Original air date: 10/18/2002
Production code: CCD-407
The Bagges temporarily take in a masked figure wandering through Nowhere. She shows an instant dislike for Courage, whom she hates for being an "evil dog." But is there more to her than it seems?
This episodes provides examples of the following tropes (YMMV items can be found here.):
- Ambiguously Gay: The writers all but outright state that Kitty and Bunny are more than just friends. Bunny's relationship with Mad Dog makes her Ambiguously Bi, though the elements of coercion in said relationship mean the question of whether she's attracted to men is less clear-cut than it otherwise might have been.
- Anti-Interference Lock Up: Before Courage sets out to solve the mystery of Kitty and Bunny, he locks the door to Eustace and Muriel's bedroom in case Kitty might try to harm them while he's away, which becomes a problem when Muriel has to go to the bathroom. She eventually unlocks the door with a bobby pin, to Eustace's amazement.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: The hug between Eustace and Muriel shows this.
- Bait the Dog: After yelling at and threatening Bunny to the point that she breaks down crying, Mad Dog has an apparent moment of remorse where he hugs her and suggests they try to go back to how they were before. Of course, it doesn't last.
- Brick Joke: Eustace keeps Kitty's mask.
- Broken Bird: Kitty and Bunny.
- Cat Girl: Kitty is revealed to be a variation of one of these.
- Cats Are Mean: Kitty, because Mad Dog forced her into abandoning her friend Bunny.
- The Chain of Harm: The episode seems to have a hidden theme of this trope and how mistreatment can be "passed on". Mad Dog threatened Kitty and forced her to leave behind her friend Bunny. In turn, she comes to form a prejudice against dogs and takes it out on Courage. She also takes it out on Eustace and Muriel by viciously bringing their personal flaws into light, because it gives her some form of control over her life. And they eventually take it out on each other during Muriel's Potty Emergency.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Zig-zagged with Kitty's various assaults on Courage. On one hand, she attacks him with a kitchen sink, a washing machine, a fish and a plunger, and then flushes him down the toilet. On the other, Courage is shown to be very confused by and frightened of her and Kitty genuinely believes Courage to be evil simply for being a dog.
- Cowardly Lion: Courage is usually this already, but he really shows it in this episode. He's terrified of Kitty and of Mad Dog and his thugs once he finds out about them, yet none of this stops him from singlehandedly rescuing Bunny, knocking the two thugs out with a shovel, and then jumping into Mad Dog's car and forcing him into the path of an oncoming train before leaping out at the last moment.
- Damsel in Distress: Bunny. Poor, poor Bunny. She does try to escape but she doesn't get far. Thankfully, Courage helps her.
- Darker and Edgier: It says something when a show as regularly bizarre and nightmarish as this one manages to be genuinely horrific. Special mention goes to Mad Dog, if only because his character is not that far off from real-life domestic abusers.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Kitty gradually comes out of her shell.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Kitty is a cat, Bunny is a rabbit and Mad Dog is an Ax-Crazy dog.
- Domestic Abuse: Mad Dog threatens to murder Kitty if Bunny doesn't come with him and when Bunny tries to escape, he and his goons do something to her and then bury her alive. The worst part? This was a very, very realistic depiction of this trope.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: Courage goes through his usual week's worth of hell, if not more, here. And then there's Kitty and Bunny, who are reunited and escape Mad Dog thanks to Courage.
- Extra-Long Episode: Notably is the second episode in the entire series (the first being The Tower Of Dr. Zalost) to be a two-parter.
- Eye Pop: Courage when he realizes Kitty is the masked person that beat him up at the beginning of the episode.
- Fantastic Racism: Kitty is shown to have an extreme hatred of dogs, as she is always seen beating up Courage. Fortunately, she changes her mind about him once he reunites her with Bunny.
- Formula-Breaking Episode: We interrupt this bizarre, surreal horror-comedy children's show to bring you a gritty gangland drama filled with incredibly harrowing horrors, starring a very real domestic abuser and two women whose lesbianism only barely counts as subtext! Unlike the other monsters of the week, Kitty doesn't seek to hurt the Bagges, who sit most of the drama out anyway, so Courage looks unusually proactive when he goes out to investigate her past and take down Mad Dog, instead of just sitting around and reacting to the villain's schemes.
- Gangbangers: Mad Dog and his comrades are basically anthropomorphic dogs as this trope, low-rent thugs who do dirty jobs for a quick buck.
- Hate Sink: Mad Dog is one of the most truly evil threats/antagonists on this show, being monstrous in a way that hits disturbingly close to home and lacking any respectability, comedic quirks or redeeming qualities. He's a sociopathic Control Freak and an abusive prick to his girlfriend who threatens her and her best friend with death if he catches any whiff of the latter being around, and later tries to run her and the guy trying to rescue her down with his car.
- Heel Realization: Kitty, after Courage saves Bunny and reunites them.Kitty: I was wrong, Bunny. Not all dogs are bad.
- Hidden Depths: Muriel, of all people, shows she knows how to pick a lock with a bobby pin.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Mad Dog gets his comeuppance after his car is ran over by a train — while he's still in it.
