Bride of Po
"You ready to do this?" Monkey taunted, lowering into a battle stance.
"Oh I was born ready!" Po replied. "Although, if I'm honest, I was hoping for something a little more hardcore from you than tha—ah!"
Po teetered sideways off his stilts, desperately overcorrecting to avoid crashing to the ground.
"One sec!" he called, flailing violently. "Almost got it!"
"Well at least the writers got your clumsiness right," Monkey remarked resignedly.
"Shh!" Po hissed. "No time to talk! It's time for stilt-fu!"
"Silt-fu? Really?" Monkey asked skeptically. "I guess that's…sort of Po-ish."
"Enough talk!" Po shouted. "Fight!"
Still a little unstable despite their constant and rigorous Kung Fu training—which, among many other things, teaches such subtle skills as balance and poise—the warriors set awkwardly to their battle, trading blows back and forth before Po fell ungracefully to the ground.
"Unguarded moment!" Monkey called.
"Seriously, who writes your lines?" Po asked distractedly.
This did nothing to stop Monkey's totally professional and not at all childlike or uncoordinated slapping.
As though only just realizing he was capable of moving in spite of his attacker's best efforts to neutralize the muscles in his armpits, Po lashed out sideways against his adversary's stilts, sending him crashing to the ground as well. Not to be outdone, Monkey retuned with several potentially humorous blows to the head.
Po had had enough at this point, his frustration filling his entire body and giving him the strength to return effortlessly to his stilts through the loophole provided to him by being a character in a children's TV show. Mounted again, the accomplished Dragon Warrior proceeded to stumble around some more, because staying on a pair of stilts is harder than magically getting on them in the first place.
His antics were to be short-lived, however, as Monkey returned to his stilts as well, doing so off-camera to prevent raising any further questions. Po flipped backwards, not coordinated enough to stand still on his stilts but more than capable of rotating his entire body 360º in the air and landing back on said stilts without problem. As he landed, however, the weight of his body drove his stilts into the earth, anchoring them.
Not seeing this, Monkey struck anyway, his own stilt sending a painful vibration through his leg as it collided forcefully with his opponent's rooted shaft.
"I call that 'Pillars of the Ouch,'" Po called cockily, for the TV series Po knows not of humility.
"Gooooooood Naaaaammeee!" Monkey answered, his voice shaking with his leg, which was clearly disrupting his judgement abilities.
"Woah, woah, woah, woah, woah! Hey you two!"
Mr. Ping came walking out of the noodle shop, his face one of…something. Does his face ever change in the TV series?
"You're supposed to be stilt-walking ads for my shop!" he exclaimed, tactfully glossing over the explanation of how stilts were in any way an effective means of advertising to people. "I'm not paying you to mess around!"
"You're not paying us at all," Po pointed out. "Also, you used to love me in the movies."
"Good thing too," the goose replied.
"I'm still not sure how guys on stilts help advertise noodles," Monkey pointed out, the one voice of reason in a sea of stupidity.
"It's how the restaurant business works!" Mr. Ping insisted. "I know that's not an answer, but a real explanation would require more thought on the part of the writers. Now, stilt walk, you Monkey!"
The goose proceeded to throw each of the warriors a wooden sign before returning again to his noodle shop, presumably so James Hong could lament the downfall of a character he cared so dearly about.
Po stood confused for a moment, wondering why on earth two of the greatest Kung Fu warriors in all of China had been assigned the menial task of running ads for a noodle shop, but then he realized that it was probably an excuse for the writers to bring the stilt-walking thing up again later in the episode to appear as though they actually had a plan.
Satisfied with that explanation, he proceeded to fruitlessly pull at his stilts, unable to remove them from the ground despite the extreme strength he is supposed to posses as the Dragon Warrior.
"Well, I may be stuck here," he said finally, "but at least I've got a nice view!"
He began looking around him, calling out what he saw with a sense of wonder unusual for someone who had lived in the Valley of Peace their entire life.
"There's the Jade Palace," he noted astutely, "and the bamboo forest, and a cute girl—"
"You mean Tigress?" Monkey asked, suddenly interested.
