turns kind and thoughtful. The blue curtain goes through all of Nowhere, turning the residents back into kind people(except Eustace, who cannot be changed). Because Eustace is the only cruel person left, the residents kidnap him and take him to their new training camp where they will try to turn him kind. The Old Man is elected for Mayor as he is now the kindest man in Nowhere.

[edit] Trivia

This is a unique appearance of the Old Man as it is the only time he is portrayed as a villain. This episode also shows him as a genius. It is possible that he was somehow affected in an experiment that turned him cruel and bitter as he is shown in this one. At the end he is elected Mayor.

This episode has a passing similarity with the episode 'Car Broke, Phone Yes?'. It exercises the idea that Eustace has no chance of redemption.