Well, that took longer than expected. But hey, that's life. So, without further ado, here's the second part of the first episode:
We start off with a very short "previously on" segment, briefly recapping the important parts of last episode. This goes right into the theme song.
The episode kicks off properly with the turtles gathered around the glowstick goo (heretofore called 'mutagen', thank you Donnie). Donnie quickly identifies it as the stuff that put "mutant" in the title of the show, because everyone knows there's only one sort of glowy substance that comes in canisters. Mikey wants to drink some. When questioned, he says it'll turn him into a super mutant. Donnie says it's more likely to turn him into a puddle of goo (glowstick goo?).
Leo interrupts this nonsense by reminding them they just found something significant; the creepy businessmen are somehow connected to their mutation. Mikey quickly reminds everyone that the businessmen are alien robots, and because his brothers still aren't convinced, marches over to tank top guy to prove it. Because he looks just like the creepy businessmen. Who all look identical. See, Mikey's not the brightest crayon in the box (though his mask might be colored with it). He then proceeds to try to rip tank top guy's face off to prove it's a mask.
Leo finally steps in to stop him, and Mikey just kind of tosses him aside. Kid's not having much luck with this whole "prove the businessmen are robots" thing.
Raph is fed up with the robots debate, grabs the mutagen, and goes over to tank top guy with it, with the intention of doing, y'know, what they followed the van for and get some answers. Tank top guy says his name is Snake (no wonder he's a villain! What were his parents thinking?), but besides calling them freaks (a great way to start off a conversation with giant turtles armed with ninja weapons), says nothing useful. Raph, who is clearly getting far too much joy out of screwing with this guy, throws him at his brothers. Donnie and Mikey grab his arms, and Raph follows to get his interrogator on. He uncaps the canister of mutagen and tells Snake that it's the stuff that mutated them. He then threatens Snake with the mutagen (managing to slip in an insult to Mikey, because this is Raph, after all).
Lucky for Snake, the mutagen oozes out slowly enough for him to decide to spill and Raph to pull it back. He then gives us a name for the creepy businessmen: the Kraang. And what a relief, because that is much easier to type. He also mentions that they've been kidnapping scientists from the city (presumably, the girl's dad is a scientist). Leo's impressed with how well that worked out for them, and asks why the Kraang want scientists. With a little more encouragement from Raph, Snake says that he doesn't know, but adds that they're taking them all out of the city tonight, and moving them to some unknown location. After a good bit of snark from Snake, Leo asks where the Kraang are now.
Cut to the four of them (and Snake) on a roof again. Leo's procured a telescope from somewhere, and is looking off screen with it. Mikey's glaring at Snake in the background. He tries to scare/impress him with his nunchuks (and odd faces). It doesn't work. Meanwhile, Leo is doing something worthwhile, checking out the building Snake brought them to. It's a triangular shaped building surrounded by dead trees. Because alien robots hate trees. There's also a helicopter on top, and a bunch of Kraang with Family-Friendly Firearms. Raph draws his weapons, makes a horrible pun, and prepares to... I guess leap all the way over there. He does realize objects in telescope are farther away then they appear, right?
Anyway, Leo tells him not to just barge in there without a plan. Raph is confused by this; apparently he missed their last fight, where they barged into a fight with like five of the guys and got whooped. Donnie yells at him, and they give us the exchange at the top of the page. Mikey interrupts by asking for pizza. I guess he was trying to bring some levity or something. Or he's just being really dumb. Either way, I suppose. He quickly proves it was actually just stupidity when he doesn't seem to realize that leaving the prisoner was a good idea. Because Mikey is a moron (an adorable moron, but a moron nonetheless), Snake has escaped. Or at least, is escaping.
They run after him, and apparently none of them (except possibly Donnie) realize that jumping down (which they can and will do) is faster than going down each set of stairs. Because this took long enough for Snake to disappear from sight, they split up, with Mikey and Donnie running off towards some giant concrete wall. They see no problem with the idea that average-human-person-Snake climbed a gigantic wall, so Donnie helps Mikey vault over it. This turns out to be a bad idea, as Mikey runs into various sorts of trouble on the other wall. Like, a cat vs. dog gang fight with a truck. Or something. They conclude that Snake did not, in fact, climb the gigantic concrete wall the ninja needed help to get over.