"Nah, the producers don't let me talk about Tigress like that," Po dismissed. "They probably think it would ruin all of their 'everyone thinks Tigress is a guy even though she's a famous and well-known Kung Fu master' shtick."
"Oh, right," Monkey nodded understandingly.
"They also think it would be shallow, kind of like my TV personality. Anyway," Po continued, "Cute girl, and an old guy, and some bandits…"
The two masters looked at each other, their eyes wide in shock. One might almost believe that they were legitimately surprised at finding bandits in the Valley of Peace yet again.
"Bandits!"
And so, the Dragon Warrior and his sidekick of the week sprang into action, pouncing to the ground behind the burly bandits just as they began to accost the innocent goats they had surrounded.
"Please, we have no valuables," the old man pleaded.
"Oh yeah?" the bandit asked, knowing that there was approximately a 65% chance of any given character in this series possessing a key plot device. "Then what's this?"
He made to grab a locket that hung from the younger man's—I mean, the "cute" girl's neck—only to have his hand slapped away.
"Don't touch that!" she demanded, only confirming that it was indeed a convenient plot device in disguise.
"You heard the lady!" Po called, announcing his presence in a way that actually felt in character for once. Then, more typically for the show, "Wow, she's even cuter close up!"
Seeing some of the fiercest warriors in all of China standing before them, the abysmally small group of bandits decided their best option was to fight. Thus began a typical fight sequence that will go down in history as something that happened but wasn't even worth parodying—but then, the unexpected happened!
The goat girl, somehow cornered by two bandits despite Po and Monkey having already dispatched more of them than were originally there, jumped into the air. She kicked and punched and threw her attackers to the ground, leaving everyone wondering why she had waited until now to do so.
"Woah!" Monkey exclaimed. "Flying goat surprise!"
"What are you talking about?" Po asked dubiously. "Everyone in this show can do Kung Fu. It's practically a law."
"I know," Monkey conceded, "but the law demands that we be surprised anyway."
"Man, cute and knows Kung Fu!" Po breathed in disbelief, ironically unaware that the first half of his sentence was much harder to swallow than the second.
"A little," the goat girl admitted, brushing her hand against her shirt. "Don't mess with the goat girl…Seriously! DON'T!"
"Woah, woah!" Po defended, backing away slightly. "I'm not a bad—"
"I'm just kidding," the girl said, punching him playfully before grabbing him by the chest somehow. "No I'm not!"
Taken by surprise despite, once again, his extensive training, Po found himself being flipped over and flung forcefully to the ground, landing hard on his back.
"Mess with the goat, you get the hooves!" the man—uh, girl—called out proudly, making her even more unlikeable than before. She then proceeded to kick and punch the air in apparent demonstration. By her expression, it was clear she thought it looked impressive.
As the goat moved in slow motion before him, Po watch in a daze, forgetting that he could get his ass kicked in a similar manner any time he wanted just by so much as looking at the TV show version of Tigress. Then, much more quickly than she had come, the goat girl disappeared, making no mention of the old man in the process. The viewers can only assume he was killed.
"Are you alright?" Monkey asked suddenly, snapping Po out of his daze with another one of his totally professional Kung Fu slaps to the face.
The panda stood excitedly, regaling Monkey with various sensations he was experiencing such that no doubt could be left as to his infatuation with the goat man—I mean, cute girl.
"My palms are sweaty, my heart is racing, and I feel tingly all over!" he exclaimed. "I think she got me with the cloven-hooved exploding-head technique."
"Uh, cloven-hooved exploding-head technique actually explodes your head," Monkey explained, scratching his head. "I think maybe you're…in love!"
"Monkey, we have got to talk about what happened to your voice since the first movie," Po said flatly. "I don't want to say you sound gay, because that would perpetuate a negative stereotype, but since this show is going to use one later anyway, I'm going to have to say it: you sound gay."
"You're the one who fell in love with a goat man you just met," Monkey replied snidely.
"Fair point," Po conceded. "I'm going to pretend I'm surprised at your suggestion anyway, though, because that's standard procedure for romance in a kids' TV show."
