After the massive success of the original film starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, the animated series Men In Black was conceived as a cash grab in 1997. The series tweaked the aesthetic and concept a little, but stayed mostly true to the film and anchored in the comics. The fact that the cartoon series included a plethora of episodes dealing with a variety of contemporary themes such as the oil crisis, war, prejudice against the poorer sectors of society, and so on is the most essential aspect of the cartoon series.
It also dealt with a variety of other concerns, such as the strained connection between parents and their children, friendships, and colleagues, as well as treachery and trust. The Men In Black Animated Series, of course, provided something for everyone and was appropriate for viewers of all ages. Given the show has gravity and depth, we thought it would be fun to take a look at ten of the cartoon’s darkest and most adult episodes and go deeper into their stories. Are you prepared to embark on a journey with horrible monsters from the farthest reaches of the universe?
The Long Goodbye Syndrome – S1 E1
As a group of firefighters was trying to bring a poor kitty stuck on a tree back on the ground, Kay and Jay arrived at the spot posing as Fire Marshals. Their presence clearly suggested that something otherworldly was in the vicinity. Jay climbed up the tree, assuming that the cat was the alien. Kay did try to warn him, but Jay being Jay, didn’t pay much heed to the warning. To Jay’s horror, a tree branch became sentient and manhandled him as if he were a rag doll in an angry kid’s hand. Jay learned the hard way that the tree itself was non-departmental issued concealment being used by an undocumented alien.
As the beast tried to flee from the spot, Kay shot a super-charged sphere flying at the alien and stopped it. Kay neutralized the firefighters at the scene. Soon, the men in black learned that there was a possibility of a Skraaldian population explosion in the sewers. Now, Skraaldians are aliens from the planet Skraal. They are slug-like creatures that live inside protective exoskeletons.
The men in black began to investigate a sewer close to the beach, where a giant Skraaldian attacked them. Kay wanted to use non-lethals on the creature, but Jay used his Noisy Cricket on the creature and blasted off its exoskeleton. The Skraaldian spat some vomit on Kay before dying and marked his DNA for other Skraaldians to recognize because the species shared a hive mind.
It seemed that Jay was now a lost cause because four billion Skraaldians wanted Jay dead. Back at the MIB Headquarters, everyone had presumed that Jay would die soon; in fact, people and aliens were throwing him farewell parties! However, Kay wasn’t going to let Jay die without putting up a good fight. Another Skraaldian attacked Jay at the headquarters, but Kay finally managed to freeze the alien, but Kay inadvertently killed another Skraaldian. They then receive a distress signal from the Arquillian ambassador and leave to help him.
On their way from the Arquillian ambassador, several Skraaldians attack Jay, but he survives with the help of Kay. They also get attacked by Skraaldian warriors who had come on a spaceship. Kay seemed to sacrifice himself to save Jay, but with a little help from the Arquillian ambassador, who owed his life to Kay, the latter managed to fool the Skraaldians and save Jay as well. Finally, the menace was over.
The Alpha Syndrome – S1 E4
Agents Kay and Jay meet with a Sintillian at the MIB headquarters. When asked about his situation, he revealed that a mugger stole his heart. No, he didn’t fall in love, but someone literally stole the poor chap’s heart. Now, you should know that Sintillians possess two hearts, so that’s how he was alive to tell his tale. The men in black reach the hotel where the Sintillian was staying and began their investigation.
At the hotel, Jay meets a MIB agent who calls himself A. Meanwhile, Kay received a package that had a Virtual Selective Memory Projector; it was a device that allowed people to relive parts of their lives through memories. Jay returned to Kay, who was using the Virtual Selective Memory Projector, but Kay appeared to be in a great deal of pain. Kay mentions something about rejecting everything someone ever taught him, but Jay pulled out the Projector from Kay’s head.
Jay tries to grill Kay for answers, but the latter doesn’t pay heed to anything that Jay had to ask. Furthermore, Zed interrupted Jay and warned him against asking Kay about his past. Jay’s curiosity forced him to do some digging on his own, and with the help of the worms and Elle, he discovered that an ex-agent named Alpha leads back to Kay’s early life at MIB.
While Jay and Elle were accessing the file on Alpha, Zed and Kay caught them in the act and reprimanded them. However, during the conversation, Jay revealed the name of Agent A, and it was enough for Kay to realize that Agent A or Alpha wanted to be found. He convinces Zed to give him one chance to try and take out Alpha. Alpha was the first agent and head of MIB, but he was also responsible for its near destruction. Jay and Kay found Alpha, who had transformed into a beast with several alien heads protruding from his chest and back.