Meanwhile, Leo and Raph went the other way. The end up in some alley, and Leo notices Snake hiding off in the shadows in an alley branching off the side, and conveys this to Raph by squinting. Raph picks up on it and notices him too, so Leo decides to enact his brilliant plan, and... prove that both Snake is really stupid, and Leo should never pick up acting. By which I mean he starts using Bad "Bad Acting" to convince Snake they lost him. Raph takes the opportunity to give Leo a hard time about that whole leadership thing. ("Oh no! We let him get away!" "Whoa whoa whoa, you're the leader. That means you let him get away.") He also gleefully informs him that he's not trying to help out here. Leo gives up and goes on with it anyway. Talking as loudly and awkwardly as he can, he helpfully informs Snake that they're going to go back to the lair, then take Snake's van and drive up to the Kraang compound at midnight to trick them into letting them in. Raph is pacified by the promise of violence, and they leave. Snake somehow falls for this, and grins to himself, clearly planning on going to tell the Kraang.
Cut to the lair, where Donnie is welding something
◊. Could it be a plot point? I dunno! Elsewhere, Raph is being surprisingly emotional in the direction of a table. Meet my favorite background character: Spike the completely normal turtle.
I love Spike. He's adorable. And the fact that Raph has a pet turtle is the cutest thing ever. Mikey agrees with me a moment later, and Raph does not appreciate anyone intruding on his Spike-time. So he picks up a wooden spoon and chases him around, promising to... paint his toenails?
Or beat him up. Either one. Though personally I think Raph pinning Mikey down and painting his toenails would be much more entertaining. How he intends to do it with a wooden spoon is beyond me, though.
While this is going on, Leo has used some odds and ends to make a diagram of the compound, and proclaims that he thinks his plan can work. Splinter appears and tells him that it'll definitely go wrong somehow, and they need to be able to adapt when it does. Leo responds with insecurity. He's not sure he's ready to be in charge of something this important. Splinter assures him that he chose Leo as leader for a reason, though he's not telling what that reason is (spoiler: it's because all the commercials announce Leo as leader). He then tells Leo that all leaders have to face the possibility of failure sometime, and he himself did in his final battle with the Shredder. Suddenly, flashback!
Splinter narrates over a series of still frames in that comic-book style of the last flashback, explaining that he used to be friends with this guy, but woman came between them. Shredder got so jealous that he attacked Splinter (needless to say, this was when Splinter was a human), and ended up burning down his house and killing his wife, and popular fan theory says kidnapping his daughter. Splinter doesn't explicitly say this, but he does differentiate between "taking the life of [my wife]" and having his daughter "taken from" him. Anyway, this explains the sounds of fire and splintering wood that played while Donnie was talking about how scared that girl was and why he needed to save her.
Back to the present, Leo is not being very... sensitive. He says out that Splinter lost everything, and that's his point. Splinter agrees and starts listing what he's lost, hopefully making Leo feel guilty about emphasizing that point, but adds that he gained his four "sons". Leo assures him that they can handle their mission, just as Raph runs by, still trying to catch Mikey (who is now wearing a pot on his head as a helmet).
Cut to the Kraang compound. That girl is banging on the door of their cell and yelling at the Kraang pacing around outside. Her dad is apparently tired of her yelling, and tells her to give it a rest. He also gives her a name: April. She decides to do something else, so she fakes a stomachache and flails about on the ground yelling about the pain until a Kraang comes in. She then jumps him from behind and tries to beat him up in various ways, including biting the thing. Naturally, being a robot that is mostly unfazed by ninja weapons, the Kraang doesn't care. It motions with its gun for the dad to get back inside, which he does, and then just drops April on the ground and shuts the door again. Now sufficiently cowed, April decides that maybe sitting around isn't such a bad idea after all.
