The Need for Speed

****General**** •
**Images** •
**Transcript** •
**Clips** •
**Quotes**

The Need for Speed

Season
1

Episode
4b

Air date
May 28, 2021

Writer
Monica TomovaJohn N. Huss

Director
Lauren Krieger

***The Need for Speed*** is the second segment of the fourth episode of The Chicken Squad.

About
When the Squad soups up their new car to be extra fast, Little Boo feels like he no longer has a place on the team.

Characters* Little Boo
* Coop
* Sweetie
* Captain Tully
* Dario (debut)

Synopsis
We start with Coop telling Captain Tully that he's trying to fix up the car to make it go faster. As she leaves for a party, a deer later revealed to be named Dario (voiced by Chris Richards) tries to steal a bunch of apples from them. As he runs off, everyone tries catching up with him, but the car is too slow and even Little Boo isn't fast enough to keep up with him. This setup is all about showing Little Boo's ego. He takes great pride in his speed and catching up to others. I do like that he doesn't see this as a moment to give up, but more as momentum to do better next time. It probably helps that he still wants to show off speed as his personal contribution to The Chicken Squad, seeing this as his special ability
And so we have a fixed up car. At first, it seems like Little Boo is doing well when he outruns the car, but then he crashes into a bush and is consistently outperformed by the car. It makes sense thigh since he's fast, having plenty of raw power, but is not so much about planning and coordination. As for Coop and Sweetie, while they do think the car is faster, they never downplay Little Boo's abilities. They think he can still contribute with his speed, determination, and ability to get into small spaces, but just needs to focus more on strategy. They are supposed to function as a team.
Of course, things don't turn out well when Dario comes in and takes more apples. It's here where he thinks he's not fast enough and quits. This is pretty bad, but it makes sense. He's someone who, for all his ego, he wants to be able help others with his speed. He's just too stubborn and close minded to see that he has other talents that he can contribute. Fortunately, Captain Tully gives him a nice pep talk with a story of her own. When she was an active rescue dog, she relied on her smell quite a bit, but lost her smell one day. She was initially sad but was able to use hearing when trying to find someone in a balloon factory. That is silly yet also seriously cool.
The ending helps pull it together. Dario once again steals apples and everyone gets in the car to stop. However, he jumps over an entrance with a gate that has a narrow entrance. As such, Little Boo slips in under and goes super fast. He's able to catch-up not with speed, but with mind. He says how he shouldn't run backwards, with Dario proving him wrong, but then he gets stuck in a tree. This smart thinking helps show how he's good with planning, but from acting on his own spontaneous personality. He's then able to show empathy for Dario, who just wanted to have something fun for himself. If Dario stops stealing apples and helps them get apples from higher branches, he can get all the apples he wants with permission. That's a pretty good idea. Talk about a good episode.

Trivia* The title is similar to Blaze and the Monster Machines episode, The Need for Blazing Speed.
* The deer resembled Kai from Deer Squad.