The Mask (Courage the Cowardly Dog)

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The Mask was the seventh episode of the fourth season of Courage the Cowardly Dog. This episode was a double-length episode, dealing with a mysterious masked figure.

[edit] Plot

The episode begins with Courage sleeping beneath the Bagg Farm's chicken coop, when a mysterious figure, dressed in a white robe and a mysterious, doll-face mask approaches him. The figure soon beats Courage senseless, while saying "All dogs are evil". Soon, Muriel steps out of the chicken coop and invites the figure inside for tea, believing the figure to be a new friend of Courage's.

While drinking tea, the figure reveals her history: her name's Kitty, and she and her best friend, Bunny, are from the wrong side of the tracks. Bunny fell in love with a gangster, who mistreated her. When Kitty tried to get Bunny to leave him, he threatened her life and she was forced to leave her home. Eustace insults Kitty's mask, which sends her into a rage, from which she storms off. After this, Kitty assaults Courage numerous times.

At dinner, Eustace questions Kitty's mask again, to which Kitty answers that she simply doesn't wish to face reality. When Muriel tells Kitty that everyone has to face reality, Kitty brings up flaws in Muriel (her sneaking snacks) and Eustace (his inability to actually fix anything). After dinner, everyone retires to bed, including Kitty, who sleeps in the attic. As everyone else is sleeping, Courage spies on the still-awake Kitty, who pulls out a cat-toy and plays with it, before taking off her mask, revealing that she is an anthropomorphic cat. This frightens Courage, who runs down and warns Eustace and Muriel of the threat. They ignore him and Eustace kicks him out of their room. Courage decides to do something about this threat, and locks both Eustace and Muriel's and Kitty's doors. Courage then sneaks into the attic through the window, and steals Kitty's toy. He then sets off to find out more about Kitty and Bunny. He soon stops at a diner, and a worker (a rat named Charlie) recognizes the toy and thinks that Courage is a friend of Kitty and Bunny's. He then tells Courage about their friendship and how Bunny's boyfriend, Mad Dog, and how jealous he was of their friendship. Courage then sets off for the other side of the tracks.

Meanwhile, back at the farmhouse, Muriel needs to use the bathroom, but Courage locked the door. She wakes Eustace, who has no luck with the door. Courage, on the other hand, has made it to the other side of the tracks, and sees Mad Dog and his gang, along with Bunny, enter a decrepit building. Back at the farmhouse, Kitty wakes up and realizes that her toy is gone, which causes her to go into a frenzy, cursing Courage. Meanwhile, back at the building, Mad Dog yells at Bunny abusively and says that if he finds any trace of Kitty, he'll bury both of them. Soon, he calms down a bit and tries to convince Bunny to keep things the way they are, and Bunny hooks Mad Dog to a lamp and tries to escape, but is stopped by his crew.

Back at the house, Kitty is still struggling to get out, while Eustace is unable to open the door. Muriel is about to give up, when she finds a bobbypin and is able to open the door and use the bathroom. Meanwhile, on the other side of the tracks, Bunny has been put into a pot of soil, and Courage gets in to rescue her. He frightens her at first, but then she sees Kitty's toy and asks him to save her. Soon, Mad Dog's crew enters the room, but Courage is able to knock them out. Back at the house, Eustace decides to blow open the door with dynamite, when Muriel comes up and opens the door with the bobbypin. When they enter the attic, Kitty is gone.

Back on the other side of the tracks, Mad Dog is approaching Bunny and Courage, so they escape from the window, using the fire escape's ladder. They try to run away, but Mad Dog chases them down with his car. Courage is able to jump in to the car and causes Mad Dog to crash into an incoming train. As the train leaves, Kitty appears on the last car and Bunny jumps on to join her. Bunny tells Kitty that Courage saved her, and Kitty admits that "not all dogs are bad". She thanks Courage as they leave to continue their friendship. Courage returns to the house in the morning, and Muriel tells him that Kitty has left and left her mask behind, which Eustace begins using while fixing things.

[edit] Trivia

• The second (and final) double-length episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog.
• The explosives Eustace used were the ones used in The Chicken from Outer Space pilot.