NickToons TMNT Episode 34- The Good, the Bad and the Casey Jones

By Mark Rodriguez

After appearing in two episodes to build up how tough, crazy and how good a fighter he is, Casey finally makes his full-on debut as the vigilantee we know and tolerate. Despite all the dramatic changes this show has done, this episode actually pulls a lot from the classic issue Raphael# 1 from the Mirage comics which is the first time we ever saw Casey Jones.

I like how the live-action movie kept some of the dialogue

The episode opens with Casey Jones monologuing (as well as writing) about the recent rash of mutant monster and robot ninjas in the city as he starts to suit up. He mentions he won't risk losing anyone he cares about like he did his father and his sister (???) or even April. He's ready for action and we cue to that epic theme song (that still has Dogpound in it even if he mutated into Rahzar).

In the lair the Turtles are training, and Splinter calls for a free-for-all. Last turtle standing wins. Mikey belches into Don's face shortly before the fight begins. Since Don is dazed, he's the first one down. As Raph is about to take Mikey down, Leo cuts in. As Leo and Raph fight, Mike trips since he distracted and in the way, and also loses. After an intense battle, Leo manages to take Raph down and wins the competition. However, Raph's anger explodes and he attacks Leo from behind, taking him down. Splinter tells Raph he needs to calm down and they discussed his anger problems before. He storms off.

As Raph is off venting about his anger issues, Casey is watching over the city from a rooftop. He freaks out after he sees a rat. Meanwhile the Purple Dragons are holding up that Asian dude we always see (the one April always sneaks past with some sort of lame disguise/excuse). Casey then shows up and starts kicking ass. Raph notices this and thinks Casey is going to far (yeah, the same guy that thought Leo was going too easy on them). The Dragons are down and one of them says they had enough, but Casey hasn't finished yet.

Raph cuts in telling him he has anger issues and needs to calm down. The Purple Dragons get away and Casey blames Raph, though he is surprised that is a mutant turtle. Casey charges into Raph yelling 'Goongala!!' and they fight it out. Raph kicks Casey into a dumpster, but the fight doesn't end there. Casey has rollerblades that pop up onto his shoes and now with extra speed he's able to run circles around the turtle, smacking him around without giving him time to hit him back. Raph finally loses his cool and grabs Casey, slamming him hard on top of a car, about to stab him in the face with his sai. Raph stops at the last moment, freaked out about his violent temper. Casey takes the chance to tase Raph and gets away by grabbing onto the back of a passing taxi cab while skating.

The following day at school, April and Irma (yes Irma) see Casey and are surprised to see how beat up his face looks. Casey says he was doing homework and April asked if the homework kicked him in the face. He says he was at the skating rink, but Irma says it was shut down after an incident happened (the Robot Foot Ninja attacking April and Casey). Casey tries to tell April about the strange mutant he saw, but Irma pulls her away so they're not late for their next class.

Holy crap is that goth chick supposed to be IRMA??? I wonder if she's still lovestruck or just a cameo. 

At the lair, Mike and Don start getting ready to watch the Sentai show they've been into. Raph tries to apologize to Leo and says he'll keep his temper down. Mikey jokes that he means he'll keep his temper down for now and gives a count down to his next outburst. Between Leo teasing him and Mike doing the countdown, Raph explodes again and storms off.

Outside, Casey is on the rooftops again, commenting on how his body still hurts from the last fight and says he hasn't seen the mutant turtle again. His little sketch from his last fight with Raph might look a little familiar to Mirage fans.

This is probably one of the most clever references to older TMNT material since Mikey did that OT Mikey face trick

Casey hears Raph kick some trash around as he's blowing off some steam. He then goes back to the sewers, and Casey decides to follow. What they don't know is that the robot Foot Ninja found them and have started to follow them as well.

