Monkey Challenge: The Beginning of Wisdom

The episode begins with Monkey and co arriving at a seemingly deserted town. There is a drought and they are all near the point of dying of thirst. This bit is very atmospheric, as they explore the town and we, the viewers, catch glimpses of the hidden townspeople while the characters remain oblivious of them.

Eventually it moves on to the next part of the story - Tripitaka is captured by the townsfolk and they plan to hand him over to the Drought Monster who has been terrorising their town, giving them water only in exchange for young boys, whom it eats.

The locals are not evil though, and quickly see the error of their ways - but there is still the problem of the Drought Monster. Pigsy - as part of a sub-plot about how he has taken over from Monkey as the 'leader' of the group - agrees to go and fight the monster, but he does not return.

The final part of the episode is when Monkey goes to fight the monster (it would have been a lot shorter if he had done this to begin with) and the final twist is that it turns out to be Sandy's long-lost father, who believed humans had eaten Sandy as a child and so he turned to eating human boys as a form of revenge.

Sandy is reunited with his father and magic is used to bring all the dead children - and Pigsy - back to life, so it is a happy ending all round.

This is definitely an episode of three 'acts' - the atmospheric beginning, the silly middle (silly because of Pigsy's antics in trying to solve the town's problems without Monkey's help), and the somewhat soppy ending.

Big Gay Longcat says: Pigsy is my favourite character. He is very silly in this story. He tries to make it "rain buckets" and it does!