He had integrated himself using a device and was now more powerful than ever. Kay engaged in a battle with Alpha, and Jay headed straight towards the heart, but it tried to escape getting caught by Jay. In the end, Alpha caught the Sintillian heart and burned it heavily. They return to the headquarters, where Elle tried to revive the heart, while the Sintillian was kept under protective custody. However, Alpha infiltrated the headquarters and abducted the Sintillian so that he could have the Sintillian’s, second heart.
Kay, by now, has had enough of Alpha, and he decides to take down his former teacher all by himself, but Zed wouldn’t let him go alone because it was nothing less than a suicide mission. Using his quick thinking, Kay used quick clones to deceive Jay and Zed, and he left all by himself to meet Alpha at his hideout.
Elle and Jay retrieve Kay’s Virtual Selective Memory Projector and use it to learn that Alpha was the one who taught Kay everything he knew, but later, Alpha himself turned greedy and obsessed with power after he got his hands on a fully charged Cosmic Integrator. After discovering Kay’s location, Jay and Elle rushed to rescue him and the Sintillian, who was being held hostage by Alpha. In an extremely smart move, Jay used a quick clone of himself and blew up Alpha, presumably killing him.
The Symbiote Syndrome – S1 Ep7
An entire race of microscopic aliens called the Millicrons to infect Kay. The civilization of these Millicrons doesn’t realize that they have infected their host, they don’t really mean any harm, but their presence creates flu-like symptoms. Any attempts to extract them forcefully or kill them through medicines or vitamin C will lead to a global level of genocide because the Milllicrons are highly protective of their children. Kay was supposed to go on a solo mission to extract a symbiote named Troy, who had been separated from his mother.
Troy was just like a teenager who got separated from his mother because, well, he ran away. Nevertheless, since Kay had to be scrubbed off the mission because of his condition, Jay convinced Zed to assign the task to him. Zed agreed. However, as is normal with Jay, he didn’t read the necessary information about symbiotes and went for the job somewhat unprepared. He had to meld with the symbiote because it wouldn’t sustain without a host body. However, if Jay spends more than 20 hours with the symbiote melded with him, the Symbiote Troy would permanently take over Jay. Jay’s mission was simple, meet, greet, and bring Troy back to the headquarters so that Troy could be reunited with his mother.
After the melding, Troy and Jay left in a high-speed train, but they get attacked by an intergalactic bounty hunter named Buzzard. He was working for a mysterious boss who wanted to have Troy’s powers. Troy could change his host’s body to create several objects, weapons and could even grow wings out of the host’s body. Buzzard blew up the trains and confronted Jay and Troy, who managed to evade it temporarily.
Meanwhile, the news of the train wreckage reached the MIB Headquarters. When Kay heard the news, he was determined to go out there and save his partner, but his condition was still unstable. Elle had fixed him up with a device for peaceful evacuation of the Millicrons, but they were more than four billion in number, and the process was going to be time-consuming. Nevertheless, Zed sends Elle with Kay so that she could keep a check on his vitals. After much ado, Kay managed to find Jay, who was under the attack of Buzzard.
However, Kay fell unconscious because of his illness, but fortunately for him, he revived just as the last of the Millicrons left his body and defeated Buzzard and his mysterious boss. The episode tells a fantastic tale about contemporary issues that teenagers and their parents face. Furthermore, it elaborated on the relationship that Jay and Kay shared. Kay risking his life trying to save his partner is indeed the kind of partnership anyone would want.
The Psychic Link Syndrome – S1 Ep9
A young tourist from Rockford, Illinois, visits the big apple, only to get attacked by an Alicidian named Forbus. The Alcidian drains the young tourist of his bodily fluids in order to get his essence. Jay, Kay, and Elle reach the hotel where the tourist was found but fail to conclude why an alien would attack a human! It was a fairly rare act. Nevertheless, Kay managed to find an ID card of the attacker and deduced that the Alcidian was a cab driver.
Soon, the men in black managed to find Forbus the Alicidian, but he transformed into his original form and bashed up Jay and grasped Kay with his wolverine-like claws, after which point Kay fainted. Back at the headquarters, Elle revives Kay, who wakes up with a headache and explains that he had been subjected to an Alcidian handshake. Ascidians are highly social beings who exchange some of their essences by biting each other’s hands as an act of bonding to create an emotional link. Just as they were trying to figure out Forbus’s intentions behind his attacks on humans, Kay felt an excruciating burning sensation in his hand.
