Just in time for Halloween, the Turtles find themselves digging deep into horror movie lore as they face mutated squirrels with heavy Aliens references. Let's check out this episode.
The episode opens with the Turtles driving around in the Shell Raiser trying to find the missing Mutagen cannisters from the previous episode with the help of Donnie's Mutagen Tracker. Mikey is distracting everyone since he's reading old horror comics. Don gets a signal coming from a Monster Matinee and find a random bum being afraid of a squirrel. Raph is confused as to why he's afraid of the little guy, until the rodent reveals its sharp teeth and long tongue. It then drawls into the guy's mouth.
The Turtles take the bum to their lair to study the mutant squirrel while trying to keep it from Splinter. Splinter finds out and asks why they brought a total stranger to their lair. They explain and he leaves angrily. Mikey keeps comparing the situation to what happened to his horror comics. Don finds out that the guy now has two squirrels inside him since it seemed they multiplied in his stomach. The bum throws up the two squirrels and now the turtles have to capture them. Raph escorts the bum outside while they do so.
One of them crawls into Splinter's room while he's mediating so Leo and Don try to catch it without waking him up. Raph and Mikey go into Mikey's room to find the other one (where they find Mikey's underwear, but that's a story for another day). Back in Splinter's room, he wakes up and quickly captures the squirrel under a plastic crate. Raph and Mike totally zone out in Mikey's room until they find the squirrel. During the attempts to capture it, it manages to crawl into Raph's mouth.
The Turtles strap Raph down to a table and pretend to get ready to operate on him. Once he freaks out, the Turtles laugh it up. Before Raph can get some payback, he suddenly throws up two squirrels, since the one he swallowed managed to multiply. Everyone split up to find the squirrels, even though Mikey objects due to what happens in his horror comic. To make matters worse, the squirrels give off some kind of energy that causes a blackout. Now in the dark, the turtles and Splinter try to find the little critters, but they have now turned into giant red Alien-inspired monsters, complete with the second mouths coming out of their mouths. As they jump throughout the shadows and attack the Turtles, Splinter leaps in and kicks some ass. The squirrels escape into the dark and creepy sewer tunnels.
The Turtles have to find and stop the Squirrelanoids, as Mikey calls them, before they can escape to the surface to attack humanity. However, noone wants to go after them. Splinter reminds them that they are trained ninja warriors, asks which one of them will be the bravest to go. It seems noone wanted to go as we see that Don sent Metalhead in their place. However our favorite Robot Turtle didn't make it far as one of the Squirrelanoids yanks its head off. Splinter told them 'I told you so' so now they have to go in person.
The Squirrelanoids defeat the turtles and are ready to finish them off. Mikey returns with some popcorn and lures them towards him. The Squirrelanoids give chase and Mikey leads them into a pool. He flushes them down the sewers where they would be stuck in a septic tank. It's not over yet as one of them whips out its tongue and pulls Mikey down with them. Just as he's about to be sucked down the pipe with them, the other Turtles grab his hand and yank him out. One of the Squirrelanoids makes one final leap at them but Raph knocks him back with some shuriken.
Back at the lair the Turtles thank Mikey since his horror comics saved the day. Splinter worries if they really are defeated. Don is convinced they're trapped in the septic tanks and it will give him time to create a retro-mutagen to turn them back to normal. Mikey however reminds them that in his comics, there are sequels and the monsters do come back, which freaks them out. In the sewers, and innocent sewer worker gets attacked by one of the Squirrelanoids...
My Opinions
This was a good episode mostly due to the comraderie between Mike and Raph. This is probably the only ep where Raph didn't really snap at or try to smack Mikey. I like how they both zoned out in Mikey's room (just layin back and having some pizza, not a care in the world), and I like how he discussed the horror comic with him. I liked the part when they heard the squirrel's screech (or whatever sounds they make) and Mike said it sounded just like the comic he read, which had Raph ask 'you were reading this... how did you hear it?'. They make a pretty good team and I liked the banter between them.
I liked the little scene with Metalhead, even though it was used a joke. I just like seeing that he's still around, and hey, he's in the intro now, which is more than can ever be said for the 80's version. I also liked seeing Timothy in Don's lab too. I liked the scene where Mikey was pointing out a certain scene from his comic to Raph and Timothy was looking at it too.
As for the squirrels, I'd like say I really liked all the Aliens references. Hell this was basically the TMNT version of the first movie. Of course the cartoon couldn't get away with having the rodents burst through the bum's stomach, so instead he threw them up. Mikey would still mention 'In my comic they would bust out of the guy's stomach'. In the end, he also mentioned the hero in his story had the monsters sucked out of an air lock. Of course due to the limited budget and expense of making new character models, the same random bum we've seen in a few episodes became a bit of an actual character, at least in the first part of the story when the Turtles took him home.
I also liked the creepy and dark atmosphere of the creatures running through the darkness, which is scary even to ninjas. They really chose a good episode to air around Halloween.
I do hate to nitpick the episode though, but the main problem is the logic behind the squirrels themselves. How did the Mutagen make them into Alien-wannabes? This is the point of the story where you have to throw your hands up in surrender, say 'sure, why the hell not' and turn your brain off. The Mutagen does whatever the hell it wants in this show on a case for case basis. I really don't see why some mutants can talk and be humanish like the Turtles and Dogpound, and others are just mindless monsters like the Cockroach Terminator and April's father.
Now some cases can be explained, since Falco was directly injecting Mutagen into himself and Timothy wasn't around any other animal to be mutated into, but why the hell was the squirrel mutated into a monster that multiplies by crawling into people's mouths and splitting into two in their stomachs? There's no reason why the squirrels didn't mutate into Squirrel-Men like the Turtles did, just like there's the reason the Turtles didn't also mutate into little creepy turtles that jump into people's mouths to multiply. Remember that this was the shipment that the Shredder originally wanted from the Kraang. So how the hell was he supposed to make an army of mutants out of this goop that basically does whatever the hell it wants?
It looks like we're in for a very unpredictable season of mutant mayhem with the Turtles. Let's see how it goes.
Yeah, pretty much. I guess mutation is completely random if the subject isn't in contact with anything so Timothy could have as well become a tentacle monster or something.
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