"Go ahead," Monkey said graciously.
"Love? Pfft! No way!" Po denied unconvincingly. "Not this pa…"
He trailed off, making quite a strange noise as the goat girl appeared again suddenly and without explanation, probably in the hopes of achieving some sort of comedic effect.
"I may sound gay," Monkey began, "but you're fully having an orgasm right now."
"Did my head just explode?" Po asked worriedly. "I can't feel my face! Oh wait, there it is…"
"My daughter and I can't thank you enough for helping us in our time of need," the old goat man said, also appearing out of nowhere. "Even though she evidently knows Kung Fu and your assistance was in no way needed."
"I know, right?" Po said. "Talk about a convenient twist. Next thing you'll be telling me she's getting married tomorrow or something."
"Actually, yes," the goat man—the older one—replied.
Po looked distraught briefly before saying, "I'm going to speed things up a bit here and guess that the next plot twist is that she's getting married to me."
"Well, I've never even met him yet," the goat man—the younger one—admitted. "I'm pretty stoked about it though! He's called 'The Dragon Warrior'!"
"Wait," Monkey said, "You're supposed to be a big Kung Fu fan but you don't know what the Dragon Warrior looks like? That's oddly convenient."
"Normally I'd say something only funny to five year olds here before changing to the next scene," Po said, "but let's just skip it this time."
"We arranged the marriage years ago, Po," Mr. Ping explained, leaving out the important question of why he never bothered to tell his nearly thirty-year-old son this at some point. "You and Luxi (?) were just babies."
"Kind of a big deal," Po pointed out needlessly. "Seems like something a guy tells his son."
"Money was tight and dishes were expensive," the goose went on, avoiding the more important question in favour of one that was never asked. "Lushy's (?) father offered to keep me stocked with plates if I agreed that you would marry his daughter."
"So you traded him for plates?" Monkey asked incredulously.
"And bowls," Mr. Ping added, reminding us again that he doesn't care in slightest about his son in this series. "But don't worry: if Po were to actually get married, they'd have to keep the goat girl around for all the future episodes, so something is inevitably going to go wrong and I'll get to keep my plates and my son!" That explanation certainly made more sense.
The goose proceeded to rub Po on the shoulder in a way that might have seemed affectionate if it weren't for the words that followed it.
"That's how the restaurant business works," he said, leaving before anyone could force him to answer a relevant question.
"Luche (?), give Po his present," the old goat man pressed.
"Yes sir," she said. "Po, I understand that you like action figures."
"Yeah, ha, well I did," the panda laughed, acting casual. "You know, when I was a kid—a loooong time ago! Not really—ooh!"
He stopped short as the goat girl held up a small Shifu figurine before his face.
"I collect them too," she explained.
"That's also convenient!" Monkey yelled, but Po failed to hear him.
"Is that a…Master Shifu?" Po asked in disbelief, despite the fact that it clearly couldn't have been anyone else and recognizing Kung Fu-related memorabilia was supposed to be his strong suit.
"The monobrow variant!" the goat girl corrected.
"That's the rarest one there is!" Po shouted excitedly. "Even though you could easily just draw the monobrow on a regular Shifu figure!"
"It's yours now!" the goat girl said. "Or ours, if you want to go through with the whole marriage thing."
"Wait, wait, wait!" Po insisted. "Just to be clear: you're pretty, funny, good at Kung Fu, you love dumplings, and you collect action figures?"
"No. No. Somewhat. Who doesn't. And yes?" the girl answered uncertainly.
Po burst open the doors to the training courtyard, throwing his arms open with glee as he made his great announcement.
"I'm getting married!" he called out proudly.
The Furious Five and Shifu, having clearly been aware that Po would be away to stand on stilts and hold signs for no apparent reason, turned to stare at him in shock. As they did so, a bamboo staff came down on Shifu's head. No one is sure why.
"You're kidding, right?" Viper asked, deciding to avoid being her usual supportive self.
"Meet the future Mrs. Dragon Warrior!" Po Ping said in answer, clearly not understanding how last names work. Or titles.