This was happening because the Alcidian was touching his car’s hot engine. Kay concluded that whatever happened to the Alcidian would happen to him too. Hence, a psychic link had been created. Elle offered to break the link, but Kay thought it was better to have the connection because it might make him feel more than pain, and he might get to learn about the alien. Kay and the Alcidian had become somewhat like the Corsican brothers from Alexander Dumas’s novella. The brothers used to be Siamese twins who were separated at birth. However, they continued to feel each other’s physical distress and sensations.
Later, Jay and Kay meet the other Alcidian cabbies at an Alcidian food joint, where they learn how anti-social Forbus was for an Alcidian. Later, a random photographer takes pictures of Forbus, who attacked the photographer, but the latter managed to escape. And, of course, Kay felt the same rage that Forbus felt. The photographer later got attacked by Forbus, but the men in black reached the spot just in time to pursue Forbus. Jay and Kay finally catch up with the alien, but he managed to take advantage of the psychic link to elude them.
Every time Jay hit the Alcidian, Kay also felt the pain. When a journalist tried to take Kay’s pictures, he became enraged, as if someone was trying to take his essence. Kay was now relating to the Alcidian’s personality, something that started to bother Elle. The men in black soon confronted the Alcidian on a building’s rooftop, where Kay seemed to have lost his soul entirely to relate to the Alcidian. However, Jay used camera flash as a weapon against the Alcidian and drained the alien and Kay of their essence. The Alcidian was later sent to the Men in a Black psychiatric ward.
The Dog Eat Dog Syndrome – S2 Ep4
Just after an elderly couple closed their diner, a UFO crash-landed on the diner and destroyed it. MIB reached the spot, and Kay ordered to sweep the area clean of any alien traces, but the diner was everything that the elderly couple had. After hearing this, Kay neutralized the couple but ordered his men to upgrade the diner into a fancy eatery. Upon inspecting the spaceship, they discovered that it was a prison transport ship, but its pilot was a fugitive. Upon further investigation, Jay and Kay found their fugitive alien, who attacked them by firing beams of flame from his palms.
The alien tried to make an escape but Jay and Key gave it a chase. Unfortunately, the flame-throwing alien managed to escape by jumping into a river. Back at the headquarters, Zed found out that the perp was a notorious criminal and prison breaker named Drekk. The only lead that they have on Drekk is an alien pug named Frank. Drekk had once threatened Frank, and naturally, he was extremely scared of selling Drekk out to the MIB. However, every alien dog has a price, and Frank’s price was the XL 2000 suit. Frank later goes to a pub where he bumps into Drekk, as the two of them take a table and talk, they get interrupted by two aliens, who later turn out to be Jay and Kay.
The men in black apprehend Drekk by freezing his hands together. Once he was caught, Frank revealed to Drekk that he had been working with the MIB. This later turned out to be a bad move because not only did Drekk threaten to boil him slowly in water, but he also escaped his custody. He then came to extract his revenge on Frank, but he instead cut out a deal with the pug. Drekk now wanted Frank to work as his snitch and get Jay and Kay to an abandoned mill. Drekk easily subdues the men in black and puts them in a vat of molten metal, but the men were wearing heat-resistant suits. They finally managed to freeze Drekk entirely, and not just his hands. And as was promised, Frank received his XL 2000 suit.
The Jack O’Lantern Syndrome – S2 Ep6
On Halloween night, a group of kids performs a séance to summon the Jack O’Lantern. It initially seems that their efforts have gone to waste but soon, a spaceship arrives with a strange big-headed alien. The alien appeared before them wearing a pumpkin-like head, and the kids flee the spot, assuming that they have summoned the Jack O’Lantern. Halloween is loved by the alien community as well as the alien criminals because it gives them a fine opportunity to roam around free, without their disguises. Zed puts every agent on high alert and assigns Agent You and Kay for street patrol while Jay is sent with the worms for trick or treating. Kay goes to meet Frank, the pug, who tells Kay that he got bitten by a werewolf.
Interestingly there’s a Ghostbusters reference here in this scene. When Kay tells Frank that ‘supernatural is out of MIB jurisdiction,’ Frank asks him, ‘who are you gonna call?’ Well, Ghostbusters! Meanwhile, the Jack O’Lantern alien abducts a young kid, and Jay serves as the babysitter for the worms while they go trick or treating. Back at the headquarters, the power goes out despite five backup generators. Troy theorizes that it must have been the work of the Jack O’Lantern, but Zed discards the opinion claiming that they were just a figment of Earth’s imagination.
