THE YEAR OF THE RAT

  This is the fifth episode of series 2.  In a small town not far from Beijing, China, the local rat population seems to have gone mad and are attacking the residents of the town in their thousands.  High up on a hill outside the town a tall robed figure stands and watches the massacre.  He removes his hood to reveal a large rat head; this is the emperor of the rats who has come to conquer the world.

Episode Captures (Click to enlarge)

   Max is alone with Bea in one of the school's science labs where Bea appears to be working on an experiment that involves using a potato to illuminate a light bulb.  Three white rats in a nearby cage start squeaking in unison in a rather musical way.  Bea tells Max that she thinks that their song is heart-breaking.  Thinking that they are just hungry Max goes over to the cage and offers them a piece of cheese from his lunch.  Imagine his surprise when the rats try to eat his fingers instead of the cheese.  Scowling at them Max and Bea leave the school to head for the cinema.

 Later we find Max at home with his mother and tucking into a Chinese take away meal that his mom has treated him to.  She breaks open a fortune cookie, reads the message, and hands it to Max.  "I think this one is for you," she states.  The message within tells Max to go to the portal in the barbers shop.  Max is horrified; the barber's!!  Max reaches the barber shop and steps in; the barber is delighted that Max has come for a crew-cut, but Max has other ideas.  He sees a portal opening in the chair, leaps in, and confounds the barber when he vanishes from sight.

  Max arrives, in a heap as usual, at the Great Wall of China where he is met by Virgil and Norman.  Virgil tells Max about what has happened in a nearby town and that he once again he needed to save the world and hands him a fortune cookie.  Max declines and tells Virgil that he has just had one, but at Virgil's insistence Max takes is and reads the message.  It tells him that the number seven will be very lucky later on.  There is no portal nearby so Norman acquires a cart and pulls Max and Virgil in it until they find themselves in what appears to be a desolated spot on a  hill above an empty village.  As they clamber out of the cart they are suddenly surrounded by huge rats that create a living wall around them, with only one way out.  It's obvious that they want the team to move in the direction and so they oblige by climbing some stone steps.  Virgil politely coughs and reminds Max about the number 7 being a lucky number.  Max looks at him in confusion and so to help him along even more Virgil taps his claw on a stone step - the seventh stone step in fact.  Max realises what Virgil is getting at and lifts the seventh stone, moaning that Virgil should just be more simple in future about this messages.  The first thing Max lifts out is a stone tablet on which are carved the words, This may be important in two thousand years time, Mighty One!  Max is astounded; how does Virgil do that?  He also pulls out a map, looks at it, looks at the surrounding area, and complains that the map looks nothing like where they are standing.  A noise is heard behind them, and when they turn around they are confronted by the self styled, Emperor of the Rats.  Norman rushes toward it with his sword at the ready, but is flung back by a impenetrable shield that appears around the rat emperor.

 Virgil tells the emperor that Max is the Mighty One foretold in prophecy.  The rat leans forward and sniffs Max and states that he is no more than a human boy!   Virgil tells him that Max could beat him at any challenge and so the emperor throws Max what appears to be a Rubik cube with various patterns on each side.  Max laughs and in a few seconds has cracked the puzzle, but little did he realise that this was not the puzzle, but the key to the puzzle.  Light erupts from the cube and Max cheers, but he soon fall silent as an earthquake hits them and huge stone walls erupt from a nearby statue of the emperor and his rats.  They soon find themselves trapped in a stone maze, and just as the lid closes over their heads, they hear the emperor telling Max that it will take him about five thousand years to find the way out.

  Max, Norman, and Virgil wander around the maze trying to find a way out.  Max realises (with the hints of Virgil once again) that he has a map of the maze, but their hopes are soon dashed when they notice that the map seems to be a bit out of date, and that some new work has been done on the maze since the creation of the map. Max stops at a stone statue a huge bleu Minotaur.  He reaches up and examines it, but seeing that it is harmless he flicks it on one of its horns.  The statues eyes open and it takes a step toward Max.  Norman rushes forward and attacks to protect Max, but the Minotaur just brushes him aside.  Max grabs a rug that is hanging on the wall and waves it about in the style of a Spanish matador. The Minotaur takes the bait and rushes at Max, and becomes trapped by the horns when it headbutts a wall.  It is not long before the Minotaur extricates itself and lunges toward Max once again.  Norman rushes forward and smashes the Minotaur on the head with the hilt of his sword.  The Minotaur staggers around, falls to the floor, and to the astonishment of the team, disappears in a puff of smoke.

 As they press forward the come to a dead end which has a large stone rat against the wall.  They are about to turn around when they hear a disembodied voice calling them from behind the wall where the stone rat is situated.  Max refuses to believe that it is somebody trying to help them, and begins to walk away, but comes face to face with a gigantic rat.  Knowing he has no choice Max pulls on the tail of the stone rat, as instructed by the voice.  The wall opens to reveal a man sitting cross legged in the centre of the floor.  The trio rush in and while Norman tires to fight of the rat, Max finds and presses a secret stone button.  A huge wall comes crashing down upon the head of the giant rat, and it too disappears in a puff of smoke.  The imprisoned man (who goes by a name that I have no idea how to spell but is something like "Low-Choo" (LC)) explains to Max, Norman, and Virgil that the emperor of the rats imprisoned him in the maze and stole his physical body when he accidentally released the emperor of the rats from its own prison.   He tells Max that there is only one way that the rat can be killed and that is by the shattering of its heart.  He takes them to another room where they find a huge red crystal heart suspended from the ceiling, and next to that are a series of huge bells.  Norman steps up and hits the heart with his sword, but nothing happens.  Max notices a symbol of the star constellation The Big Dipper and reckons that if he hits the bells in the order of the stars, then it would shatter the crystal heart.  He tries this by picking up a huge stick and hits seven of the bells.  Again nothing happens. Then Max reasons with himself that if by the tolling of the bells the emperor rat was given life, could his demise be brought about reversing the order of the bell striking.  Taking a deep breath he starts to hit the bells in the pattern of the stars, but in reverse order.  A groan is heard from all around them and Max knows he has got it right.  However, every time he hits a bell it also seems to cause LC great discomfort.  Max stops to check on LC, but he tells Max not to stop, that he must carry on.  Max reluctantly does so, and when he strikes the final bell the crystal heart hums, glows, and then explodes.  LC falls to the floor and disappears in puff of smoke.  Outside the maze the rat emperor falls to the ground and dies.

  When the flash from the exploding heart dims, Max sees that they are all standing out in the open air once again.  Nearby he sees the robed figure, and moves it over onto its front.  He sees LC laying apparently dead at his feet.   Max kneels down feeling saddened, but as he expresses his sorrow he sees a cloud of smoke descending toward the body.  The close it gets the more human shaped it becomes until it disappears into LC's still body.  There is a pause and LC open his eyes.  Max smiles with happiness and helps LC up to his feet.  He tells the trio that the rat emperor could return if the pieces of his heart were reunited.

 In the darkness several rats pick up the broken pieces of their emperors heart and runs off with them..