"Hey there, Furious Five," the goat man—uh, girl—waved. "Worship you—totally trying not to spaz!"
"I know it's a little sudden," Po conceded.
"Except for the 'it was arranged from when we were babies part,'" the goat added.
"Well, I was going to say that our entire lives revolve around me making bad decisions on a whim in this TV series," Po said, "but that works too."
"Okay, now I'm spazzing," the goat girl admitted despite seeming reasonably calm compared to earlier. "Would it be weird to ask you to sign my belly?"
"Definitely, yes," Shifu should have said.
"Is this a joke?" Mantis asked, clearly wondering why Po wanted to marry a goat man.
"No joke," Monkey confirmed.
"Well, looks like somebody gets to plan a wedding!" Crane said. "Can it be me? Please say yes!"
"Go crazy!" Po agreed. "Also, Monkey, I stand corrected. Your voice is fine."
Crane flew away in a hurry, leaving only one warrior who had yet to make a sarcastic remark.
"Oh, Luchi (?)," Po said, acting as though he had only just remembered that Tigress existed even though they've clearly been wanting to get into each other's pants for ages now. "I'd like you to meet—"
"Master Tigress!" the goat girl exclaimed. Apparently she could recognize a famous tiger but not a famous panda. "I'm an incredible mega-fan!" she said, after a bunch of unintelligible nonsense. "It's, like, such an honour—"
"Hang on," Tigress interrupted. "I need to fill my daily sarcasm quota even though I've never said one sarcastic thing in any of the actual movies."
"Go ahead!" the goat man—uh, girl—obliged.
"You," she said, pointing at the goat, "want to marry him? Really?"
"Yeah, because he's the unattractive one in this couple," Mantis observed dryly, demonstrating how sarcasm is supposed to be done—that is, if he had actually said that.
"Woah, Tigress!" Po said as though surprised. "Never pegged you for the jealous type!"
"I'm not really," Tigress answered seriously. "But in this TV show I'm anything the writers need me to be. Besides, there was an entire episode that revolved solely around me being uncharacteristically jealous and petty towards you because you were somehow better than me at—you know what? Fine. I'll play along. I'm not jealous."
"Po," Shifu interrupted, "a word."
As the Dragon Warrior ran after Shifu in a manner that looked almost as ridiculous as that one time that clam had a sword fight somehow, Tigress looked threateningly at the goat man.
"I'll be watching you," she said, because TV show Tigress suspects everything is a secret plot and yet is somehow always taken by surprise when she's right and then has her ass promptly kicked.
"Okay," the goat replied, attempting to comically miss the point but succeeding only in coming off as depressingly out of touch with reality. "I'll try not to look all odd!"
"You know," Tigress began thoughtfully, "if I'm going to be horribly out of character anyway, it might be worth just eating you right here and now. At least that would end everyone's suffering."
"Nah, I wouldn't recommend it," goat man—uh, goat girl—said. "I taste worse than I look."
"That's hard to believe," Mantis intoned, once again demonstrating how jokes are supposed to work—or he would have, if that line had actually been said.
"Po," Shifu began, "getting married is a big step, and—"
"Um, no offence Shifu," Po said, cutting the old master off, "but can we skip the part where you try to sound wise and jump straight to the part where you tell me that my actions have somehow had implausibly large consequences?"
"Uh…I suppose so," Shifu said. "Basically, if you marry that man, he'll be in great danger since you're the Dragon Warrior."
"How?" Po asked. "She'd be just as safe as my dad living in the Valley, which—okay—isn't very safe it seems, but I mean…it's not like we can't protect her just like everyone else. In fact, if she stayed at the Jade Palace with us, she'd be safer than anyone in China."
"That's true, Po," Shifu admitted. "But this TV series hinges on everything falling to crap because of a poorly-made decision of yours only for you to magically fix it later via some combination of Ass Pulls and the Deus Ex Machina."
"Good point," Po agreed.