On the other hand, Jay loses one of the worms to the Jack O’Lantern alien, and Kay visits his informer, who tells him that an alien ship had landed in a nearby neighborhood. When Kay and Agent You visit the place, Kay discovers that it belonged to a criminal alien who abducts little people or aliens to sell them as slave laborers. Furthermore, Kay finds the previously abducted kid and the abducted worm. Meanwhile, Jay confronts the Jack O’Lantern alien while it was assaulting another kid, but clearly, Jay was not a match for the alien.
Kay and Agent, You also arrive at the spot. It turns out that big people couldn’t take out the alien, but Kay had a unique plan in his mind. He used a field generator to simulate the environment in such a way that the alien would feel weaker and the worms would feel stronger. The worms took out the alien with combined efforts to save the day, well, night, and all children from slavery. At the end of the episode, Frank the pug did, in fact, turn into a werewolf! Guess they really needed the ghostbusters now.
The Lost Continent Syndrome – S3 Ep4
After catching an intergalactic alien criminal wanted in three galaxies, Jay and Kay take their aircraft in the middle of the sea and get into an underwater craft. He learns from Zed that Quinton, the leader of the Zangarian liberation army and a fanatic zealot, terrorist, was back on Earth. Quinton was a four-armed humanoid alien who had pledged to hustle and spread violence and terror until the Znagarian empire rose to power. The place where the last activity was noted was named Area 117, but it was actually the ancient empire of Atlantis.
It turns out that the Zangarians apparently established the Atlantian empire and then abandoned it. Many years later, it has turned into an extraterrestrial tourist attraction! Interestingly, Kay had given Jay a nodule that helped him change his physiology to develop gills and fins, and furthermore, it heightened Jay’s sub-aqueous sensory perceptions. The men in black reached their destination, and upon investigation, they discover an elaborate plan. A sub-aqueous robot attacks the men in black, Jay is left unconscious on the sea bed while Kay gets abducted by Quinton and is kept as a prisoner along with other alien tourists.
Quinton’s plan was to bring the city of Atlantis back to the surface, but that would create massive disasters like extremely high tidal waves. However, Kay manages to bring Jay back to his senses by scratching a sharp metal against the glass enclosure. Jay’s heightened senses picked up the noise, and he woke up, later beginning to search for Kay using his smell. Jay infiltrated Quintoon’s facility and saved Kay from dying because of shortness of breath.
After which, he went after Quintoon, who was getting away. Quintoon had initiated the launch off and the only way to stop the plan was to enter the access code, which only Quintoon knew. However, Kay soon learnt that Agent C, who was in charge of Area 117, didn’t report the abduction of the alien tourists for several days. Naturally, he was in on the plan with Quintoon. But when Kay confronted C, his conscience was moved. Becoming righteous, he crashed the underwater craft into the rising Atlantis and saved Earth from a massive catastrophe. However, a few nuked fell into the sea and exploded, creating a huge wave, but Kay managed to freeze the waves with an icer.
The Out to Pasture Syndrome – S3 Ep9
While fishing in the South Pole, a man gets attacked by Alpha, the first chief of MIB, now transformed into a creature made out of body parts of four races. But his body has suffered frostbite and has become brittle due to it. Alpha attacks the fisherman to take the latter’s body parts. Back at the headquarters, Zed surprises everyone by announcing his retirement. He leaves Kay as the new chief of MIB, who throws him a farewell party. Later, Kay neuralizes Zed and tells him that he’s supposed to spend the rest of his life fishing.
As chief, Kay gets involved with a prison transport arriving on Earth for refueling; it carries the most dangerous criminals of the galaxy but gets attacked by Alpha, who takes the body parts of the criminals. When Kay learns about this, he concludes that Alpha is back in business. Jay gets Elle as his new partner and naturally, he’s not very happy about it. During their conversation, he mentions a new coffee machine that the worms received, but Kay hadn’t order any. They discover that the coffee machine was actually an unbreachable bomb. The bomb detonated and destroyed a great chunk of the MIB HQ.
Jay and Elle then find Alpha in his hideout, where Elle leaves to call for backup. Alpha, however, overpowers Jay and extracts information from him using one of his newly acquired body parts. Alpha finds out about Zed’s location and goes hunting him down. Alpha finds Zed but he gets surrounded by MIB agents. It turns out the entire story of Zed’s retirement was an elaborate ploy to get Alpha out in the open.
All the MIB personnel knew about it with the exception of Jay, who was used as bait. Furthermore, the neuralyzer that Kay had used on Zed was simply a flash. However, Alpha managed to subdue the agents surrounding him and went after Zed, but Jay and Elle were in hot pursuit. After a tense sequence of events where Alpha used all his appendages and brute force to attack Zed, Jay managed to destroy Alpha using one of his own tentacles. Alpha’s alien body dissolved into thin air, leaving only Alpha’s shriveled and battered body. Alpha was finally captured and sent to the mental ward, once and for all.
