Recap / The Powerpuff Girls (S3E10): "The Headsucker's Moxy"/"Equal Fights"

Original air date: 1/5/2001 (produced in 2000)

Production code: PPG-312

The Headsucker's Moxy: A little leech man sucks information from other people's brains. People find it hard to remember what happened after this, so the girls then use the Mayor as a defense to give the leech nothing.

Equal Fights: A female villain and radical feminist named Femme Fatale teaches the girls to hate men, so she can get away with crimes and steal all of the Susan B. Anthony dollars in the city.

The Headsucker's Moxy provides examples of:

• The Bait: The Mayor serves this role; the girls make the Robbing Leech think the Mayor has valuable information about Townsville inside his head.
• Cat Scare: At the start of the episode, a man stalked by the leech sees a lid fall of a trash can in front of him and cowers in fear…only to see that it’s just a cat. Subverted however, because just as he feels safe again, the leech grabs him.
• Conspicuous Trenchcoat: The leech's first victim wears one, however he is not a bad guy.
• "Eureka!" Moment: When Bubbles says Blossom has the right information, the latter realizes this is how the Robbing Leech commits crimes and gets away with them, by sucking information right out of their heads.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: During the end shot, it seems the Narrator has fallen victim to the Robbing Leech, as he completely lost his mind and is unable to finish his catchphrase.
• Laser Hallway: A security guard in a museum is seen activating one.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: The Robbing Leech literally sucks information from its victims, erasing their memory and leaving them with migraines.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: The leech is called the "Robbing Leech" by the girls. His true name is not known.
• A Pirate 400 Years Too Late: One of the leech's victims is a pirate.
• Pirate Booty: The leech stole a pirate’s hidden treasure.
• Shout-Out: The episode title is a reference to the 1994 comedy The Hudsucker Proxy.
• Silent Antagonist: The Robbing Leech does not speak.
• Subverted Catchphrase: The episode ends with the narrator trying to deliver his usual outro, but he lost his mind and is unable to do it. In addition, the girls and "THE END" never appear.
• Would Hurt a Child: The Robbing Leech would have made Blossom his next target and drain her of her smarts had she not got to the Mayor in time.
• Your Brain Won't Be Much of a Meal: The Mayor’s brain is so utterly useless, it proves an effective weapon against the Robbing Leech.

Equal Fights provides examples of:

• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • The three women (one being a teenage girl) Miss Bellum and Mrs. Keane brought in to scold the girls give them three of them.
    Female Bank President: Was Femme Fatale looking out for me when she stole from my bank?
    Policewoman: Was she looking out for me when she broke my arm?
    Teenage girl: (disdainful cough) Was she looking out for me when she stole my hairstyle? [The bank president and the policewoman glare at her] Well she did.
  • This also happens afterwards when the girls confront Femme Fatale to give her what for as a response to her manipulating them into holding the same Straw Feminist beliefs that she does.
    Buttercup: Susan B. Anthony coins, huh?
    Bubbles: Do you even know who she was?
    Femme Fatale: Um ... well, she was ... uh ...
    • They then proceed to tell her about what Susan B. Anthony stood for and what feminism is really about, before giving her a well-deserved beating.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: The girls are confronted with victims of Femme Fatale, who'd tricked and stole from them—one having had her bank stolen by the former, one whose arm Fatale broke...and one whose hairstyle she'd robbed.
• Comically Missing the Point: When the Powerpuff Girls yell at the Mayor to "do his own dirty work" and stop being a "misogynist", instead of simple confusion, he buys into the idea that he is a horrible misogynist of a mayor and goes into Inelegant Blubbering. Instantly, he perks up when he comes up with the idea of treating women more nicely by collectively giving them flowers, jewelry and chocolates, still not coming to his senses that he's already a kindly mayor as is.
• Dark Reprise: The beginning of act 1 has the Powerpuff Girls go through their day treating everybody kindly, from taking the trash out for the Professor, to playing nicely with their fellow students, to greeting the Mayor politely. Due to Femme Fatale's influence, the beginning of act 2 has the girls go through their day, only they treat anyone who's a boy with rudeness, for minor infractions towards another girls and even if women are not oppressed by men.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Due to Femme Fatale's influence, the Powerpuff Girls start exacting this on every boy or man they deem a misogynist. First, they gang up on a boy who accidentally knocked down a girl at recess. Then the Powerpuff Girls proceed to cow all the other boys, who were just staring on at the spectacle. At home, the girls shoot the Professor a collective Death Glare for the crime of kindly asking them to clean their room. And when the Mayor asks their help to stop Femme Fatale, Blossom yells at him to "do [his] own dirty work".
• Does This Make Me Look Fat?: When she's finally thrown in jail, Femme Fatale complains that horizontal stripes (like the ones on her prison uniform) make her look fat.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: While it's not exactly trying to say that the Girls' misandrist actions were okay, there's no denying that the consequences would have been much harsher if the genders were reversed.
• Excellent Judge of Character: Neither Miss Keene nor Miss Bellum were at the Utonium Household when the girls claim the Professor made them do lots of chores. But if their dialogue is anything to go by, they trust on principle that Professor Utonium just isn't the sort of guy to make his daughters clean house beyond tidying up their bedroom.
• Faux Affably Evil: Femme Fatale feigns Affably Evil Behavior, that she is doing these actions on behalf of all women, when in reality she is only doing it to benefit herself, and she is proud of that.
• Humble Pie: Combined with My God, What Have I Done?, the talk with Miss Bellum, Ms. Keane, and the three female victims of Femme Fatale forces the girls to see the error of their misguided beliefs.
• Icy Blue Eyes: The last scene of the episode reveals that Femme Fatale has these.
• Irony: Femme Fatale specifically stole Susan B. Anthony coins because they were the only form of currency with women on them. On three levels is this ironic. First, Femme Fatale doesn't even know who Susan B. Anthony is (beyond being the only woman with her face on American currency). Leading into the second reason: it leads to her downfall when the girls use Susan B. Anthony's backstory as a powerful argument against Femme Fatale's "I can't go to jail because I'm a girl" statement. Lastly, Susan B. Anthony would be rolling in her grave if she were to witness Femme Fatale abusing feminism when it's convenient, as the suffragist chose to be sent to prison like any other man in order to set an example of equality, while Femme Fatale used her gender as an excuse not to go to jail for her crimes.
• It's All About Me: It's revealed that Femme Fatale only advocates Straw Feminism if it's convenient for her while committing crimes and ended up hurting three other women during her crime spree.
• Jerkass: Femme Fatale is very cruel towards men and basically anyone that gets in her way, including women.
• Jerkass Ball: When the girls allow themselves to be manipulated and influenced by the Femme Fatale, they start acting like jerks to any boy or man for minor things and false reasons, which they consider "misogynistic".
• Jerkass Has a Point: Femme Fatale does bring up a good point when she says that female superheroes tend to be less popular or revered than male superheroes.
  Femme Fatale: Surely you’ve noticed. Female superheroes aren’t nearly as revered as male superheroes.
  Bubbles: Sure they are. There’s Supergirl, Batgirl—
  Femme Fatale: (snorting in contempt) Sheesh! They’re so lame! Merely extensions of their male counterparts. Who besides you is a heroine in her own right?
• Knight Templar: Femme Fatale believes she's standing up for women's rights by stating that women are better than men when committing crime, but this trope is subverted when it's revealed that other women were hurt during her crime spree, causing the girls to realize Femme Fatale's only standing up for women's rights if it's convenient for HER.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Combined with Humble Pie, the three women scolding the girls make them see that Femme Fatale practically tricked them into letting her get away with her crimes and that they have unintentionally hurt females indirectly.
• Noodle Implements: It was mentioned Femme Fatale had a different hairstyle before getting her signature blonde do which happened to be stolen from a Valley Girl.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: Femme Fatale talks as though her villain-career and robberies are a service to woman-kind everywhere, but really she's just another bad guy with a gimmick, using sexism as a wafer-thin justification for committing armed robberies without consequence. This is best illustrated by the women victims of her crime spree.
• Offended by an Enemy's Indifference: While all of Femme Fatale's victims are bitter at how she couldn't even pretend to not be apathetic when she stole from them, the young blonde teen scolding the girls has it especially personal against Femme Fatale because she stole her hairstyle without even bothering to find out who she is. Suffice to say, the bank manager and the cop aren't terribly impressed to hear this.
• Oh, Crap!: Femme Fatale gets this when girls break out of her influence.
• Out-of-Character Moment: The Powerpuffs go through this as the fact of believing the nonsense of Femme Fatale and being influenced by her, since they supposedly do not trust criminals, in addition to saying that she is the only female villain in the whole city, since they already know they had faced female villains before, mainly Princess Morbucks and Sedusa, who have tried to destroy them on more than one occasion, they also did not let them off the hook, like they did here.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Miss Keene and Miss Bellum response, upon seeing how the girls are acting due to Femme Fatale's influence, is to sit them down and gently explain to them what feminism really is.
• Rule of Symbolism: While the Powerpuff Girls' conversation with Miss Bellum and Miss Keene has a source of light, the girls are pretty much in the dark of how self-serving Femme Fatale is. At some point during the conversation, the female citizens of Townsville come forward with how Femme Fatale did them each a great disservice, even though they were women. Once the girls learn Femme Fatale doesn't care about any woman but herself, the curtains are drawn back to show the girls have seen the light of what it means to truly fight injustice.
• Skewed Priorities: The blonde teenager tries to turn the girls' opinion on Femme Fatale around by mentioning that she robbed her hairstyle. Downplayed in that she's shown to not view it as any more important than what the other two women experienced.
• Straw Feminist: Femme Fatale, full stop. She even turns the girls into these.
• Straw Hypocrite: Femme Fatale doesn’t care if other women get hurt during her crimes, and doesn’t even know who Susan B. Anthony was.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Femme Fatale invokes one on the girls, tricking them into believing the men are always looked upon by women so she can get off scot-free. It wasn't until Ms. Bellum and Ms. Keane talk to the trio do they realize what was really going on and that she never had their interest at heart.
• Tranquil Fury: The next time the Powerpuff Girls confront Femme Fatale, Blossom is flipping a Susan B. Anthony coin and she and her sisters give the female criminal an unamused Death Glare. What follows is the girls sharing the history of Susan B. Anthony, which precedes them beating on Femme Fatale for tricking them and abusing feminism for her own convenience.
• Very Special Episode: The episode majorly deals with gender equality and woman's rights.
• What the Hell, Hero?: The three women give a minor one to the girls for letting Femme Fatale's words of "girls gotta look out for each other" influences them, along with asking them an Armor-Piercing Question.
• Widely-Spaced Jail Bars: It is difficult to tell, but at the end, it looks as if Femme Fatale could squeeze through the jail bars if she turned herself sideways and tried really hard.

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