Cut to Snake outside with the Kraang, with some noticeable weeds in the foreground. Could they be imporant? I dunno! Anyway, we get our first look at the way the Kraang talk. I find it hilarious. A lot of people find it annoying. Snake is one of these people. Because I can't do it justice just describing it, have the real thing:
- Kraang 1: Kraang, are those who are coming to this place, coming to this place?Kraang 2: I lack that knowledge, Kraang. I will inquire of Kraang about that knowledge. (to the Kraang on the roof) Do you have the knowledge if those coming to this place are near this place, Kraang?Snake: (who has been visibly getting angrier while listening) They're TURTLES! Call them turtles! Are. The turtles. Here?Kraang 3: There are lights of a vehicle that contain that which you wish us to call the turtles, coming to this place which you wish us to call here.
Just as he says, the van shows up, noticeably without a driver. The Kraang (and Snake) start shooting at it, doing pretty much nothing but dent the headlights. This is what you get for not using real guns, guys. Because it's still coming towards them at a speed that would turn Snake into a much flatter Snake if it hit, our angry tank top guy dives out of the way, leaving the van to crash into the front door and explode. Snake lands in the dirt, and a broken canister of mutagen flies out of the exploding truck and splashes all over him. Remember those weeds? Now is when they become important.
We are then treated to a silhouetted shot of giant flower tentacles bursting out of Snake while he screams. And it is freaky as all hell.
Meanwhile, the Kraang are more interested in the burning van. They look inside, to see some sort of rope contraption attached to the steering wheel. There is a distinct lack of flaming mutant turtles. The Kraang point this out, wondering where the turtles are if they aren't in the van.
Pan over to the wall, which we see the turtles climbing, using those metal things Donnie made earlier. Mikey says they're lucky the van showed up to distract the Kraang. Donnie sighs and facepalms… while wearing those spiky things. Ouch. Leo is not impressed with Mikey's powers of retention, and reminds him that tricking Snake into thinking they would be in the van was the plan the whole time. Mikey is confused because they weren't in the van. Leo heroically resists the urge to facepalm and snaps at him to just keep climbing. Mikey's okay with this, and they get over the wall.
They drop into a very shiny hallway that looks like it came out of Star Wars, but with more glowy magenta Tron Lines. Donnie has a nerd moment about metal alloys; I know nothing of metallurgy, so I won't argue with him. Raph does not have this problem, and mocks him. Donnie snaps back ("You wanna talk metallurgy with me? Bring it."), and Leo interrupts to remind them that they're sneaking their an enemy lair and they should really shut up. So they continue down the hallway more quietly, and come upon a bunch of Kraangdroids that aren't wearing their creepy businessman disguises.
Okay, so half of them are the blue version that Mikey found… but the other half don't have that blue shell. And I can't figure out why. I guess some of them wear disguises and some don't, but why build two different types in the first place? Why not have all of them wear disguises? Or make disguises that they can all wear? If anyone has any sort of ideas as to why there are two models, let me know, because I'm stumped.
So anyway, while everyone else is glaring at them in a "I'm gonna beat you up" sense, Donnie is just staring. He exclaims that they're alien robots. Mikey, who has been trying to convince them of this with no success for ages, takes the chance to gloat. Loudly. This attracts the attention of the Kraang (who were just standing there staring a few feet to the right of the turtles this whole time, I guess they have terrible peripheral vision), and also some lasers. Since standing around wasn't accomplishing anything anyway, the turtles decide to start hitting stuff.
When that's done, Mikey starts yelling at his brothers for not listening to him again, shaking one of the brains at them. He then throws it away… right into an alarm. Mikey is not at his best in these episodes. Really, Mikey's not at his best pretty much any time they go into a Kraang base.
Now that the Kraang know they're there, Leo decides it's time to be somewhere else. Raph demands where that might be, and Donnie points at the ceiling and says the tubes on it are "polyconduits". Raph is not impressed. Donnie unleashes his nerd superiority by pointing out that all the tubes are going in one direction (how he can tell why it's going one way and not the opposite, I can't tell), so something important must be in that direction. He then storms off in that direction. Leo follows, after smirking at Raph. Mikey decides to rub it in (he must still be upset about that whole robot thing), but because he's Mikey, Raph hurts him, and then they follow Leo.
