While taking a trip up river The Turtles, Casey and April meet five merpeople trying to protect their eggs from a radiation leak from a nuclear power plant.
This episode provides examples of
- Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: Despite having direct contact with the severely burned merwomam, April and Casey don’t suffer from any radiation burns themselves, and neither do they or the Turtles when they visit the contaminated creek. The contamination also flows a vibrant green as an artistic choice for the viewers.
- Burial at Sea: For the Merwoman after her death.
- Call-Back:
- The merwoman gives April a vision of the history of her people, showing the revolution of Y'lyntis by the slaves. The Turtles first learnt about this in Season 3 "The Entity Below".
- Leo confesses that he has been traumatized by the Turtles' nearly fatal final battle with the Shredder in "Exodus".
- Fish People: The merpeople, as usual, since they used to be human centuries ago.
- Foreshadowing: The flashback to the origin of the merpeople shows a floating structure attached to Y'Lyntias by a chain. Four episodes later, that structure reappears, and another flashback reveals that the Avian slaves used it to escape the island's destruction.
- In Name Only: A common complaint about this episode is that it changes a number of elements of the story it's based on (#28 of the first volume). TMNT Entity's review
elaborates on this in the last few paragraphs. - Last of His Kind: In the telepathic vision the merwoman showed to April, the merwoman claimed they were the last remaining people left.
- Mythology Gag: Some of the jokes the gang tells around the campfire are lifted from activity books based on the series released during the first season.
- No Antagonist: Aside from the long-dead Y'Lyntians, no one in the episode is traditionally villainous. The merpeople are only trying to protect their eggs, and the nuclear power plant workers work to clean up the toxic waste as soon as they realize they have a leak.
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: The merwoman has breasts, despite the fact that her people lays eggs. Possibly justified in that the merpeople were originally mutated from humans, so they retain certain human features (such as being bipedal and having fingers etc).
- Preemptive Apology: Don does this to an employee at the nuclear plantDonatello: We don't have time for this! Please accept my apology.Worker: For what?Donatello: For this. (hits the worker with his bo)
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The nuclear power plant foreman reads his assistant the riot act for not noticing the buildup of toxic waste in the dike that was about to spill into the river. He also declines to pursue the "environmental do-gooders" who blow up one of the abandoned buildings to reinforce that dike, recognizing that their actions prevented a disaster.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Leo confides in April that he is still deeply shaken that his family was forced to attempt to sacrifice their own lives in their final battle with Shredder, and has been blaming himself ever since.
- The Smurfette Principle: The merwoman is the only female out of the five remaining merpeople.
- There Are No Therapists: Leo is suffering from PTSD but April is hardly qualified to provide him the help he needs. Leo's options for therapists in general are limited given he's a secret mutant turtle.
- Title Drop: Mikey describes the brothers as "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles."
- Uncertain Doom: The flashback scene shows over a dozen merpeople revolting against the Y'Lyntians, but only five journeyed to Manhattan. It's unclear whether the other merpeople all died or if they went elsewhere in their own small groups. The merwoman speaks as if her race's survival depends on her eggs hatching, but she could have just meant her specific tribe.
