It's time for another episode as the story actually moves forward with several developments, as well as another classic character kinda/sorta brought into the show. Yeah.... I'm gonna rant about that after the episode summary...
The episode opens at Shredder's hideout, as Shredder talks to Karai, upset that she attacked the Turtles against his orders, but also upset that she failed at it. Cause, hey, if you're gonna go against my enemies behind my back when I told you not to, at least kill one of them, ok? Karai says she can have The Kraang improve the robot Foot Soldiers, but Shredder tells her to not have any more dealings with them until his return. Of course once he signs off, Karai heads into the Kraang hideout and sees how their newest robot is doing... who looks exactly like pre-mutated Chris Bradford.... but more on that later. She tells them that when it's ready, they should send it after her main target, April O'Neil. The Kraang are surprised, since Karai doesn't know that they April is the key to their invasion plans. Karai asks if there's a problem, and the Kraang say no and that the robot will be ready.
After the epic theme song, the episode begins with April walking home alone at night with Donnie following her. She eventually senses someone lurking around and tosses her fan at him. She's surprised to see him, but is still pissed since the Turtles were responsible for turning her father into a mindless mutant monster. She never wants to see them again and wants to return to her regular life. Before she leaves, he tells her that some things are beyond their control.
Back in the lair, the other Turtles are watching more episodes of the Voltron knockoff (I'd call it Voltronzinger Z) as Raph keeps eating Mikey's popcorn. Don shows up and sees how in the episode the princess character is pissed that the others forgot her birthday and doesn't want to see them again (even going as far as having the leg part of the giant robot detach and fly off). Mike remarks it's so similar to Don's life (which is funny since Space Heroes usually goes along with whatever the episode is about). Don is offended and the others point out the princess character leaves all the time anyway. Don decides to be alone in his lab and notices that the Kraang orb is shining again.
The Turtles hit the Shell Raiser and Don tells them that Kraang are working on some kind of secret weapon. Mikey says it might be lasers discussed as burritos. Raph says that only makes sense 'cause Mikey's brain is an avocado. Leo tells them when they're done with the Kraang, they'll go for some Mexican pizza.
Just then Foot Ninja arrive to attack. April fights them off and is surprised that they're now robots. Casey shows up to help and smacks them down with hockey pucks (saying he has crackerjack timing, Big Trouble in Little China). Casey asks them if she owes them money, or something. More Foot show up, and April says 'or something'. She wants Casey to go some place safe, but he's excited to fight robot ninjas. They both say they can take them, and April leads the Foot away since she knows they're after her. Casey stays behind with one of them and is ready to fight. Karai is watching April from the rooftops and sends more Foot Soldiers after her.
The TMNT find The Kraang's hideout, and Mikey distracts them with shadow puppets of a rabbit, and elephant, and a flamenco dancer. The other admit he has mad shadow puppet skills (like a Turtle do) and fight their way inside. They notice the giant Bradford-Bot they're working on and determine it's their secret weapon. April keeps fighting the Foot the best she can and admits she needs help from the Turtles again and calls Donnie. Don's cellphone buzzing alerts the Kraang, and they all start to open fire on them. However, with April in danger, Donnie runs off to help her. Raph is upset that Donnie bailed on them, and they have to fight the Kraang without him.
Casey is still at the skating rik, fighting off more of the Foot Soldiers. Meanwhile, April continues to fight the Foot Soldiers, that are relentless robots, and some of them even have four arms now. Karai finally makes her appearance and starts to attack April directly. Donnie shows up to save her and manages to land some hits on Karai. Karai says their rat master took someone that means a lot to her away from her, so now she will take someone that means a lot to them. Donnie says he won't anyone hurt April and keeps fighting against her, while April continues to deal with the Foot Soldiers.
The Turtles continue to fight until Robo-Bradford is ready and fully-charged. Mikey thinks it's no big deal and jumps in first and is easily defeated. The robot has whips and swords and easily defeats the Turtles. He ties Leo up and is ready to blast him with his laser eyes. However, the robot now boots up its main programming... to target April. It leaves to find her and Turtles have to follow it. But not before Mikey picks up one of the Kraang guns and accidently shoots at his bros.
