The Turtles discover for the first time that they are not the weirdest things in New York.
Tropes:
- Beginner's Luck: The gang manages to beat a powerful villain in the form of Baron Draxum, despite their inexperience with their new weapons. That said, they did have some ninja training done beforehand.
- Bowdlerization: A meta-example. Imitation squid in real life is supposedly made with pork rectum, but due to the target audience, the episode instead uses the phrase "pig butts".
- Butt-Monkey: The delivery guy. First being interrupted by the disguised Garm and Freki shoving him aside. Then falling into their portal into the mystic city after he mistakes it for a short cut. And finally, being turned into a mutant whitefish (which also disproves his earlier claim about his employers' crab cakes being real).Delivery Guy: "I JUST GOT USED TO ACNE, NOW ''THIS''!?"
- Buffy Speak: After April leads to the Turtles to the weapons vault, Leonardo and Michelangelo are impressed by the mundane weapons that serve as the replacements for the wrecked weapons. Raphael then points to the "glow-y" ones against a separate wall. The Turtles and April also refer to Mayhem as a "dog thingy," in spite of Mayhem's cat-like appearance.
- Comically Missing the Point: Several in fact. One example is that after the delivery guy is mutated, The turtles and April are clearly disgusted by what they see, except for Donnie.Donnie: Yeah, jury's in. That was imitation crab.
- Epic Fail:
- When the turtles face-off against the yokai thugs, they are hilariously outmatched. Leo's swords end up broken, Donatello's invention malfunctions when he tries using it, Raphael and Michelangelo fail at being stealthy and when that fails, Raph throws Mikey as a Fastball Special and Mikey only winds up hitting himself with his nunchucks for the monster crushes them in his fist.
- Upon getting their new mystic weapons, Raph launches himself into a wall, Mikey ends up bouncing around the room like a pinball and Leo gets stuck endlessly falling through 2 portals. Justified as this was their first attempts at using said weapons.
- Establishing Character Moment: When the thugs transform into yokai, Leo asks "so... you from Jersey?" It's here that Mikey chastises him for it, only for Leo to respond that jokes are how he copes with the utter weirdness of the situation. This implies that this time Michelangelo isn't the "party dude" like usual, that title going to Leonardo instead.
- Establishing Series Moment: We are introduced to the Turtles on a rooftop, hiding in the shadows. We assume they are there to a stop a crime on a nearby rooftop, only to zip-line past it so that they could do a cannonball in a pool on a different rooftop, all of which planned and coo-berated with April. This implies to us that the show will be Denser and Wackier than most other iterations of the turtles.
- Foreshadowing: Two of them in fact.
- Why does Draxum know so much about the turtles? Answer: he created them.
- Why does Splinter have a special marker that allows the Turtles to access the yokai underworld? Answer, he's been imprisoned in their once.
- Horse of a Different Color: The Guardsmens' dogs in their real forms.
- Leeroy Jenkins: April is the first to jump into action to free Mayhem, complete with yelling her own name and the turtles reacting with "Oh my god! She just ran in!"
- Meaningful Name: The dog-yokai is named "Mayhem" for the chaos it caused.
- Mid-Season Upgrade: Shortly after losing their old weapons, three of the turtles find mystic weapons to use for the series. Donnie chooses to keep his Titanium Bo staff.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Granted, Draxum would've done so anyway, but the turtles definitely speed up the timetable by accidentally unleashing a swarm of mosquito across New York after destroying his lair.
- Single Tear: Draxum sheds one while in awe at how "beautiful" the Turtles are.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Raph calls Garm and Freki a trash can and a broken toaster, despite Mikey then telling him otherwise. April also calls them by those same terms (albeit she uses "toaster boy" for one of them).
- Title Drop: Averted. After escaping from the Underground City, Raphael wants to give the team a cool name like Mad Dogs. Leonardo's suggestion is "Ninja Mutant Turtle Teens" before deciding he will keep brainstorming. Played straight with the episode name however.
- We Can Rule Together: Draxum tries to pull this on the turtles three times. First after they defeat his giant, he suggestively says to himself that the turtles would be as formidable as he'd hoped with some training; then, as the turtles struggle with their new weapons, he outright tells them they could become true warriors under his teaching; lastly, he when he asks them why they were trying to stop him, he claims to the turtles that they were all in it together.
- Wrecked Weapon: In the half of the episode no less. Three of the four the turtles' classic weapons are destroyed or lost.
