History Recap / TransformersPrimeS2E18NewRecruit

* BittersweetEnding: For Starscream. He loses the Apex Armor suit to the Autobots but is at least able to acquire Red Energon (he was running low on any type of Energon).

* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: Smokescreen comes as idiot who is in over his head. Then he uses the Phase Shifter to literally kick Starscream out of the Apex Armor.

While Jack and Rafael help enforce Team Prime's Robots in Disguise mantra, Miko is continuing to help Bulkhead recover from his brush with Tox-En. Apparently, it's affected his ability to walk, though he can apparently still drive easily. Suddenly, they get a signal that something has landed on earth. While a few members want to send Wheeljack in to investigate, after the events of "Hurt", Rachet vetos the idea, sending in most of team prime (aside from the injured Bulkhead) to investigate.

They reach a decepticon escape pod, only to be ambushed by decepticon forces (though oddly lead by none of its leaders). Suddenly, another pair of blasters comes from behind. It's another autobot, only one less skilled at shooting, as he accidentally ignites an energon line from the pod, leading to an explosion that obliterates and drives off the remaining cons.

After the explosion dies down, the bot introduces himself as Smokescreen, graduate of the autobot elite guard, and former guardsman of the hall of Iacon Records. (and a fanboy of THE Optimus Prime) Given the recent activity surrounding the Iacon Database, the autobots aren't exactly trusting at first. However, when Smokescreen mentions that he learned under Optimus's old mentor Alpha Trion, who mentioned that he nominated Optimus for Prime leadership, Optimus gives Raf the go to bring Smokescreen to base.

In the waning days of Cybertron, he graduated from the academy in order to aid the autobot effort, but was disappointed with guard duty at Iacon instead. When the Cons launched an assault on the archive, Smoke was thrilled to finally get in on the action, as the last soldier between the archive and the cons. However, something knocked him out, and he later came to on a prison ship, which he managed to free himself from, which explains how he was in an Decepticon escape pod.

Smoke's confident that the war can't be all that hard since they have Optimus. However, Bulkhead chooses this moment to come in, showing the wounds of war, and clearly angry at the new kid. Still, they trust his story enough, and have Jack give Smoke a tour of the base. Being a former clerk at Iacon, he recognizes quite a few relics the autobots have collected during their time, especially the Phase Shifter. Then there's the surprise relic: Arachnid. Smoke's clearly surprised by her, but doesn't press any further when Jack says it's, "The kind you don't wanna mess with."

Meanwhile, Starscream has finally made it back from the Antarctic, and is using the internet to find more relics for himself. He later comes upon a photo of humans excavating something called Red Energon, which apparently gives transformers SuperSpeed. And since he still has the [[ArmorOfInvincibility Apex Armor]], he plans on claiming it for himself as well.

Optimus, Arcee and Bumblebee move in to retrieve the red energon from a shipping center where they've been moving the energon, but Starscream, utilizing his ground bridge remote, meets them there, using the Apex Armor to shrug off whatever they throw at them. Smokescreen returns to base having picked a vehicle, but Rachet is hesitant to send him without Optimus's permission.