"So, while there is no logical explanation as to why marrying someone would cause a problem in any way, or as to why you would be unable to use the Kung Fu skills you developed because of your marriage, this still counts as a poorly-made decision and so it must carry with it severe consequences."
"Poorly-made?" Po asked. "Because I hardly know her but I'm marrying her anyway?"
"I was going to say because Tigress is clearly a better choice, but that works too," Shifu answered.
"So what are these consequences?" Po wondered aloud.
"If you marry that goat man-girl, you will have to step down as the Dragon Warrior," Shifu explained grimly.
"Doesn't that go against everything the Dragon Warrior represents?" Po questioned. "I mean, aren't I the Dragon Warrior because of who I am and as such can't not be the Dragon Warrior anymore?"
"It was the only thing the writers could think of," Shifu explained.
"Gotcha," Po said. "So, why the goat man instead of Tigress anyway?"
"It doesn't mesh with the sarcastic and overly mean personality they want to assign to her, I think," Shifu reasoned. "Plus, by having the goat never appear again after this episode, they can put even less effort into continuity than they do already."
"That's a lame excuse," Po scoffed. "I mean, Tigress does a better job of beating me up than the goat man, she's actually my friend in the movies, and she's even attractive in a way that makes both men and women question their sexuality."
"So she is," Shifu said, "but we can't change the writers' minds. You're just going to have to pretend to struggle with this decision between an annoying girl you just met and your life dream until you ultimately make the wrong decision and change back to the right decision later on."
"But what's the point of having this awesome life if I've got no one to share it with?" Po asked.
Shifu blinked. "Did you forget the whole Tigress thing we just discussed? Or the other members of the Furious Five, whom you've become close friends with? Or myself? Or your father?"
"Shh, I'm playing along with it," Po said.
"I see. Well, you need to make up your own mind," Shifu said unhelpfully. "Even though I'm like a second father figure to you and a spiritual leader, I am unable to provide even the slightest bit of advice to you or it would quickly become apparent how few reasons you have for staying with the random goat you just met."
With that, the old red panda left the hall of heroes, and Po looked down at his feet in sad contemplation.
"This scene is boring, can we skip it?" goat girl asked.
"Huh?" Po said, coming out of his reverie. "Oh, yeah, sure."
"Oh, but don't forget the important hinting that the old goat man is secretly evil," she reminded him.
"Really, no one will be surprised," Po said. "Someone turns out to be evil every episode, and it's always one of the new characters. There is no need to foreshadow it in any way, shape, or form."
"So he's going through with the wedding for sure?" Mantis asked.
"Not for sure, but don't tell Crane," Monkey explained in a hushed voice. "You'll crush his dream that he's had only for this episode for the sake of trying to introduce a funny character quirk that makes no sense."
"No, no, no!" Crane said, appearing out of nowhere to reprimand them on their flower arrangements. As a result of his haste, the lattice fell on several unnamed pigs.
"You might want to reinforce that lattice," Monkey said.
"What does that even mean?" Crane pointed out. "It just stands up by the way it's shaped. You can't reinforce it. Even this joke makes no sense."
"Man, this scene is boring too," Monkey observed.
"They all are," Mantis explained solemnly. "The only good ones usually have Tigress in them."
"Speaking of Tigress, why isn't she making a bigger deal about this?" Crane asked. "I mean, she's kind of Po's confidant and closest friend and she hasn't said a single thing to him yet about suddenly getting married to a random goat man."
"You're thinking of the deep, complex, interesting movie Tigress," Monkey corrected. "TV show Tigress just gets mad at things and has stuff fall on her for laughs."
"Okay, I've decided," Po said determinedly. "I'm marrying Lewshi (?)!"
"I'm proud of you panda," Shifu said. "Despite the fact that calling you 'panda' is something I was only supposed to have done in the first film to show my lack of respect for you, I wish you nothing but happiness. And now, I will leave so you can look sadly into the pool to reflect on how bad a decision you're making and we can reveal that Tigress has been eavesdropping this whole time even though nobody was fooled by her casual sweeping."
