YMMV / Courage The Cowardly Dog S 4 E 46 The Mask

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • When Mad Dog acts tender towards Bunny and asks if they can "be all happy like", is he just trying to manipulate her? Or is he trying to assuage his own conscience? The fact that he never actually apologizes for what he does and responds extremely violently to Bunny trying to run away points to the former.
  • At the end, Eustace is seen wearing Kitty's mask as he tries to fix the furnace. Since some items that look like welding tools can be seen at his feet, is he wearing it simply for practicality? Or, considering Kitty's claim that she wears it so that she doesn't have to face reality, is there something he doesn't want to face? If the latter, is he simply trying not to face up to the fact that he's not as good a repairman as he likes to claim, or is he trying to avoid facing something deeper, like his troubled relationship with his family or guilt from how he mistreats Courage?
• Catharsis Factor: Seeing Mad Dog doofily smiling and laughing like an idiot after his big defeat comes across as this due to the way he treated Bunny.
• Creepy Cute: The mask Kitty wears can be this for some, especially after it's revealed she's more benevolent than Courage thought.
• Funny Moments: Eustace's attempts to open the door to the bedroom that Kitty was sleeping in. He tries kicking it, hitting with various tools (and later on, a boulder), and finally, he's about to blow the thing to hell with a massive concentration of explosives just before Muriel stops him.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The ending, where Bunny and Kitty are reunited after Mad Dog's defeat.
  • The scene where Muriel and Eustace embrace each other.
• Les Yay: Bunny and Kitty, so much so that it's hardly even up for interpretation.
• Moment of Awesome:
  • Courage hijacking Mad Dog's car (after catching up to it on foot) and driving it onto a set of train tracks just as a train was starting to cross them. Hopefully Mad Dog didn't survive the impact for long.
  • Before that, he beats the hell out of 2 of his cronies, who are just as big as Mad Dog himself^note as in, three times Courage's size!
• Nightmare Fuel: Despite not being an Eldritch Abomination, a supernatural force or a demon^*at least on the outside, Mad Dog is easily one of the scariest villains on the show. His aggressive behavior is played completely seriously and he doesn't have any redeeming qualities. But the scariest part of all is that actual monsters like him actually exist!
• Older Than They Think: No, Steven Universe was not the first Cartoon Network show to feature a heavily implied lesbian relationship. It was the first one to feature an explicit one between major recurring characters, but Bunny and Kitty are really only a step behind explicit.
• Realism-Induced Horror: The show filled with all kinds of fantastical and sci-fi threats, but Mad Dog is considered one of the scariest villains to appear on it — even though (or perhaps because) there's nothing supernatural about him aside from being an anthropomorphic dog. A big part of this is due to him being a disturbingly authentic portrayal of a domestic abuser who controls his girlfriend Bunny with threats and acts of violence while isolating her from people who could help her and using emotional manipulation to his advantage.

---