The other Turtles are watching their Sentai show in which the heroes are surprised that their main villain has somehow found their secret lair. Similar enough, the turtles now realized that Casey Jones has found their lair. The Turtles quickly pin him down and Leo takes off his hockey mask. Casey scares them with his face paint until Leo realizes he's just a regular kid. Splinter and April enter the room and April is surprised to see Casey Jones in the lair. The Turtles are surprised to see that April knows him, and he's surprised to know that they're not bad guys. April introduces them by name, and Casey thinks they're Italian. Splinter tells him he named them after his favorite renaissance painters and Casey faints after seeing a giant talking rat. Raph laughs at how the tough guy is afraid of a rat and Mike scares him with a roach, which makes him pop into his shell. April just then gets a feeling and tells everyone that they're not alone.

Just then the robot Foot Ninja swarm into the lair. Leo blames Raph for leading them to their lair and Raph blames Casey. Everyone jumps into action, including April and Splinter. Even though they defeated the first wave, even more Foot arrive, and one of them records the location and escapes. They have to stop him before he can get back to Karai and tell them about their location. Raph and Casey follow, arguing about which one will take him down first.

More Foot Ninja block their way, and Casey tosses an exploding spray paint can on the one they're chasing, to tell him apart from the rest (which was damn clever). The fight goes to the subway and Casey skates alongside the railings. A train is coming and Casey manages to get Raph out of the way. As the fight moves on top of the train, the Foot Ninja continues to fight and Casey is knocked off the train. Raph manages to save them with some rope and they're even. The ninja is about to hit the streets and Raph tosses Casey into him, which tases the robot. The robot falls down the stairs and Raph tosses a sai into its head before it has time to get up.

Back at the lair, Splinter defeats the last of the robot ninjas. Just then Casey and Raph return, laughing and bragging about how awesomely they took down that robot ninja. Mikey is surprised that they're both best friends now. Splinter thanks Casey for helping out in defending his family. Raph and Casey are now determined to go out and clean the streets together, kickin ass and taking names. As they both run off Donnie complains that now they have TWO Raphs to deal with.

My Opinions:
It seems every episode is just jam-packed with so much things to talk about, besides the major thing that particular episode is about. In this case the main focus is that we finally see Casey Jones in action. I have to say this version of Casey is totally dressed and equipped to kick all sorts of ass. The original Casey decided he had enough of crime in the streets and just grabbed a golf bag full of bats and golf clubs, slipped on a hockey mask to cover his face and hit the streets. Of course the older Casey also had the extra size and muscle to back it up. This younger Casey actually took time out to design and plan out his outfit and crimefighting gear. He even added extra gadgets like that hidden taser thing that retracts from under his glove. I'm still not sure about the extra pointy stuff, but I guess he can use it to stab the robot Foot Ninja. And the roller blades adds extra mobility which is perfect for chasing the bad guys that get away. Paige did wonder if all that extra gear weighs him down, but I guess it would be a bit more lightweight compared to the original golf bag full of junk.

If it weren't for the stupid shoulder pads, OT Casey would have been exactly like the Mirage version. Maybe they thought the shoulder pads would make him kid-friendly?

The most noticeable thing here is the parallels to Raphael # 1, the issue that first introduced Casey. Here we have Raph lose to Leo, then lose his temper and take his brother down. In the comic, Mike defeated Raph and continued to tease him, which made Raph almost beat him down with a wrench (which is what the 2K3 TMNT did as well). As Raph storms off in... all 3 versions (4 if you count the first live-action movie), he runs into Casey fighting crime a bit too roughly, and he calls him out on his anger issues, which reminds him of his own anger issues.

Mikey is always annoying Raph. Well except maybe not the OT version.

The main difference between the original version and all the versions that followed is that the fight ended with Raph and Casey parting ways and eager for a rematch should they cross paths again. Casey would never meet the rest of the gang until later on whenever Shredder returned for revenge and attacked April's Second Time Around store with his legion of Foot... which the live-action movie would also follow. Both cartoon versions would have Casey meet and join the gang within the same episode.