While running through the hallway, they happen to pass by the cell holding April and her dad. Good work, guys. Great sleuthing. Now what would you have done if they'd been in a different hallway? But anyway, the Kraang found them, so Leo tells Donnie to pick the lock while the others fight the robots. Donnie introduces himself to April, before being reminded that he has more important things to do.
When Donnie fails to immediately open the door, Raph shoves him aside and just starts stabbing at the lock. I have a serious problem with how long picking these locks take, but I think I'll save it for another time. Raph stabbing it works better than might be expected, but the Kraang have already opened the cell from the other end and dragged April and her dad out. They run after them, ending up outside (but still within the walls). When a Kraangdroid tries to get through the door while Raph is shutting it, he rips its arm off, shoves it back inside, and then bars the door using the arm. His brothers are shocked, but he doesn't see anything wrong with it. Frankly, I don't, either. They're robots, guys. If that was a person, yes it would be terrible. But they're robots. You were just doing your darnedest to rip them apart a few seconds ago, Leo. This is just ripping them up with a purpose.
Anyway, they're distracted from their hypocrisy by April yelling at the droids walking her and her dad towards the 'copter on the roof. Boy, those guys move fast. They got up to the roof in the time it took the turtles to get out the door. The turtles leap to save her (I mean, them), but are blocked by… a gigantic weed monster. Um, guys? How did you miss that? You took all of five steps before it was right in front of you, and the thing is huge. Seriously!
Anyway, it turns out this thing is Snake, and he is not happy about becoming a weed monster, and he's ready to take it out on the ones responsible. In case you didn't pick up on who this was from the flower tentacles, Leo helpfully lets you know. I… don't know how he knows. Maybe he saw him mutate while climbing the wall? Sure, let's go with that.
Mikey, once again, is confused, this time as to why Snake turned into a giant weed instead of a, well, snake. Raph is not impressed, and belittles Mikey, who claims he just doesn't understand science. Which is admittedly true. Just ask Donnie. While this is going on, Snake is leaning over and making creepy growly sounds, since he can't do much else, his legs having fused together. Wait, wasn't he outside the walls when he was mutated? How did he get in there? Did he jump like those creepy gnomes from Chronicles of Narnia? That… is a very strange mental image.
Either way, he quickly fixes this problem by ripping his legs apart, leaving bones inside his legs exposed. No, really. Everything about Snake's mutation is creepy. Now that the weed monster can actually get at them, the turtles are worried. Donnie tries to explain that it was an accident (and a really stupid one at that; did they really not check the truck for more mutagen?), but Snake doesn't care and does his best to make good on his threat to crush them. He smacks at them with a tentacle, which the all jump over (good thing Donnie practiced his jump roping earlier!), and Leo cuts his arm off. HYPOCR—oh whatever. Snake proceeds to bleed pink goo all over Mikey (who freaks out)… and then regenerate. Snake is pleasantly surprised. Donnie exclaims that that's not fair.
But oh noes, the 'copter's about to take off with April (and her dad)! Leo tells Donnie to go save them, because he's motivated by puppy love. So Leo helps him vault up to the roof, and he runs off to stop the helicopter while the other three fight Snake. Leo and Mikey slash at tentacles, while Raph uses his spiky climbing thingamawhatsits (which have magically reappeared) to fight. Notably, he uses his favorite trick of grabbing his opponent's arm and pulling them to the ground. Unfortunately, Snake's flower hands have extendable, prehensile tongues. Mikey then gives Snake a new name, "Snakeweed". This is something Mikey does; he nicknames stuff. He also gets very offended when he doesn't nickname stuff. While Mikey is explaining himself to Raph and Leo, a bunch of Kraang show up, so they're now surrounded by things that want to kill them. Side note, Mikey is still sore about not being believed.
So while they were doing that, Donnie was climbing to the landing pad. Naturally, the helicopter takes off as soon as he reaches it. So he uses his staff to pole vault after it and grabs the bottom rail. See, Donnie can do some awesome stuff with his stick. He just doesn't get to that often because it breaks too much. So he starts trying to climb a flying helicopter.
