In this episode the Turtles face their greatest fears, thanks to mutant mushrooms that hit people with fear spores. It's an interesting episode and the characters' fears lead to some interesting cameos of forgotten storylines.
The episode opens with April and Casey sitting on a bench. April tells him its nice to have someone to talk to about the Turtles, especially since her dad was now mutated into a bat. With the coast clear, April and Casey head for the sewers. Casey complains about how gross they are and April tells him she had to live there for a time. Aprils asks Casey why he wears the hockey mask if the Turtles already know who he is (which I find to be a very dumb question....) and he answers so noone else who he is when he kicks ass (which is is the damned obvious answer, April). Casey complains about the stench and April agrees it does smell moldier than usual. Just then a sewer construction worker runs past them screaming about mutant squirrels. April senses something in the area and goes to check it out. Something hits her with dust and she now sees Casey as her mutated bat father out to get her and screams.
Meanwhile the Turtles are in the lair and Leo is trying to meditate with Splinter but can't focus. He says he's been having nightmares of letting the team down, of them being dragged into the darkness and being unable to help them. Splinter says he understands because he faces that fear every time the Turtles head out for a mission. Facing that fear is what makes him a good leader.
The other Turtles are watching that Voltron-type anime and all the heroes in the show are facing their worst fears. The leader character says a dramatic speech, and get stomped on by the villain's giant robot (that looked a lot like that hemaphrodite villain from Mazin Kaizer Z). The character lets out a fake-sounding 'I'm OK', and Mikey points out that he heard in the original Japanese version he dies for real. Donnie calls that an old cartoon myth, and Raph calls them both nerds.
Casey then runs in and tells everyone that he lost April. Don gets angry that he was that careless and they both run out, quickly followed by the others. Don and Casey argue since Casey doesn't remember the exact spot where he lost April. They hear something and Casey gets hit by the same dust April did earlier. He now sees rats everywhere and starts freaking out. He sees scores of rats and tries to fight them off, but the Turtles just see him swinging at nothing. The Turtles pin Casey against the wall, trying to calm him down and he freaks out more as he sees rats crawling all over them.
Don hears April scream and she runs off to save her. April sees Don as her mutated bat monster father and is scared. The Turtles are confused as to what is happening to April and Casey when suddenly, a blur ball rolls up to them. It pops up into a jellyfish-looking mutant mushroom that sticks to Mikey's face. As they try to get it off, it tosses spores to Raph. As April and Casey see bats and rats everywhere, now Raph sees a giant roach and also freaks out, acting as if the Cockroach Terminator returned. Raph starts to attack Leo, and the Turtle in blue is confused as to why Raph called him a roach. As Raph continues to attack Leo, Mikey tackles him out of the way. Raph then smacks Don and Mikey ties him up with his chains.
Leo is confused as to what's happening and Don explains that these mutated mushrooms are attacking people with spores that let them see their worst fear. Don wipes the spores off of April's cheek to confirm it. Raph sees the Turtles as a bunch of giant talking roaches. Mikey hugs him for support, but he just sees a giant roach hugging him, which makes him hurl.
The Turtles look for Casey, as Mikey drags Raph with them with his chains. They notice a lot more fungus growing all over the sewer walls, and all the mushrooms are alive. As the mushrooms attack, Mikey starts stomping on them doing a 'Super Mikey Bros' parody. Mikey gets hit by the spores though and starts seeing the Squirrelanoids. Don gets spored as well, and sees April as an evil rude demonic version of herself, basically hating him and blaming her for what happened to her father. April's tongue even stabs right through Donnie's heart. Meanwhile, the real April still sees Don as the bat mutant and freaks the hell out.
Leo then gets hit by the spores and lost sight of the others, so he starts blaming himself for losing everybody. Captain Ryan appears and tells Leo to snap out of it and be a man. The mushrooms then start to circle Leo and dance around to the theme of the Nutcracker (yes, they actually played the song, not a parody or anything). Leo gets spored again and falls of a ledge.
Leo wakes up in darkness as images of the Turtles blame him for letting them down. He then sees a giant mushroom mutant and finds that a vial of Mutagen fell nearby (in which Paige insists that they should have been more determined in finding those cannisters instead of slacking off). The mushroom speaks and wants more fear to get stronger. Leo fights off his fears and the mushrooms but he continued to get spored like crazy.
Elsewhere, Raph sees Mikey as his regular Turtle self again... but then his head falls off and tons of roaches shoot out at him. Mikey turns into a giant roach again. Don sees images of several Aprils kissing Casey all over the place. Casey himself is still struggling with his fear of rats.
