by Mark Rodriguez
This is an awesome episode that accomplishes so many things at once. Some focus on Xever, some focus on April, and Baxter breaking out of being Shredder's lackey to becoming his own villain again. Let's begin.
This episode starts with the Turtles staking out The Kraang stealing an Endo-Particle Disruptor that could cause some serious damage. However, Baxter, Dogpound and Fishface are also planning to steal it for themselves. Baxter tries to lead them, but the mutants insult him and say he's lucky they let him live.
The Turtles and the mutants jump in at the same time to attack the Kraang... and as you can tell, all shell breaks loose. Considering that this is the short scene played before the theme song, it was truly an epic fight with the Turtles fighting Dogpound, Fishface, The Foot and The Kraang all at the same time, while the Kraang are also fighting everyone else. Ninjas, laser guns, and crazy mutants throwing down. The only thing missing woulda been Snakeweed, Spider Bytes, the Purple Dragons and Karai. One thing to mention during the fight is Raph focusing most of his attention on Xever, I assume since he was poisoned by him the last time. The Kraang manage to get away with the stolen weapon and the police are on their way, so everyone flees the scene.... leaving Baxter stranded on the roof. What an epic way to start the episode.
The episode opens with Splinter training the Turtles to be able to sense his attack coming and dodge in time, all from sitting in a kneeling position. Of the four, Leo was the only one able to sense the kendo strike and roll out of the way. Raph asks why this is important, and Splinter says it's important to sense an enemy's intentions so one can dodge an attack one can't see.
Elsewhere, Shredder is not pleased that his minions failed. Baxter takes the blame but says he has an idea for a trap, but he would need Dogpound and Fishface to lead the Turtles into it. Shredder agrees and says they are at his disposal.
Later on, the Turtles spot the mutants out in the open, just randomly hanging around. Leo is suspicious, but the other Turtles just jump in to fight. As the others take on Dogpound, Raph is eager to continue his fight against Xever. The bad guys soon run away and the Turtles chase them, even though Leo feels all of this seems too easy.
Meanwhile, April is FINALLY shown training with Splinter. We've only seen her mention it and do some duck and rolls, but now we finally see her sparring with him. April thinks she's ready to use a weapon at this point, and Splinter says she already has the kunoichi mind. April asks when was the last time someone beat someone over the head with their mind, and Splinter agrees.
The Turtles find the mutants and they say they give up. Leo says it all looks like a trap, and yes, sure enough a huge circular wall traps the Turtles with Dogpound and Fishface as part of Baxter's elaborate maze of doom. Baxter fires some missiles down on them, but some of them are also aimed at Dogpound and Fishface. The mad scientist now announces that he is sick of being abused by them and plans to take them all out. The floor opens up under everyone and they all slide down towards Baxter's maze.
In the maze the Turtles and the mutants are ready to throw down... but suddenly laser scythes start swinging around as if they were pendulums. Everyone has to work together to get past them, and Raph actually saves Fishface from being sliced. Dogpound finds the exit and they all follow him. Raph asks if they can trust them since they know they will eventually betray them. Leo says they just have to be ready for when that happens and see it coming first.
April starts trying out with different weapons and failing at all of them. One time she accidently knocked down Splinter's family portrait. Aprils asks who they are (though she should damn know by now... wasn't she present when he explained in the Rat King episode???) and he explains that it is him as a human and his wife and child. He says Miwa would have been April's age by now. He now considers April his daughter and heads into another room to get her something.
Back to the maze, Don configures the T-Phone to track down Baxter. He tells the others to keep Baxter talking so Mike asks him about his backstory. Baxter rambles about his life of epic phails that led him into villainry while Don continues to lock onto his signal.
Raph and Xever are trapped with a reverse-suction fan that tries to suck them towards it and dice them to bits. Fishface can clamp his metal legs into the ground to prevent from being sucked away, but Raph is sent flying towards the deadly fan. Fishface saves him and they both escape the trap. This evens the score between them.
The other face laser guns coming from the ground and walls. However the floors split into sections and the entire room starts spinning around as the laser guns start firing. After some trouble, everyone manages to get past it.
Back to Raph and Xever, the turtle asks him why he's working for Shredder. Xever explains as a child he was taught to take what he wanted to survive, turning into a master thief. However, one day his luck run out and he was tossed in jail. He was released by the man who's briefcase he tried to steal who saw that he could use his talents. Since then he works for Shredder out of gratitude, and also because he enjoys a job that requires him to kick some ass. Raph agrees with him on that note, but still reminds him that he's gonna kick his ass when all of this over. They hear Bradford yelling out for Baxter on the other side of a wall, so Xever breaks it down and everyone regroups.