One thing that got me was when Raph decided to intervene, it didn't really look like Casey was 'going too far' or 'being too hard' on the Purple Dragons. He was just kicking their asses like any of them would. And this is the same Raph that teased Leo for going easy on them and 'not finishing the job'. Now the scene where the Dragons were down and defeated and saying they had enough and Casey decided he was gonna continue to pummel them.... THAT would have been the part where Raph decided enough was enough and he decides to break it up. Of course in the episode Raph did jump in right after Casey said that, but I felt the part of him already thinking 'this guy is out of control' was still way too soon, before he did anything too extreme. It could have been said after Casey acted like he was going to hit them some more, or during the fight after Raph intervened.

As for other things, one minor tidbit we saw in this episode is yet another classic throwback to the old cartoon. Irma is back, and this time she's a goth chick. Completely new look for her, I have to say, and yes, Casey eliminated any doubts when he flat out called her by her name. I wonder if she'll have any role in the show besides being a friend of April for normal scenes to show she has a life or if she will actually meet the Turtles later on. I do like the added continuity with her mentioning the skating rink being shut down after the Foot attacked it.

Interesting look for her, though honestly I wouldn't have known it was Irma if she was in any other show.

As you can see, a dramatic departure from the original lovesick clutzy design. 

As for the episode in itself, it was awesome and full of epic action. The fights between Raph and Casey were intense and well done, and the Foot storming the lair gave a good reason for us to see Splinter (and April) see some action too. The robot Foot were a great idea since they are better and more dangerous fighters and can do more inhuman things like have four arms and have blades and swords for hands. I just kinda wish the human Foot weren't so useless in season one and could put up somewhat of a fight, but I guess it gives good reason for Shredder and Karai to replace them outright with robots.

I am kinda surprised the Foot Ninjas didn't just directly upload the Turtles' location instead of having to go all the way back to Karai to tell her. I kinda thought that's what was going on when we saw the close up of his eyes and heard the computer effects. And then more and more robots started coming in, I figured they were all homing in on that location. The Turtles are EXTREMELY lucky Karai didn't wonder what all the fuss was about with the robots and decide to follow suit.

Casey himself is an interesting addition since it seems 'he's here to stay'. We still have to see how he'll react when he knows Don has a crush on April. Let's hope we don't go too deep into the whole love triangle everyone is predicting. Another thing that came to mind, especially since they just rerunned the Slash episode the day before, is that this killer team of Casey and Raph busting heads with their rage-filled violent tendencies is exactly the kind of thing Slash was hoping he would be with Raph. So.... I wonder what happens when Slash comes back and sees he's been 'replaced'?

Paige's opinion:

It was awesomely awesome with a side of AWEEEEESOME! lol Okay, not that far. It was a good start off from a month...or more...long break of new episodes. It introduces Casey Jones now as vigilantee against the mutants of New York. What I thought is, why now suddenly he realizes all the mutants running around in the streets of New York. Geez, there's a crazy-ass monkey, a gigantic spider/man and a bunch of men that look the same! (And no, he can't use the excuse of octoplets!) And remember the Technodrome was flying around New York kidnapping all the people. (Hide yo april, hide your turtles cuz the Kraang be snatching em up) How can you ignore that! So why now Casey Jones? lol If I was him...I'll be like "You know what, this stuff is cray cray, I'm out!" Another scene with Casey that made me laugh was when Ralph sneaks up from behind and grabs Casey's weapon. He sounded like a big scardey-cat.

 The action was fab-u-lous! And they even had Splinter fighting, which is a rare thing to do! Remember in the commercial, Ralph was in his shell for who knows what reason? Well they show that Mikey scared him with his traumatizing fear of roaches. Ralph, uh, fearing for his life, hides in his shell. The beginning scene where the four were about to fight, Mikey burps, such an inappropriate moment for him to burp, but it did help take Donnie down. I just had to roll my eyes. I guess I have to understand that Mikey is the childish humor for the show, but blah. Irma is finally introduced, but geez she's really different from the original version. She's goth now. lol My last comment to the episode was, the scene of Ralph returning explaining that he was fine, the other turtles had to provoke him. I was thinking 'just leave him alone', but nope, they had to press his buttons.

My final thoughts was it was a good episode to return to. I hope they keep this action up. And even if I didn't notice the references to the old comics that Mark took notice to, I thought they were cool to sneak in.