Once again, the red panda exited the Hall of Heroes. As he did so, Tigress stood sweeping in the background, turning at the last moment to reveal an unhappy expression that was supposed to leave the viewers wondering what she was thinking but instead left them wondering why a highly-skilled Kung Fu master was sweeping the floors instead of one of the many servants employed by the Jade Palace.
"Po must really love you to give up being Dragon Warrior," Tigress said sarcastically, confronting the goat girl when she really should have been talking to Po—you know, as friends are wont to do when they're concerned. "I guess you must really love him too."
"I…care for Po," the goat responded carefully, even though the correct response when you're trying to cover something up is to lie.
"Care for him?" Tigress probed, "Or using him?"
"That doesn't really make syntactic sense, you know," goat girl pointed out.
"The hormones I'm forced to ingest intravenously for the sake of advancing the plot when it's convenient mess with my speech patterns," Tigress explained.
As though demonstrating, she narrowed her eyes and used an overly dramatic punch to knock the totally inconspicuous locket from earlier to the ground, which of course opened to reveal a picture of yet another goat man.
"It's not what you—"
The goat didn't finish her sentence, hip-butting Tigress away suddenly. How a small goat managed to move over five-hundred pounds of tiger muscle so easily will never be understood.
She lowered into a battle stance. "Tigress, I don't want to hurt you, but I'm going to fight you anyway despite the fact that having a picture of what turns out to be my brother around my neck isn't actually incriminating and so doesn't warrant this kind of reaction."
"Trust me," Tigress reassured her. "You won't hurt me."
Had this been the movie Tigress, this line would have been all too true, but the TV Tigress's record doesn't really support such a statement.
"Tigress stop!" Po yelled, suddenly appearing on the scene. Yes, this is also convenient.
"Stay out of this, panda," Tigress said, despite the fact that she has literally never addressed him that way in the movies. "This is how girls discuss things."
"Wow, well at least now I don't feel as bad about the gay stereotype from earlier," Po said. "Kind of cheapens your character though, don't you think?"
"And falling in love with a shrimp didn't?" Tigress asked.
"Good point," Po conceded.
"Actually, no," Tigress said, standing up. "This is ridiculous. You're saying that it's okay for me to fall in love with a shrimp who is completely and utterly unlikeable for absolutely no reason, but I'm not allowed to be even remotely nice to the guy who's my best friend and confidant?"
"You're only allowed to admit to having feelings when it's convenient for the writers," Po reminded her. "Just like how I'm afraid of you whenever it's convenient even though, in the world of this TV show, I'm actually stronger than you in every way and thus have no reason to be."
"But this isn't fair!" Tigress complained. "I'm cooler, more interesting, and more attractive! And even though I'm a bitch in this series, people actually like me! No one cares about this goat man."
"I care about this goat man—uh, girl," Po said. "At least, I have to pretend I do. Now, Tigress, I know you've cried your little eyes out that you and I aren't together…"
"Wait, what?" Tigress asked, genuinely surprised this time. "Since when do you talk to me like that?"
"Have you not been paying attention?" Po asked patronizingly. "My entire raison d'être in this show is to be cocky and annoying. Now, look: I can still see a tear right—woah, uh…do you ever blink?"
"About as often as I smile," Tigress answered, "which is very often in this TV show and in the movies, but the writers still make jokes about how I never do it anyway."
"Wow, that's like, basic continuity," Po observed.
"Yeah," Tigress recounted, "I once said with a blank face that that's how I look when I smile only to be smiling in full in the next scene."
"Man, no wonder you're so bitchy in this series," Po said, realization dawning on him. "It must be tiring having your entire personality change like ten times an episode. That and all the getting your ass kicked that happens."
"Has everyone forgotten about me?" the goat girl asked. The answer was yes, and if not, they certainly would by the end of the episode.
"I guess this is the part where I walk away without giving you even the slightest chance to explain to me what upset you so much that you resorted to using physical violence against the goat I'm marrying—which, you know, could potentially be very important information, but which would ruin the not-so-careful setup for the big twist later on."
"Wait, you're leaving now?" Tigress asked. "But our conversations are the best parts of these crappy shows!"
