Recap / The Powerpuff Girls (S3E1): "Fallen Arches"/"The Mane Event"

Original air date: 7/28/2000 (produced in 1999)

Production code: PPG-301

Fallen Arches: A trio of old villains called the Ministry of Pain return. The girls recruit the former heroes who defeated the trio in the past. Too bad they can't agree with each other, and a painful scuffle ensues

The Mane Event: When Bubbles and Buttercup accidentally rip a large portion of Blossom's hair, they give it a trim—leaving Blossom with a ridiculous Traumatic Haircut and she gets ridiculed by everybody in the city, when an all-seeing monster appears and Blossom runs off sobbing. But will she overcome her humiliation enough to help her sisters defeat the omniscient monster and save the day?

Fallen Arches contains examples of:

• Adults Are Useless: Played straight as no one else seems willing to take on the Ministry even though they clearly aren't much of a threat anymore. Ultimately subverted though as when the Powerpuff Girls fail to deal with them themselves, the Ministry along with Captain Righteous and Lefty are all injured in their fight, and the paramedics immediately arrive to rush all of them to the hospital. Thankfully, their quick timing meant the five men would eventually recover.
• Big "NO!": Captain Righteous lets out a big no as he runs towards Lefty who just hurt his hip. However, he hasn't reached his sidekick yet so he shouts it again.
• Big, Thin, Short Trio: Counterpart is the Big, Mastermind is the Thin, and Cohort is the Short.
• Blatant Lies: After discovering Captain Righteous and Lefty broke up, mostly due to the former's arrogance, Blossom lies about Righteous' willingness to reunite and Lefty accepting Righteous' breakup. It simply makes things worse.
• Captain Ersatz: Captain Righteous and Lefty are this to Captain America and Bucky Barnes.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: Bubbles and Buttercup glare at Blossom after the senior citizens are hospitalized after their battle for not letting them get involved.
  Stanley Whitfield: And it is this reporter’s opinion that perhaps none of this would have happened if the Powerpuff Girls would have just saved the day.
• Death Glare: Blossom receives this from not only her sisters, but everyone in Townsville.
• The Determinator: Despite their age, Captain Righteous and Lefty do succeed in finding and confronting their old foes, with the former even managing to fly all the way to the crime scene. It quickly goes downhill from there though.
• Did Not Think This Through: Blossom refuses to fight the Ministry of Pain simply because they were old. She could have very easily taken them to jail without hurting them.
• Dirty Coward: The Mayor, unsurprisingly. He is especially ignorant of how old the once-dangerous Ministry of Pain has become, and is quick to assume that Townsville is doomed despite the evidence to the contrary.
• Downer Ending: The Ministry of Pain isn't arrested, but rather hospitalized, along with Captain Righteous and Lefty. A rare case where the girls actually failed to save the day, a fact that even the Townsville news points out at the end.
• Epic Fail: Blossom attempts to make things fair by pairing a trio of old villains with a pair of old heroes. It leads in five incredibly old people trying to have a superhero fight. They are all so old that they can barely walk. What results is something that could only charitably be called a Wimp Fight and which puts all of them in the hospital for varied reasons (like their hips giving out on them).
• Evil Old Folks: "The Ministry of Pain", a supervillain team that used to terrorize Townsville but are now mostly harmless because they've become old and feeble. Even so, the citizens fear them all the same. Blossom tells her sisters that they won't fight them because they need to "respect their elders".
• Heroic Sacrifice: Captain Righteous is so horrified at Lefty's broken hip that he flies right into the Ministry of Pain before they can escape. Everyone pulls through, but only after they are hospitalized for their troubles.
• High-Class Glass: The evil and once-feared Mastermind sports a monocle.
• Honor Before Reason: Blossom refuses to hurt elderly people, even if they are criminals. Because of this, she then decides to contact the heroes that used to fight The Ministry Of Pain (now equally old and having long since had a fallout). The resulting Epic Fail has everybody (from reporters to her sisters) deliver a What the Hell, Hero? to her face.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: As determined as Mastermind might be, him and his two lackeys can't do anything more than steal money from the local banks in their old age, which they use to escape scot-free. Captain Righteous and Lefty are also this, not just because of their old age but also because of a massive falling out that left them unwilling to work together. Everyone in Townsville see the Powerpuff Girls as cowards because Blossom refuses to fight old people.
• Idiot Ball: Blossom suffers this big time here. She won't let the girls defeat the villains of the episode because they're elders, despite the fact the girls have already done so themselves before.