The I Want My Mummy Syndrome – S3 Ep11
One night there was a convergence of three stars in the Canis Minor constellation; it was the alien equivalent of an event equivalent to a special full moon on Earth. That night a five-thousand-year-old mummy came to life, attacked a security guard, and left the museum. The mummy was actually an Hyperian from the planet of Hyperia, which resembled ancient Egypt. Before heading to the museum, Jay and Kay visit Frank the pug, who was apparently well-read in the subject of ancient Egypt. The Hyperian that escaped from the museum was sent as an advanced scout to Earth thousands of years ago but ended up being trapped before he could report back home.
The men in black find the Hyperian wrecking an ancient Egypt-themed restaurant. With Jay distracting the alien, Kay managed to subdue it with his gun, but Jeebs helps the violent alien and gives it a ride to Egypt. Zed asks Jay and Kay to visit the cradle of civilization and allows Frank to go along because of his knowledge of ancient Egypt. The Hyperian wished to use an interstellar gateway in one of the pyramids so that he could report back to his kind and come along with them to conquer Earth. But Frank and Jeebs managed to find the gateway and traveled thousands of lightyears in ten seconds to reach Hyperia, where Frank was assumed the king.
Jay and Kay also found the gateway, where Kay revealed that the only way to stop a giant intergalactic mess was by destroying the gateway, but it had to be done from both ends. In Hyperia, Frank was being treated as the king, and he got Jeebs arrested, and naturally, Jeebs swore to exact his revenge. Kay and Jay reach Hyperia but get attacked by the royal guards. Meanwhile, Jeebs pulled out Frank’s dog suit, revealing to the Hyperians that he was an imposter. After seizing control of Hyperian weapons, Kay and Jay fought the Hyperians and all of them ran towards the portal, but the Hyperian general summoned giant insects, sandstorms, etc. They finally managed to reach the portal and destroyed the Hyperian end of the portal. After reaching Earth, they destroyed the Earth portal, sending back the last Hyperian who had managed to reach Earth.
The Endgame Syndrome: S4 Ep 12 and 13 (Part 1 and 2)
Alpha arranged for the evil alien Vangus to escape MIB custody, and they teamed up to conquer Earth. The deal was that the Ixions and Vagus would take control of Earth’s oil, which was a precious resource in the intergalactic commercial market, and Alpha would get to rule Earth. With the Ixion’s involved in the situation, Zed deduces that an invasion is imminent, and he seeks the help of other alien races that were allies of Earth. However, if alien spaceships start landing in Times Square, the secrecy of the MIB would have become a lost cause. Furthermore, the threat was now too big for the MIB to handle alone, so Zed decided to reveal the existence of MIB and aliens to the world, and more specifically, the President of the United States so that MIB could combine their forces with other armed forces. The aliens attack the UN building as well as the Washington Monument, but it seemed like they had no intention of stopping anytime soon, or at least until Earth was entirely annihilated.
A small batch of Ixion fighter jets arrive, but they are taken care of by Elle and Agent Ex with the help of US air force pilots. Meanwhile, Jay and Kay head to the MIB space station to take care of the Ixion armada. However, before they could do any significant damage, the space station was turned to dust. Alpha was becoming weary of the slow tactic of attack and retreat being used by Vangus.
So he initiated an attack on the MIB headquarters because they were the ones coordinating the defense strategies. Alpha destroyed the headquarters with a targeted beam of energy. The world was now in chaos because of the revelation of extraterrestrial existence and their assault on Earth. Jay and Kay managed to save everyone from the headquarters, except the worms who were in Washington DC and had their own mission to save the Capuccino building; well, they just misheard the term Capitol. Jay and Kay head to space once again while the Ixion armada continued its invasion on Earth.
Vangus manages to capture them. However, Vangus starts to become impatient and decides to launch a missile that would completely ruin Earth, but Alpha objected to this because it would leave him without people to rule. Naturally, Alpha and Vangus get into a confrontation in which Vangus blew off one of Alpha’s arms. Jay used this arm to stun Vangus and knock Alpha out. Vangus recovered and launched the missile onto Earth, with Alpha on it. The men in black manage to successfully blow up the missile, killing Alpha once more, hopefully for good. Later, Kay used the neuralyzer at a press conference to wipe out the memories of everyone watching, and thereby he kept the secret about aliens and MIB intact.