Karai keeps fighting April, and Don tries to fight back the robot Foot Soldiers. Robo-Bradford shows up, smacks Don away and grabs April. However, now the robot reveals it's true programming, which is to capture April for The Kraang, and it targets everyone else as a threat, even Karai and the Foot Soldiers.
The Shell Raiser shows up and runs into the robot, which Mikey calls Chrome Dome. They fire off manhole cover at it, but Robo-Bradford shoots them down with his laser eyes. He then grabs the Shell Raiser and flips it to its side. The Turtles notice a cracked panel on the robot's back and considers it a weak point. Leo manages to get behind it and rip the panel open to yank out some wires. The robot goes crazy and spins the Turtles around. Karai continues to fight against April, but Leo manages to come in and knocks her back with a flying kick. Mikey finally defeats Robo-Bradford by running him through with his own laser sword. Karai vanishes with a smoke bomb, saying she'll return.
April thanks the Turtles for saving her and then remembers Casey being left behind with the Foot Soldiers and runs back to the Hockey rink. She sees that he's ok and all the robots were defeated. She slips a bit on the ice and ends up in Casey's arms. Don manages to see this and sighs sadly.
Back the lair, April shows up and makes amends with the Turtles. Leo says they screwed up which ended up in her father being mutated, and she says she understands that sometimes there are things that beyond their control. Splinter is glad to see her again, and asks if they can continue their training. Mikey offers her some old pizza he found as a welcome home gift (what the hell dude?). April goes over to Donnie and thanks him for always being there, even when she didn't want him to. She hugs him and kisses him on the cheek. Donnie is so happy he flies all over the world yelling out that he loves being a turtle.
My Opinions:
There's a lot to say to say about the episode, as usual. I guess I'll start with Casey, who had a small role in this episode. He didn't do all that much really, except to show off that he's a good fighter, which will factor in later on when he becomes a vigilantee. It's also the first time we actually see him play hockey. Most of the time by the time we see Casey, he's already a retired hockey player turned vigilantee (though the OT Casey was just a psycho. Who knows if he even played sports). It was interesting seeing her and April kinda flirt a little. Their convo does make me wonder why April doesn't have any friends. Sure she knew the Turtles, but what about before? When he asked her about that I almost felt was going to answer 'cause it costs too much to make more CGI characters to be my friends'. Paige thought the Casey scenes were distracting since she can't un-see those missing front teeth of his.
Speaking of which.... Chrome Dome... THAT IS NOT FRIGGIN CHROME DOME. Right from the starts I was like '...why does the robot look like Chris Bradford?' It never hit me until Mikey called him as such, but then I dismissed it as a joke. But then he re-affirmed it as Chrome Dome.... and then they went with the broken panel in the back. I facepalmed and thought to myself 'oh crap... they're really gonna go there...'
Ladies and gentleman, THIS is Chrome Dome...
In the original series, Shredder made this robot about Adamantium (bub) but they ran out before they could complete it, so they put normal metal to cover a small plate on his back. April knew about this and let the Turtles know, which is how they were able to defeat him. He came back in a second episode that had Shredder bring back most of the series' villains, and was also in the TMNT Tournament Fighters game for the SNES.
Although in the game version, he was self aware and wanted to win the tournament to get the money to remove the warrior program from his body. Um.... ok? I guess that's why he's nice enough to warn you and say 'GET OUT!!!' before he self destructs.
Anyways... THIS is NOT Chrome Dome... this is Chris Bradford before he became Dogpound and Rahzar.
All they did was give him red eyes and silver-plate his arms. I mean, at the very and I mean VERY least they could have silver-plated him and made the arms black, or SOMETHING. This was the worst ever excuse of low budget CGI standards when they couldn't afford to make a whole new character. And the most annoying thing is.. NO ONE NOTICED. Throughout the whole episode, not one character mentioned that it looked like Bradford. Not even Mikey. It was like a jarring case of 'same actor, different character' where everyone acts like Terrance Howard and Don Cheadle are the same person (Rhodey AKA War Machine) in the Iron Man movies without anybody questioning why he suddenly looks different all of a sudden.... BUT IN A CARTOON. Here, eveyone acts as if it was an all-new character that no one has ever seen before. C'mon guys, there is no excuse for this, and if this is how low CGI cartoons have fallen, then bring back normal animation.