• Large Ham: Mastermind, also Captain Righteous to a lesser extent.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Blossom's face just screams this when her sisters glare at her after her plan backfires, sending all five men to the hospital.
• Mythology Gag: The exterior of Pokey Folks retirement home is what used to be the Hanna-Barbera studio. The numerical address seen is 3400, and the studio was at 3400 Cahuenga Blvd. in Hollywood. Lefty and Captain Righteous themselves resemble caricatures of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, respectively.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Blossom's plan to avoid harming the elderly Ministry of Pain was to send equally elderly superheroes to deal with them; it ends up causing all five of them serious injury anyway.
• Old Superhero: Captain Righteous and Lefty, who have come out of retirement to stop their old foes.
• Senior Sleep-Cycle: Cohort falls asleep in the midst of a bank heist.
• Shout-Out: Captain Righteous and Lefty are a not so subtle reference to Batman and Robin, while Captain Righteous also wears an outfit that vaguely resembles that of Captain America. Jughead also makes a cameo in the newsreel describing their backstory.
• Skewed Priorities: Blossom believes that "respecting your elders" is far more important than stopping a gang of thieves.
• Stating the Simple Solution: Despite Bubbles and Buttercup pointing out that they could easily take them, Blossom refuses to let them fight the Ministry of Pain on the grounds that they have to "respect their elders," and instead decides to talk the Ministry's equally elderly archenemies, Captain Righteous and Lefty, out of retirement to do the job for them. The end result: all five old men end up hospitalized, and the local news outright states that the entire mess could have been avoided if the Powerpuff Girls had just stepped in and stopped the Ministry of Pain in the first place.
• We Used to Be Friends: Captain Righteous and Lefty; the former thinks his sidekick just wanted the glory in crimefighting, while the latter feels he was treated as a liability. The two eventually reconcile.....but only after getting talked into a fight that left them and their archenemies badly injured.
• Would Harm a Senior: Bubbles and Buttercup are more than willing to stop the Ministry of Pain, but Blossom refuses to let them because they have to respect their elders.

The Mane Event contains examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny: The Professor convinces Blossom to laugh along with everyone, and it works for her, as the Monster is laughing so hard that its eyes are all shut, giving the girls the chance to knock it into space.
• Break the Cutie: Blossom flies off in tears after everyone laughs at her Traumatic Haircut.
• Did You Get a New Haircut?: The Professor asks Blossom about this when she goes into self-imposed seclusion after Bubbles and Buttercup butcher her hair and everyone laughs at her.
• Gag Haircut: Bubbles and Buttercup accidentally butcher Blossom's hair. She gets revenge by aiming her Eye Beams at her sisters' hair at the end of the episode.
• Jerkass Ball: The normally bubbly and innocent Bubbles gets a dose of this when she and Buttercup mock Blossom for her horrid haircut.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • The eye monster zaps Bubbles and Buttercup after they make fun of Blossom’s bad haircut.
  • Blossom gets even with Bubbles and Buttercup ruining her hair by using her Eye Beams to ruin theirs.
• Messy Hair: Bubbles and Buttercup have this at the beginning of the episode when they wake up in the morning. It's not a problem for Blossom, as she has long hair.
• Mirror Reveal: Blossom seeing her reflection in a skyscraper window, allowing her to finally notice her bad hairdo.
• Not So Above It All:
  • The narrator even laughs at Blossom’s hair.
  • The Professor remains stoic while consoling Blossom about her botched haircut, but the moment she is out of hearing range, he too can't keep in his laughter any longer.
• Oculothorax: The monster can see anything at all times with eyes all over its body which is a problem for the girls.
• Traumatic Haircut: Blossom is not aware of it until she finds out why everyone—including the monster—is laughing at her.

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