The Darkest Fathoms

The Darkest Fathoms is the first episode of the first season of The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest.

Premise
Dr. Quest takes the team to the Bermuda Triangle, where oil explorers claim to have seen the ghost of Black Jack Lee in the same place he went down with his ship.

Teaser
About 200 years ago, Bermuda. In a canon fight between the ship The Ivory Web and a British naval ship, the pirate Black Jack Lee and his crew are losing. As he goes down with his ship, Black Jack Lee proclaims, "In life or death, no one shall have what is Black Jack Lee's."

Act 1
Modern day, Bermuda. On the oil endeavor, Lacey is topside coordinating an underwater team searching for oil, and Charlie turns up the heat for the team. An unusual fog rolls in just as the underwater team discovers the wreckage of the ship The Ivory Web. Suddenly there's canon fire in the fog, and an old ship comes into view. The underwater team makes to get back to topside as the ship is boarded by pirates. Charlie is knocked out and heat to the underwater team drops drastically. Underwater, Mills begins to go hypothermic, and Lacey tries to pull them in, but the apparent ghost of Black Jack Lee destroys the controls, leaving the underwater team down there to die, and Lacey is knocked unconscious.

Quest Compound, Maine. Lacey tells Dr. Quest about the incident, and that two of his men died. Benton pulls up a search of the ship The Ivory Web. He's intrigued enough that he accepts Lacey's request to investigate the situation.

Meanwhile, Hadji and Jonny practice escaping from being tied with their hands behind their backs. Hadji, a practicing yogi, can do it, but Jonny is unable to do so. Benton comes in and lets them know about their trip to Bermuda.

Bermuda. Aboard the Questor, the team coordinates an underwater expedition to find The Ivory Web. Hadji, Jonny, and Race Bannon go with the underwater team, while Benton and Jessie Bannon stay topside. The Sea Slug uncouples and takes the underwater team down. Jonny and Race find and begin investigating the wreckage. Topside, a fog rolls in and the Questor is boarded; Jessie and Benton are attacked and the equipment is destroyed. The apparent ghost of Black Jack Lee proclaims that "no one will have what is Black Jack Lee's."

Act 2
With the topside equipment destroyed, surface support systems are crashing and the underwater team's hot water is gone. Race and Jonny begin to return to the Sea Slug, but Jonny's umbilical is caught on a canon, Race pushes Jonny out of the way and gets struck by the falling canon and gets knocked out. Hadji drops a recovery hook for them, and Jonny gets it attached to Race, and Hadji pulls them both back on the Sea Slug. Hadji gets the Sea Slug surfaced, where they find the Questor abandoned. Jonny takes an outboard to get help at the weather station on Goblin Cay, while Hadji stays on the Questor to keep an eye on Race.

Jonny runs into rocks and the outboard begins to take water. He sees lights of another ship and waves for help, but as it gets closer he realizes it's not good, and he dodges an attack. Crouching on rocks, Jonny pretends to be struggling and in need of help, causing the attackers to crash. He swims to shore and finds the ghost ship, but is knocked unconscious by the apparent ghost of Black Jack Lee.

Aboard the ship, Jonny wakes up with his hands tied behind his back. He remembers his training with Hadji and is able to get out. Sneaking around the ship, he overhears the antagonists' plan to use their equipment to prevent the wreckage from slipping over the cliff so they can get the treasure, and then they plan to "turn them into shark bait". Jonny finds Jessie and his father tied up and gets them out. The three sabotage the ship using their own equipment as a distraction, and escape.

Later, the team returns to investigate the wreckage of The Ivory Web. Race is still recovering and stays topside with Benton, and Jessie goes with the underwater team. Just as she and Jonny are about to enter the wreckage, the ship slips loose and falls into the gorge, taking its treasure with it. Upon the ship's mast, Black Jack Lee appears as he did when he originally went down with the ship, and once again his treasure sinks away before anyone else can take it.

Characters
Primary characters:
 * Jonny Quest
 * Hadji Singh
 * Jessie Bannon
 * Dr. Benton Quest
 * Race Bannon

Supporting characters:
 * Lacey

Villains:
 * Black Jack Lee
 * Black Jack Lee imposter

Other characters:
 * Commander Horatio
 * Mills
 * Technician
 * Charlie

Locations

 * Bermuda
 * Iceland
 * Maine
 * Quest Compound

Objects

 * TBA

Vehicles

 * The Ivory Web
 * Questor
 * Sea Slug
 * Whaler

Notes/trivia

 * Bandit is absent.

Goofs

 * The name "Questor" is clearly the only word on the plaque above the deck, but when the equipment is damaged, it appears as though there are words beneath it.


 * After Jonny tricks the pirates into crashing their boat, he slides his hand through his hair, and his eye and eyebrow are visible through his hand. Note that this may have been an intentional artistic choice, which is common in some forms of art such as anime and manga.

Home media

 * 🇺🇸 The Real Adventures of Jonny Quest: Season One, Volume One DVD set released on February 17, 2009 by Warner Home Video.

Quotes

 * See also: The Darkest Fathoms/Transcript


 * "In life or death, no one shall have what is Black Jack Lee's." - Black Jack Lee
 * "Though time has passed since I've ravaged these seas, no one shall have what is Black Jack Lee's." - Black Jack Lee's impostor