"Lazy writing waits for no panda," Po explained, leaving Tigress looking sad—instead of angry, which is how one should feel when their best friend insults them in favour of an ugly goat man that is clearly using them for a lame yet devious plot.
"Nice job fixing the lattice, Crane," Monkey said.
"Thanks, I reinforced it like you said," Crane replied. "Still don't know what that means because literally nothing has changed about it and it's still going to fall down again later."
As Crane and Shifu proceeded to hold a conversation that could have been entirely left out and no one would've missed it, Po looked over his traditional dress for the ceremony, smoothing out non-existent wrinkles.
"Po," Tigress said, appearing suddenly as characters in this series are wont to do. "I—"
"Don't make a scene, Tigress," Po interrupted, unperturbed by her sudden appearance and being infuriatingly annoying even by TV Po standards. "I've made my decision—kind of—and it's the right one—possibly."
"Wow, that last line actually sounded like you and was somewhat funny," Tigress admitted grudgingly. "Anyway, I just wanted to say that…you were right."
"You are jealous!" Po exclaimed, looking positively ecstatic about this development, which leaves one wondering why he was marrying the random goat if he had been so desperately hoping that Tigress wanted him as well. Then again, everyone had already gotten tired of trying to rationalize that particular decision by now.
"Of course I am," Tigress should have said instead of the crap she spews in reality. "You're my first real friend since I left the orphanage—the first person to really get to know me and treat me as if you aren't afraid of me. Not to mention the fact that I'm your favourite Kung Fu warrior ever and someone you've been training with for at least a few months by this point, so there's no possible way you would feel more devoted to this random goat man than to me."
Po look surprised at how well-reason this was—or would have, had Tigress actually said it.
"But for the purposes of this show, I'm just going to say that it's your life and I'm happy for you," she actually said, to everyone's dismay. "I'm going to say that you're my friend, and then completely let the whole 'your fiancé is using you' thing slide, because that's what friends in this universe do."
"Thanks, Tigress," Po said, smiling.
And so, the wedding ceremony continued, strained and forced emotions running high. Mr. Ping cried despite having set this whole thing up ages ago, Tigress looked like she was holding in a fart, and goat girl continued to look ugly as hell. Before Po could give the final, "I do," however, which isn't actually part of a traditional ancient Chinese wedding (if I recall correctly), the goat man turned out to actually be the evil fox guy whose name I don't care enough about to remember. In case you're wondering, it is never revealed what happened to Lewshee's (?) real father.
As usual, the Furious Five sprang immediately into action, fighting briefly before being swiftly immobilized by something, well…convenient. There was then some kind of dialogue that was meant to be emotional but instead was merely tiring and then Po went to save the goat he claimed to love but honestly didn't at all.
The goat man—the bearded one, who was actually much more attractive than the one Po had nearly married—hung precariously from the tree branch, completely helpless. His sister cried out to him, demanding that the evil fox let him go. Though her actions implied that he was her boyfriend, the series never pairs people of the same species together, so he was obviously her brother. The fox, of course, refused to yield to her demands, wanting the Dragon Warrior to arrive so he may…um…it's actually not clear how this plot was supposed to in any way benefit the fox.
At any rate, as all began to appear lost for the poor attractive ram, Po arrived on the scene, to the surprise of no one. He effortlessly fended off the two ambiguous cat bandits guarding his fiancé despite being absolutely useless only moments earlier before turning to the fox and demanding that he let the ram go, which the fox obliged to by throwing an axe and sending the ram teetering on the precipice. What his actions did not explain was how killing the ram would benefit anyone in any way at this point.
And so the esteemed Dragon Warrior and the random fox adversary engaged in an epic battle involving the stilts from earlier, fruitlessly trying to convince the viewers that the writers had a plan of some sort. Po quickly defeated his opponent just in time to rescue the ram from certain death—of course.
"Wow, your muscles are very defined," Po commented. "Your chest is almost as strong and manly as Tigress's, which I would know because I've felt her up gratuitously on multiple occasions throughout this series."
