Recap / Transformers Prime S 2 E 20 Legacy

The episode begins innocently enough with Smokescreen racing Bumblebee, saying that he doesn't know what a speed limit is and that his car's fast potential shouldn't be wasted. Unfortunately, he's been driving on the wrong side of the road, and almost crashes into a civilian. The man stalks toward Smokescreen, who goes robot mode as a joke towards him. Unfortunately, this ends up with him and Bee caught on camera (again).

Team Prime is insulted that Smokescreen would be so blunt in blowing their cover as robots-in-disguise, but Optimus points out that Smoke hasn't had much time to adjust to social conventions on earth. To that end, he assigns Jack as his guide once again in the human world to teach him all about what earth travel should be like. Arcee is uneasy with her partner going off with the rookie of the team, even pointing out that the incident with Damocles has made things more dangerous for the humans. Agent Fowler had to relocate Raf's family for safety concerns. Optimus tells her to not worry. They'll be fine.

And indeed, the two are doing well. Smoke sometimes jokes around with Jack, but he picks up on traffic laws pretty easily. (green means go, yellow slow down, etc.) They even take time to prank Vincent's car after they ran into him during "drivers ed". While Arcee still feels skeptical about the two's escapades, it's obvious the two are having a blast together.

Meanwhile, onboard the nemesis, Megatron decides to try a new tactic with the Autobots. Soundwave has come close to decoding a new Iacon data point, and Megatron in response decides to have Soundwave fly in a different direction with a false relic beacon in order to throw the bots off while they claim their relic. Sure enough, Team Prime gets Soundwave's signal first, and the team (even Bulkhead who seems to have fully recovered from his injuries) heads out on a Snipe Hunt.

Megatron arrives at the real relic site, only to find a sword hilt sticking out. Immediately, he tries to pull it out, and destroy the rocks around it, but to no avail either way. Proclaiming that "such power cannot fall into the hands of Optimus Prime" he immediately has the vehicons and insecticons dig around the sword to take the whole chunk of mountain out from Autobot reach.

Meanwhile, back at base, Jack and Smokescreen return from another day of lessons, only to find that Rachet picked up a second beacon (the real one). Smoke wants to get in there right away, and as the rest of the team is also being jammed by the Cons, Rachet sends Smoke on his way. Unfortunately, still in the mischievous mood, Smokescreen invites Jack along for the ride who surprisingly follows him through.

This turns out to be both a grave mistake and exactly what the Autobots needed. Smokescreen quickly identifies the hilt as The Star Saber: a sword of limitless power, wielded by one of the 13 original Primes. Jack questions why Megatron doesn't just pull it out, but not wanting the Cons to escape with it, Smoke goes in Guns Akimbo trying to reach the sword. But pull as he might, he too was unable to dislodge the sword, and promptly gets shot in the back. This being the first time Megatron's seen Smoke, he tries to interrogate him rather than kill him outright. Having his phone on him, Jack immediately gets in contact with Rachet to explain the situation but is interrupted..by 3 insecticons that discover his hiding place.

Rachet quickly bridges to the rest of team prime, to explain they have a situation. The team immediately recalls from their Snipe hunt, and moves against Megatron's forces. Bulkhead rescues Smokescreen from Con captivity, while Arcee personally blasts all the insecticons trying to eat jack. Optimus meanwhile makes his way up the nearby cliff, trying to reach the star saber. After a grueling chase, he grabs onto the suspended hilt (the cons were starting to haul the rock up), the sword glows and slips from the rock.

Landing below, Megatron tries to drop the rock on Optimus, who responds by CHOPPING THE ROCK IN HALF! Megatron is stunned, and the cons retreat, even getting chased off when Optimus launches a Sword Beam that shakes the entire Nemesis easily.

Megatron: We deceptions now face our Darkest Hour.

Returning to base, Smokescreen is of course elated by the awesomeness that Optimus just unleashed, but is quickly brought back to earth by the fact that he brought Jack on a mission. Something Team prime has tried to stay away from doing. Arcee sends Jack home and proceeds to angrily voice her disapproval of Smoke's actions. Smoke is understandably distressed for breaking the team's trust, and Optimus makes one more warning that future behavior like that would NOT be tolerated. However at that moment, the Star Saber glows, and Optimus says he's receiving a message from Alpha Trion.

Tropes:

