What's Rambo Doing on His Day Off? #15

If John Rambo has a favorite animal, it's probably the noble American deer. This is the second time we've seen him assisting the animals––this time, he's using the attack chopper to drop bales of hay (do deer eat hay? Rambo clearly thinks so) to starving deer in the winter.

As seen in Rambo: The Force of Freedom episode 22: Rambo and the White Rhino.

Let's Talk About Rambo: Episode 16: Exercise in Terror

Oh no! SAVAGE has taken a group of schoolchildren hostage inside the Statue of Liberty!

Rambo is working on the roof of his cabin when he gets called to action. The thing that's great about recent episodes of this show, however, is that we get to see not only what Rambo's doing on his days off, but also what Turbo and KAT are up to!

Turbo is driving a Formula 1 car in the desert. And KAT is winning prize after prize at the shooting gallery at the fair––just mowing down those scrolling ducks with an expressionless, dead-eyed look on her face. KAT's leisure activities always seem to involve highly violent activities. I think it's a psychological response to being sidelined all the time by Rambo during their missions.

So, after collecting his team, what does Rambo do? He makes them stand on a NYC pier and watch him while he stealthily scubas up to the Statue of Liberty and climbs up the outside of it with suction cups. He manages to climb all the way up to the head, where Gripper is holding the hostages, but Sgt. Havoc spots him from a helicopter and shoots at him, knocking him from his perch! Rambo falls all the way down to one of the statue's arms.

He is unhurt.

Then, in one of the most Rambo moves ever, he throws a rope around the helicopters blades and by sheer determination and strength, stops them from spinning. No leverage at all. Just standing on the arm of the Statue of Liberty. 

"Don't worry, kids, you were only being held hostage by Gripper."

The scheme is foiled. BUT! Days (or minutes?) later, SAVAGE announces they have a new group of hostages at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Seemed like a good scheme, why not try it again, just in a different country?

Also, we learn their motives: They're asking for a $50 million ransom with which they want to start up the International School for Terrorism. Which they presumably all want to attend themselves, since they're so terrible at it. Also, I'm sorry, SAVAGE, but $50 million might seem like a lot, but it's not going to get you very far. I don't think you could even build a contemporary school building for that in this day and age.

So Rambo rides up to the top of the tower by hanging from the bottom of the open-air elevator. When he gets to the top, in the most un-Rambo move ever, he gets knocked out immediately and tied up to the bottom of the elevator while the bad guys send it back to floor one! Gotta give them credit for the poetic nature of the death trap.

But it only takes like five floors before Rambo, with his bare hands, rips up the ropes that are holding him. He climbs back up and the bad guys parachute away after activating the time bomb, which Rambo stops by shooting an arrow into the timer, preventing it from ticking up to its last second. Apparently the bomb was running off of some kind of egg timer. This is the kind of thing they teach you not to do in Terrorism School, I'm guessing.

They track down SAVAGE to their newest base, in the Middle Eastern city of "Baghdiniad." There they destroy the base, with Rambo and Turbo showing affinity for low-tech weapons, using a bow and arrow and a boomerang, respectively.

KAT, though? She dual wields SMGs and just peppers the entire base with bullets.

I'm starting to worry about KAT.

Mission complete.

What's Rambo Doing on His Day Off? #4

John Rambo replenishes his stock of firewood, chopping huge logs with a single swing.

As seen in Rambo: The Force of Freedom episode 9: General Warhawk's Curse.

Let's Talk About Rambo: Episode 6: Subterranean Holdup

No time for a prologue here. This episode starts in medias res with Colonel Trautman filling in the team that he has heard that SAVAGE is in Chicago, and that more information might be had at the riverfront bar known only as "Bar At River Front," according to its sign.

Rambo goes there and gets into a fight with a non-SAVAGE-affiliated biker gang. After beating them all up (and throwing a jukebox at them!), he turns on the TV at the bar and the news is saying that there's going to be a delivery at the city's Federal Reserve building.

"Aha!" he says. "That must be what SAVAGE is after!"

Just think about that for a second.

He was sent to the bar to gather information on SAVAGE's activities. But instead he decided to beat up some bikers. Then he turned on the TV and decided that SAVAGE was after the first thing he saw on the broadcast. That has nothing to do with the bar!

But here's the insane part: He was right.

So thanks to a distraction, SAVAGE is able to invade the Federal Reserve and steal the printing plates used to print $100 bills. They assume that this will allow them to print billions of dollars and become rich. They escape into a series of abandoned railroad tunnels underneath the city. Rambo, Turbo and KAT follow them down there, using one of those classic railroad carts that has the double-handled lever that you need to pump up and down to make it go.

This lever gave Rambo more trouble than expected. Must've been rusty!

They're able to track SAVAGE down because all the rats in the city are terrified of them and are running away. So Rambo and company just go in the opposite direction of the rats.

When they find SAVAGE, General Warhawk and Rambo get into an underground helicopter chase! They eventually find their way above ground, and Rambo lets himself get shot down so as to prevent any collateral damage to the city.

Not sure why there's a public exit for a secret underground tunnel system.

 He doesn't have a parachute, so he just dives into the river... right next to Bar At River Front! He goes inside and requests to borrow one of the biker gangs' motorcycles. They are terrified of him and lend him one.

He puts a helmet on (always practice proper motorcycle safety, kids!) and chases after the SAVAGE chopper. Also, this motorcycle is not a badass hog, it's more like a '50 touring model with sidebags and everything.

Rambo follows the bad guys to a steel mill, where they are hiding the printing plates inside steel bars in order to smuggle them out of the country. Why does SAVAGE need to secretly smuggle these plates out of the country when they seemingly have a small army of vehicles that already allows them to secretly go wherever they want, whenever they want?

Good question. It is not addressed in the episode.

At this point, SAVAGE member Gripper shows up for a minute and, as usual, mucks everything up.
First, he thinks some random steel girders are the printing plates (clearly he has no idea what a printing plate is), much to the derision of Warhawk.

Then, as Gripper is driving a forklift that's carrying a small box with the steel bars/printing plates in them, Rambo drops a huge girder onto the ship where it's all happening, making the vessel rock a few degrees to either side. Gripper totally panics and somehow flips the forklift, ruining all the plans! 

Gripper! You only had like 20 feet left to go!

Rambo and company laugh as the SAVAGE has to run away, continuing this show's run of legendary episodes.

What's Rambo Doing on His Day Off? #1

John Rambo slumbers peacefully in a simple fishing boat in a tiny forest pond, a book covering his face and a fishing pole at his side. He only awakens when Colonel Trautman hovers above him with a helicopter and yells down at him using a megaphone.

As seen in Rambo: The Force of Freedom episode 1: First Strike.