"Thanks," the ram replied in a deep and sultry tone. "I don't even work out."
Po narrowed his eyelids. "I hate you for having a line that's actually sort of funny."
"Well, it's a good thing your bamboo stilt doesn't burn for some reason," the ram pointed out.
"No it isn't," Po argued. "That would make more sense than the actual reason I almost die just now."
Po threw the ram to safety as his stilt, having somehow changed position from being on level ground to being on a hot rock (but still not burning), began teetering back and forth hopelessly, ultimately sending Po falling towards the coals below. All began to seem lost yet again until an orange blur shot out of the darkness, catching him at the last second.
"Tigress!" Po called, looking up at his saviour, who was carrying him in her arms like a firefighter might. "Uh…you know your left hand is up my ass, right?"
"Shh," Tigress hissed. "I managed to get free. Just in time by the looks of it."
"Wait, if you got free, how come none of the others came too?" Po asked reasonably.
"They needed an excuse for a romantic moment between us so I could shoot it down shortly afterwards with my uncharacteristic sarcasm," Tigress explained. "Even though this would be a great opportunity to point out that I'm a true friend and am always there looking out for you whereas this goat girl is just annoying."
"You're never going to give up on us, are you?" Po poked.
"I—wait," Tigress said, shaking her head. "So you can feel me up regularly and hit on me in an episode, and I can be overtly jealous and break free to come rescue you and carry you like this, but we still can't actually get together?"
"No," Po said unhappily.
She dropped him roughly on the ground and walked away. "I quit."
"Well, I guess this is the part where you reveal that this guy's your brother and then suggest that we gradually build a relationship with each other before getting married so that we can claim this story actually had some sort of moral," Po said, addressing the ugly goat man (as opposed to the attractive one).
"Frankly, there's no way I'm ever going to be seen again ever," the goat girl admitted. "So there's no need to pretend."
"Thank God," Tigress sighed.
"Tigress, I know you're more interesting to talk to, but goat girl and I are obliged to have a moment together right now," Po explained. "Can you go be uncomfortably sexy but also uncharacteristically sarcastic elsewhere?"
"Come on, I don't think I even get a single line in the next five episodes," Tigress complained. "And I'm objectively the most interesting character—even the hormonal schoolgirl version of me."
"We know," Po said. "No need to rub it in."
"Well, I'm not sure where to go from here," the goat girl said.
"Literally anywhere is fine," Po answered. "Nobody actually cares what you do."
He looked thoughtful for a moment.
"You know what?" he said finally, "Screw this noise. Tigress, want to get married?"
"Anything if it means I don't have to have romantic fantasies with a shrimp anymore," Tigress replied.
"Sweet!" Po exclaimed. "Later, losers! I'm getting married to someone who is actually pretty, funny, knows Kung Fu, likes dumplings, and collects action figures!"
"I don't collect action figures," Tigress corrected.
"We'll pretend Mantis is an action figure," Po said in a hushed voice. "That way the writers have no excuse to keep us apart."
"Well, I guess that's that," Tigress said. "The evil fox guy kidnapped the goat girl's brother and then pretended to be her father to blackmail her into marrying you—even though she was technically supposed to marry you anyway and so didn't need blackmailing—in the hopes that Po would step down as the Dragon Warrior, even though that wouldn't make his Kung Fu skills or the rest of the warriors at the Jade Palace magically disappear or anything. He then went on to reveal that he's not the goat's father after all and proceeded to try to kill her brother anyway, making the entire ruse up until that point unnecessary. All of this was done to try to lure Po out to rescue the ram—which Po would have done anyway since it's his job to save people in need of help regardless of whether or not a love interest is present—at which point he would fight one-on-one with Po so that, uh…something…and once again the Dragon Warrior saved the day by sheer luck!"
"Sounds right to me," Po said, slapping Tigress on the back. "All we need now is for something to fall on you comically and we've finished another substandard episode!"
And so, as a tree came out of nowhere for the sheer purpose of crushing Tigress in a way that was neither humorous nor respectful to the character she represented, the end credits rolled and viewers everywhere let out a sigh of relief.