Leo tries to fight the mutant mushroom monster itself, but the beast can fire off its own eyeballs, that explode upon impact. One of them sends Leo flying back into the darkness. He again sees visions of the Turtles blaming him for failing them. He sees the reflection of Splinter in his sword, reminding him to face his fears. Leo meditates and regains his focus. He says his fear can't affect him since he already faces this fear every day. As he fights the monster, he discovers it fears the sunlight, so uses one of his exploding eyeballs to blow a big hole above them, bathing the monster in sunlight.
With Leo reflecting the sunlight into the monster's face, the creature is defeated, as are all the other mushrooms. Mike and Raph were fighting each other, seeing each other as a roach or a mutant squirrel, and finally snap out of it. Mike and Raph find April and the others, as everyone is back to normal. April remembers a cave Leo went into and they find him lying on the ground. Mike asks if he needs mouth-to-mouth and Leo quickly stops him. Raph thanks Leo for saving them.
My Opinions:
It was an interesting episode, and it was cool to see some cameos of things we haven't seem for a while, like the Squirrelanoids and April's dad. I like the small touch with the sewer worker. I know he's a cameo character but in his case his fear makes sense. Last time we saw him, he was attacked by the Squirrelanoids ... so assume he somehow survived, you can bet he'd be seeing those things in his nightmares. I do like that Raph still has the fear of roaches and that it wasn't a one-episode gag. I'm just confused why they didn't use the Cockroach Terminator model and just used a normal roach one. I mean Raph even acted like 'I squashed you once and I'll do it again!!' as if it was the Terminator. And it's not like they don't already have the model... so I don't know.
Mikey's fear seemed random and tacked on. He didn't seem any more or less scared of the Squirrelanoids than anyone else was. If anything I'd imagine him being afraid or everyone hating him (thought that would be too similar with Donnie's) or hell... a monster pizza trying to eat him. I did like the extra comic book effects with flying POW! and WAM! words floating around during his nightmare sequences. I also like that he was rather competent in this episode, especially when it came to both taking down Raph, but also keeping him safe while he was hallucinating.
Of course for most people the major kicker here is that this is the first time that Donnie and Casey butted heads. Of course in this case it was a little downplayed. It wasn't so much 'grrr this kid took my woman', it was more like 'grrrr this kid is so dumb he lost my woman!'. I see Don telling at Mikey at the same exact way if he came home one day and said he lost April with no idea where she was. If anything it does spark a hatred towards Casey that will fester whenever April does fall for him (if she does). The only part that did show Don's fear of losing April to Casey was, of course, his nightmare sequence. As for Casey, he really has no idea that Don likes April at this point and probably wonders what 'stickboy's' problem with him is.
The main role of course went to Leo for a greater more serious fear. I did like Splinter's line about his fear of losing them every time they head out, cause it's damn true. It's not just Shredder or the Kraang, they're also going out against the Rat King and other random mutant monsters. One day one of the bad guys might get lucky and clobber one of the Turtles and Splinter's gonna have to face that. It was nice to see Captain Ryan again, though I REALLY would have loved it if he bitchslapped Leo to calm him down. I totally would have lost it there. LOL
As for the anime show, I really liked the part of Mikey pointing out how most often than not, characters die or worse in the original Japanese versions and their deaths are covered up in the American dubs. Dragonball Z's earlier dubbings was extremely guilty of this in their early Saban days when people were fortunate enough to have 'evacuated the city' seconds before Vegeta and Nappa started blowing everything up. Hell in the original Voltron, one of the original members, Sven dies in the earlier episodes, which leads to the princess character taking his spot. The dub made it sound like he was just injured and healing someplace. A later season introduced Sven's twin brother for an episode or two, and the dub took advantage of this to say it actually was Sven to further continue with their cover story.
Anyways a good episode, and hey the mushrooms are pretty good dancers. They could easily make a fortune at an ice show. Oh and hey, I'm surprised Shredder wasn't in any of their nightmares.
Paige's Opinion:
Well this was an acid trip without taking drugs. Duuude... -_- (That's my high duuude face..) Well anyway, the fears are what Mark and I and Venka (in an episode of the TMNT podcast that you probably won't see for a while.) discussed. Two fears was of monsters, a roach and those weird squirrels. (I missed that episode.) And two fears about the people they love hating them. I called Donnie's fear for sure. I knew it would be something like April hating him. Another thing I called out is about the mushroom monster and the mutagen. If they looked for the missing canisters in the first place, they wouldn't be in this kind of situation! But I understand the writers because if they found all the canisters at one time...there won't be a series. A series of freaky, drug-induced monsters...An interesting episode in its own acid-trip way. The moral of this episode is not to let fear get the best of you and also if you meditate hard enough you can become a light source! :D Also, when I first heard of this episode concept...I was thinking it would be a lot weirder than what was shown. lol
And I still can't stop staring at the gap in Casey's mouth...lol Give him a partial denture. lol
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