I know the same argument might be brought up for the robot Foot Soldier looking just like the human ones. And yes, honestly, I would have liked a different design. After all, how are they gonna say the toy... the exact same Foot Soldier toy already out with red eyes? But in this case the characters noticed. In the last episode, the Turtles thought they were the same old Foot Soldiers, until they got back up to their feet, and continued to do so. It took them a while to figure out they were robots. It happened again in this episode when April said 'I thought you guys were supposed to be human'. In this episode not one person said 'whoa, how did Bradford turn back to normal' or 'why are you sending a Robo-Bradford after us?' Honestly, in-story, why would Karai commission the Kraang to make a robot that looked like Chris Bradford anyways? Did she secretly have the hots for him or something?
Anyways... in this episode April finally forgave the Turtles, which I'm glad since it couldn't have lasted that long. I understand she was mad at them and wanted to return to her normal life... but she kinda can't walk away from having both the Foot and the Kraang coming after you. She's still gonna need their help. Plus, she's angry at them since her dad got mutated as a result of knowing them.. but they're her only chance of ever getting him back to normal. Plus, we know she's a brave and skilled girl that isn't afraid to jump headfirst into adventure to rescue her dad, so why the hell isn't she looking for him? Ignoring the problem and hanging with some random dude isn't gonna help bring her father back.
I do wanna give props to Don finally using his naginata for more than a split second. And hey, we see Karai go one-on-one against one of the Turtles that isn't Leo. And he actually got some shots in. Maybe Leo holds back a little since he likes her, but in Donnie's eye she's nothing more than a threat, so he's able to take her down without holding back. In a certain way, it's cool when certain characters are kinda singled-out against each other... like Karai and Leo, cause it makes that much more surprising when say... Karai goes after Mikey instead. Also I understand Raph getting mad on Donnie's bailing on them... but like dude, April was in trouble. Would you rather leave her to her fate? Woulda kinda suck to find out Karai killed her while you were fighting the Kraang?
The last thing I wanna mentioning is April's little teasing kiss at the end of the episode. It was cute (Paige thought so too, and I'm sure many female fans would as well). Yes, it was adorable, it totally made Don's day, and the ending scene was adorable. Until you remember April's never really gonna be with him. Why you gotta tease him like that, girl? Now, I know girls can be friendly and sometimes hug or even kiss a guy on the cheek to show appreciation, and it could be nothing more than that.... but you don't do that to the guy you know has a crush on you. It just makes the poor guy think he actually has a chance. Now, if April was completely oblivious to this, she'd get a free pass... but c'mon girl.. YOU SHOULD KNOW THIS BY NOW.
Despite all my complaints, the episode was rather decent, but the Chrome Drome thing really ruined it for me. Even if it was just a nameless robot and he wasn't referred to as such, it's still so damn lazy to just re-use a past character model like that. What's next? Give human Xever a new hat and a mustache and pretend he's an all-new character? Or maybe bring in Wingnut, only it's the Kirby-bat colored blue? Not only that, but with all the announcements and previews they were doing, when they announced the season 2 new characters, like Mutagen Man, Slash and Casey Jones... they probably purposely didn't mention 'Chrome Dome' since showing the design at a con would have had the fans either be disappointed or be confused that they somehow turned Chris Bradford into a robot.
I understand we have seen the same characters running around episode from episode. The guy who owns the cat. The random blonde woman. The same pizza boy. That random bum. All of them. But they weren't major characters that anyone would remember anyway (maybe Mikey would recognize the pizza boy and the guy with the cat?). The Chrome Dome thing just bugged me to no end.
But yeah.. for the good points, the story advanced some with Karai's continued efforts of revenge, Casey showing he can fight, so whenever he does turn into a vigilantee it's already explained that he can fight, and April finally forgave the Turtles. I just hope this is the last time they cut corners so horribly.
While we're at it, I might as well show you our second episode of our TMNT podcast, Heroes in the Halfcast. Dansle couldn't make it in this episode, but she does return in the next one.
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