- Mundanger: Despite Courage initially fearing Kitty to be an evil monster of supernatural origin (and even imagining her as such), there ultimately turns out to be nothing supernatural about Kitty whatsoever. Literally the only thing about Kitty's true self underneath her mask that could even be remotely considered "not-human" is the fact that she's literally a talking bipedal feline like Courage's arch-enemy Katz (but ultimately not inherently evil as Katz, of course). The same also goes for the episode's true villain Mad Dog (literally a talking bipedal dog) and Kitty's estranged best friend Bunny (literally a talking bipedal bunny rabbit) who made the mistake of falling for Mad Dog. Mad Dog is just a disturbingly realistic portrayal of an abusive boyfriend and Bunny and Kitty are both unfortunate victims of that abuse.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: When Courage tries to free Bunny, Mad Dog's thugs come back just as the scene cuts away. The next time it cuts back to the two of them, Courage is exhausted and singed, various arrows and cartoon bombs are scattered around the room, and the two thugs are buried in the pot Bunny was in with mountain of lumps on their heads and a bent shovel laying nearby. Considering Bunny looks untouched, it's all but stated Courage managed to knock both of them out with said shovel.
- OOC Is Serious Business: Any other time that Muriel sees someone hurting Courage, she's quick to make them regret it. But this time, she ignores the abuse, even though it's happening right in front of her.
- Pet the Dog:
- Eustace and Muriel have some of this, complete with a surprisingly sweet moment where they make up with each other after an argument.
- Pun not intended, Mad Dog gets what seems to be one of these (hugging Bunny and asking her if they could go back to "the way things were") but it doesn't last. This is dead-on accurate to the way many domestic abusers will behave in real life, emotionally manipulating their victims' feelings by pretending to change without any actual intent to do so.
- Charlie, the rat running the Diner Courage visits, tells Courage about Bunny and Kitty and Bunny's current whereabouts with Mad Dog before implicitly entrusting him with helping Bunny escape.
- After a usual episode of getting beaten to hell and back, Bunny soothes Courage by gently holding him and telling him he was brave for all the lengths he went to.
- Pseudo-Romantic Friendship: Even with all of the implications, it's never outright stated whether Kitty and Bunny really are just friend or lesbians. Of course, this has more to do with network standards than anything story-related.
- Rescuing the Abused: Courage learns that Bunny, the friend of the Cat Girl he's met/been beaten by, is trapped in an abusive relationship with her boyfriend (a hardcore gangster named Mad Dog). Both to escape Kitty's wrath and to help a victim escape her abuser, Courage helps Bunny escape Mad Dog and board a train with Kitty. The two are overjoyed to see each other again and wave goodbye to Courage as the train pulls away, thanking him.
- Running on All Fours: Mad Dog does this while Courage and Bunny are trying to get down by way of the fire escape, clearly as an attempt to catch them quickly.
- Serious Main Plot, Wacky Side Plot: The A-plot focuses on Courage helping an abused woman escape her dangerous partner, while the side plot focuses on Muriel and Eustace trying to escape their room due to the former's Potty Emergency.
- Shoo Out the Clowns: Or rather, "Lock up the Clowns" as it were. When Courage decides to look into matters involving Kitty, he first locks Muriel and Eustace in their room before he leaves. The fact Courage isn't even taking chances the Bagges might follow him indicates he's about to get in over his head. Sure enough, Courage gets involved saving Bunny from Mad Dog and his brutes. Meanwhile, the worst that happens to Eustace and Muriel is rather light-hearted shenanigans. Looks like Courage made the right call not taking the Bagges this time.
- Shown Their Work: Mad Dog is a disturbingly realistic portrayal of an abusive partner, not only through his brutal and controlling nature, but also for the moment where he appears to "calm down", hugging Bunny and asking if they could go back to the way things were — subtly shifting the blame onto her.
- Stalker Without a Crush: An eerie montage shows that Kitty had actually been watching the Bagges before actually introducing herself to them.
- Steam Never Dies: The train that smashes Mad Dog's car and that Kitty is a passenger on is pulled by a huge streamlined 1930s-style steam locomotive.
- Super-Strength: Kitty is strong enough to use a washing machine as a weapon, as Courage finds out.
- Token Heroic Orc: Courage is the only dog shown in the episode who isn't a jerk. He is also the only dog who is unclothed, perhaps as a way of symbolizing how Closer to Earth he is compared to the other members of his species.
- Took a Level in Badass: Not that he hasn't always been brave, but Courage is a straight-up badass in this episode, beating up two of Mad Dog's goons (who are easily twice his size) with a shovel, catching up to Mad Dog's car on foot and breaking in through the window to steer the bastard onto railroad tracks. Don't fuck with Courage.
- Tragic Bigot: Kitty towards dogs.Kitty: (from the Bagges' attic after realizing that her toy mouse has vanished) NOOOOOOOO!!!! Where is it? Who stole it?! It was that dog! They're all alike... they steal what you love the most!
- Tragic Keepsake: Kitty's toy mouse, given to her by Bunny.
- Turn the Other Cheek: Slightly Downplayed as Courage's actions, as always, are to protect his family, but Courage has more than enough reason to despise Kitty for the abuse she puts him through. However, once he learns the truth of her past, he wastes no time in rescuing Bunny so she and Kitty may be reunited rather than try and devise a way to get rid of her.
- Very Special Episode: This episode is this towards Domestic Abuse.
- Violence Discretion Shot: Curiously, for the least serious act of violence in the whole episode — when Courage beats two of Mad Dog's goons with a shovel. Most likely because unlike the other examples, this one was a joke.