Meanwhile, Snakeweed is knocking down Kraang while trying to get to the turtles, not that it's helping them much. Raph is still fighting with his climbing spikes (did his sais get lost and I missed it?), and as the fight is clearly not going anywhere, asks Leo for a plan. Leo, unfortunately, does not have one yet. Luckily, he gets pick up by Snakeweed and flung around a bit, giving him a better view of the area. He spots the power conduits that led them there again, and the generator they lead up to. Managing to formulate a plan while hanging upside down and being spun around (pretty impressive, I'd say), he gives Mikey and Raph a series of hand signals. They get the message and run off to do something.
Cut to Donnie; a Kraangdroid leans out the door of the 'copter to start shooting at him. Donnie is not pleased and snarks angrily. He then uses his foot to shove a shuriken in its face and then knocks it out of the helicopter. Unfortunately, it's still shooting, and Donnie flailing around dodging is unbalancing the thing. April falls out, but manages to catch herself, and is now hanging beside Donnie. Before Donnie can grab her, though, she slips and is now falling to her doom. Oops.
So Donnie jumps off after her, hits the ceiling first, and catches her before she splats. He then carries her down with a series of jumps and flips, and it's pretty awesome. So now April's fine, but her dad is gone and Snakeweed is still trying to stomp on the other turtles.
Speaking of whom, Mikey and Raph dodge some tentacles and taunt the Kraang into shooting at them. They miss, hitting Snakeweed and driving him back towards the generator. Donnie notices this, and says that it's stupid. Or brilliant. Or both. He's a little hysterical.
On top of the generator, Leo gets Snakeweed's attention, and then gets the Kraang to shoot at him, and consequently the generator behind him. Which explodes, electrocuting Snakeweed. The turtles run off with April, while the Kraang stand around as pieces of Snakeweed's tentacles rain down. Yeah, everything about Snakeweed is creepy. The Kraang decide that the turtles are a hazard to their plans, and need to be eliminated. From all places. It's one of the only times Kraang-speak is menacing. The heart on Snakeweed's throat also starts beating again. Well, damn.
The turtles bring April to her aunt's house, and reassure her that they'll help her find her dad before running off back to the sewer.
Back home, Splinter tells Leo he's proud of him. Leo says he's figured out why Splinter made him leader: some tripe about having a warrior spirit that clearly comes from watching cartoons. Splinter quickly denies it. Confused, Leo asks why he was made leader, if not that. Splinter says it's because he asked.
Leo's shocked and asks how Splinter can be sure he made the right choice, if asking for the job is the only criteria. Splinter explains that there is no right and wrong, only choices. When Leo asks if that means that any of his brothers could've been made leader, he says yes. Though he quickly clarifies that that doesn't include Mikey (poor Mikey). Because I have so few other things to occupy me, I've thought a lot about how things would probably end up if each of the other turtles did become leader, but I think I'll save that. Maybe I'll make it its own entry, if there's a gap between episodes or something.
They're interrupted by Mikey yelling that they made the news. Cut to the news, where my favorite reporter Carlos Chiang O'Brien Gambe is talking about the police recovering a shuriken. Mikey's excited about being famous; Splinter is less excited. He tells them all to be more careful; it's dangerous for people to know they exist. Raph asks what's the worse that can happen. Thanks, Raph.
Thanks to Raph's genre blindness, we cut to a city that subtitles helpfully inform us is Tokyo, where someone with a very creepy bad head and facial burns and a creepier white eye recognizes the marking on the shuriken (most likely the one Leo used to stop Snake's van, rather than the one Donnie shoved in a Kraang), which happens to match the one on the back of Splinter's robe. He says Hamato Yoshi is training ninjas in New York, and ominously announces that he's going to go pay his "old friend" a visit. Spoiler alert, this is a bad guy.
So there it is, the rest of the pilot episode. It's a pretty good one, all things considered; it sets up the characters and their relationships with each other, introduces a few of the many villains, and is entertaining as well. It's not my favorite episode, but it's certainly not bad.