They soon find Baxter and he is surprised that they were all working together instead of trying to destroy each other the whole time. Baxter however unleashes his 'monster of doom', which looks like the giant robot scene in his premier episode, but moving by itself. Baxter flies around the scene in a huge disc-like ship enjoying the show.
The robot takes everyone down, and is equipped with lasers and even shoots out Mousers. They decide they have to take down Baxter himself. Fishface runs and slides under Baxter's ship. Raph follows and jumps off of Xever's robot feet and stabs the bottom of Baxter's flying ship, destroying it and the robot. However, Baxter escapes with a helicopter helmet and swears revenge on them all.
Back to the sewers, Splinter returns with a fan for April, that would have been meant for Miwa. He tosses it a tree showing it is a sharp ninja fan, kinda like Kitana's from MK. April likes it and accepts it as he weapon.
The Turtles and bad guys leave Baxter's hideout and want to fight it out... but are too tired at this point. Bradford says to forget it until next time and they walk off. As the Turtles also walk off, Mike points out that Raph and Xever made a good team. Raph reminds them that they can't be trusted. Just then Fishface tosses one of Baxter's slicerballs at Leo, but Raph manages to catch it with his sai. Raph ends the episode saying they just have to be ready for what happens and be sure to see it coming first.
There's a lot to say about this episode, as usual. I'll start with Xever. I'm surprised they took this long to bring back into the game. We went from a few episodes of just him swimming around Shredder's pool, and an ep where he had the robot legs but they weren't working right, to his first appearance in action... and now we finally see him fighting alongside Dogpound again... in an episode where they have to team up with the turtles to stop Baxter. How awesome is that? The show never ceases to surprise me. As for Xever, it's cool that we got to see some of his backstory, though I'm surprised he didn't show any anguish about now being a giant fish that needs machines to walk and breathe. I still wonder if they will ever show that Bradford is a missing martial arts celebrity to outside media now that he's a mutant dog.
I also liked how Raph seemed to hold a grudge against Fishface throughout the episode. It was never explicitly stated, but considering that Xever almost killed Raph with his poisonous bite in their previous fight... I liked the small nod to continuity. It's cool how they saved each other's lives, Raph due to.... good guy syndrome I guess (he even asked himself why he bothered to save his life)... and Xever because he wants kill Raph himself someday... which I guess is bad guy syndrome too.
As for everyone else as a team.. I really liked how they all brought something to the table. Leo led them all, which I'm surprised the bad guys chose to honor. Don had his t-phone wired to track down Baxter. Mike kept Baxter talking so Don could lock onto the signal. Raph's shurikens helped take down the slicerballs. Dogpound's strong sense of smell helped lead the way, and his strength came into play a lot. Xever's metal legs also came into play for kicking down walls, and clamping himself to the ground to rescue Raph from the killer fan. Together as a team you have 4 highly skilled ninjas (5 if you count Dogpound) and 2 mutants with incredible strength and fighting styles. That's a pretty awesome combo.
Baxter himself continues his goofy comicbook super villain charm and cheesiness. I like how he ended everything with 'of doom'. Maze of Doom. Monster of Doom. Missiles of Doom. And the characters continued to call him out on it. But the main thing is, he broke out of Shredder's employ and is free to continue with his own brand of villainry without answering to noone. Of course, now he made some very powerful enemies whenever Shredder finds out.... but kudos to him for having the smarts and the balls to do it. The maze was also fun to watch. I hope there's a level inspired by it whenever they eventually make a Nick2012 TMNT beat-em-up game. Not sure if 'Out of the Shadows' counts.
Finally we have April, who is finally seen training with Splinter. Showing instead of telling I always say. And now she has a ninja fan as a weapon. Sweet. I do wonder when we'll actually see her use it in an actual fight. I am afraid to consider it, but I hope they REALLY DON'T make April take on Karai... and seem evenly matched. Karai trained all her life, and April only trained for a few months starting from scratch... and Karai is better than all four Turtles... I know tv shows and such always like to pit the 2 females of either sides against each other... because... they're usually the only good girl and bad girl in the show....so they MUST fight... but don't make April and Karai fight unless it's showing Karai mopping the floor with her. I'm sorry but they are so unevenly matched it's not funny.
And for those following the strong hinted rumor that Karai might turn out to actually be Miwa, raised by Shredder with a new name.... Splinter's line about her being about April's age now made me think 'I thought Karai was older than April?'. I don't know... if Karai is revealed to be the same age as April, maybe it's the bad girl image that makes her look older? *shrugs*
Fantastic stone work and design. Truly amazing.
ReplyDeleteGreen Onyx