- Title: Samurai Jack – Episode XV: Jack Tales
- wiki: link
Throwback Tuesday takes us back to the adventures of the time-displaced samurai and his quest to make his way home. Rather than offer a single adventure, “Episode XV” gives fans three separate tales. The first and third each showcase a failed attempt by Jack (Phil LaMarr) to get back to the past while the middle story (“The Metal Eaters”) is an odd interlude where Jack meets a bizarre family of cannibal robots focused on devouring his sword. Although Jack is defeated in both of the other tales, here he takes a step back allowing the robots to attack each other once the family realized each member is made out of the metal they hunger.
Lighter on action than either of the other two tales, “Jack vs. the Worm” recounts Jack’s encounter with a two-headed worm (voiced by Tim Curry and LaMarr) that is believed to have magical powers. The worm informs our hero that one head always speaks the truth while the other always lies, and if Jack must guess correctly to earn his way home. While driving Jack crazy, the worm’s riddles make sly references both to Monty Python and the Holy Grail and The Princess Bride and offers an ending that finds the samurai both outsmarted and defeated. In “Jack, the Gargoyle, and the Fairy” the samurai attempts to rescue a trapped fairy (Jennifer Hale) from an evil gargoyle (Jeff Bennett). The fairy can only grant one wish in her lifetime, but despite Jack’s defeat of the gargoyle he rushes in and fails to listen to the fairy’s warnings getting his hand trapped in her cage leaving only one solution to free them both. Finding defeat in the belly of the treacherous snake and by his own rash actions, Jack’s journey must continue.