• Absurdly Sharp Blade: The Star Saber was even able to cleanly bisect an entire mountain in two.
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • While Optimus has displayed the ability to accelerate to a speed which would allow him to propel himself up from a cliff edge for a considerable distance before gravity starts pulling him down, here it's especially egregious: it lasts for almost a minute, and even when he gets hit by cannon fire, he continues to fly up instead of veering off course and falling down.
  • It's hard to believe that a mountain which dwarfs Optimus (who's about ten meters tall) falling from several kilometers up and then tumbling down wouldn't create a crater, a shockwave and an earthquake. Not to mention break apart under its own weight and the force of the impact. Everyone has no trouble at all standing on their feet and the mountain just tumbles forward like it's a tennis ball.
• BFS: The Star Saber built specifically for Primes, who are quite the giants themselves.
• Bullying a Dragon: An angry driver threatens to do damage on Smokescreen's vehicle form after nearly getting run off the road by him. Then Smokescreen decided to give him a scare by going into his robot form. Then when Vince throws a burger at Smokescreen's window for laughs, Smokescreen and Jack get even by dumping a huge load of junk food all over his car.
• Call-Back: Vincent makes an appearance. He's clearly still picking on Jack, and throws a hamburger at Smokescreen's window.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: The Japanese exclusive segments Arms Micron Theater and From the Cybertron Satellite: Transformers Division claim that the Star Saber is in fact the Matrix Saber which is included with the Arms Master Optimus Toy...despite the fact that the Matrix Saber is a combination of the Matrix of Leadership which Optimus carries and R.A., Ratchet's Arms Micron and the Star Saber has been on Earth for millions of years.
• Fantastic Racism: Despite having grown close to the humans who frequent the base (namely the kids, Fowler, and occasionally Nurse Darby), Ratchet reacts badly when he thinks that they're going to bring in another human to be Smokescreen's partner.
• Infinity +1 Sword: The Star Saber. It's so powerful that it cuts a mountain in half with one swing and knocks out the engines of the Nemesis with one energy blast. Megatron stops just short of saying it's time to chuck in the towel once Optimus gets his hands on it.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Despite Jack's warning that they should wait for backup, Smokescreen leaps into the fray anyway.
• Loophole Abuse: Jack is content to let Vince get away throwing food at the window, saying Autobots not being allowed to harm humans is a very big rule. Smokescreen won't think of harming Vince himself, but he suggests some appropriate payback: smearing his beloved car with fast food. Jack has no issue with that.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": Everyone on the scene has this reaction to Optimus bisecting a chunk of mountain with the Star Saber.
• Meaningful Echo: Smokescreen when repeating the first driving rule right before Jack departs the base.
  Smokescreen: Green for go.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Smokescreen clearly feels guilty about almost getting Jack killed after he convinced the teen to go on the mission in the first place.
• Not So Above It All: Optimus, who in this incarnation is the living embodiment of The Stoic, gives Megatron a sly wink after cutting a mountain in half.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • This episode is the first time in Transformers history that we have ever seen Megatron scared out of his wits after discovering the legendary Star Saber, and for good reason. Despite trying to keep it away from Optimus, he expresses this reaction when the Autobot leader extracts the sword from the excavated mountain and BISECTS it with one strike. The look on his face at 10:12 is priceless.
  • Ratchet when trying to reach Jack and hearing Insecticon screeching instead.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: The Star Saber can only be wielded by a Prime and, much like Excalibur in the Stone, only a Prime can extract it from the enormous rock in which it's imbedded. In fact, the sword is emitting an energy field around the rock to hold it in place and to keep the rock from being destroyed around the sword itself.
• Person as Verb: Jack just pulled a Miko.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Once Optimus is in the process of extracting the Star Saber from the rock, Megatron heads right for the Nemesis rather than continue fighting face-to-face.
• Sky Heist: To steal the Star Saber, Megatron cuts a chunk of the cliff face off and takes the whole thing with him using his warship.
• Steal the Surroundings: To steal the Star Saber, Megatron cuts a chunk of the cliff face off and takes the whole thing with him using his warship.
• Story Arc: Marks the beginning of what will be the concluding story arc of the season (though you might not realize it at first)
• Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: Stated by Optimus, concerning the Star Saber and the true power that Cybertronians can wield.
  Optimus: We must never lose sight of the fact that upon this Earth, we are titans. And such power must be used wisely.
• Sword Beam: The Star Saber is capable of a pretty powerful version, as it nearly cripples the Nemesis from a fairly long distance.
• This Cannot Be!: Megatron's stunned reaction to the latest relic being the Star Saber. Happens again when he finds he can't even blast the saber free of the rock.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Now that Optimus owns the Star Saber, Megatron feels his army is now at the losing side of the war, more than ever.
  Megatron: We Decepticons now face our darkest hour.
• Tranquil Fury: Optimus is furious after Smokescreen endangers Jack. The only giveaways are his scowl, grave tone and the way he bangs the Star Saber against the floor.
• Troll: Smokescreen proves to be one in this episode, messing happily messing around with humans and playing pranks with Jack. Deconstructed however in that the Autobots are taking their mission to protect Earth from the Decepticons seriously, and that his behavior simply causes problems for everyone.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Smokescreen gets this from everybody throughout the episode for his fast and loose attitude regarding maintaining cover and endangering humans. Even he admits that he deserved it afterwards when Jack was chased by Insecticons.
    • Optimus deserves special mention for interrupting Smokestreen's fawning over him with a Death Glare and a short but unusually harsh speech:
    Optimus: Disregarding human safety, or anyone's safety, will not be tolerated. Do you understand?
• With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility: Smokescreen learns a lesson about how recklessness can endanger the safety of others, particularly their human companions. Optimus spells it out for him by pointing out how much more powerful Transformers are compared to humans and that they must always be responsible.
• Written-In Absence: In light of the previous episode's events, Fowler is currently in the process of relocating Raf and his entire family to a new home. Jack comments that all the house-hunting is keeping Raf from helping out in the base like he usually does.