Baddies get a new spider and maybe a rat?
Last time on Beast Wars, a
pod made landfall. The Maximals prepared to race to the north to retrieve it,
but Megatron and the Predacons decided to cheat. Optimus, the only flyer of the
Maximals, was ambushed by Terrorsaur and Waspinator and severely damaged in the
process. He may have been destroyed if Dinobot hadn’t been out with him and
pulled him back into the base. Cheetor, Rhinox, and Rattrap are sent out on
foot to do their best to reach the pod while Dinobot stays with a recovering Optimus.
They’re further delayed by the Predacon fliers destroying the fastest route to
the pod. While Optimus is in the CR Chamber, Dinobot activates his consciousness
and lets him know what happened after Rattrap reports in. The two come up with
an idea to reach the pod first, in a way. Megatron tries to convince Dinobot to
betray Optimus and surrender the base, but Dinobot doesn’t bite, shooting at
him and getting their satellite into place. Optimus activates the laser pulse,
bouncing the pulse off the moon and toward the pod. Megatron and the arachnid Predacons
are driven off by the Maximal perimeter guns. Megs races across the ice to
catch up to his scouts, rightly not trusting Terrorsaur and Waspinator to do
their job right. Everyone arrives at the pod within a minute or so of each
other. Megatron, seeing a way to defeat the Maximals without fighting,
threatens to kill two white tigers if they interfere. The Predacons get the pod
open… only to find it empty. It’s then revealed that one of the tigers was the
pod’s occupant. Dubbing himself Tigertron, he defends his tiger friend and the Maximals.
Optimus arrives and helps drive the baddies off. Optimus greets his new recruit
and offers him a place at their base. Tigertron, though, declines. His crash
damaged his identity circuits were damaged and he feels more tiger than Maximal
because of it. He wants to remain in the frozen north as a long-range scout, at
least until his circuits are repaired. Optimus and the others agree to this arraignment,
and Optimus promise they’ll meet again. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.
We open with another pod
crashlanding on the planet. Optimus and Dinobot are the ones sent out to retrieve
it. The pod also lands in a polar region, landing on an ice shelf above their
heads. Before they can reach the pod, Terrorsaur, Waspinator, and Scorponok
arrive and attack. Dinobot thinks they’ve been betrayed, but they really can’t
discuss that right now because, ya know, firefight. Despite being surrounded
and outgunned, Optimus and Dinobot put up a fight. They get buried in ice from
a shot from Scorponok, but Optimus breaks free and tries to chase down
Waspinator, who attempted to escape with the pod. He’s shot down by Terrorsaur
and the Predacons flee. Optimus pulls himself from his crater and announces
that that was just Prime.
Back at the base, we learn that this
was the third operation that has been ambushed recently. Cheetor metaphorically
says a rat might be slipping them info, offending Rattrap. Dinobot points out that
Rattrap lead them into the canyon, and suggests maybe a rat did do it. Rhinox
and Cheetor are offended on Rattrap’s behalf, but Optimus pulls Rattrap aside for
a private conference.
Meanwhile, the Predacons have
booted up the pod and activated its DNA scanner. Tarantulas chooses to scan a
black widow spider for the newly reprogramed Predacons alt form. Were I Megatron,
I’d be a little upset by this choice given there appear to be a lot of Dinosaur
bones in the area, but whatever. We’re introduced to Black Arachina, the first
female Transformer of the series. She transforms to show off her looks.
Megatron does call out Tarantulas for seemingly deliberately choosing to make
their recruit into a female of his Order but is happy at having a new minion
none the less.
Cheetor and Rhinox question if
Optimus does believe Rattrap is a spy. Before they can settle on an answer, Rattrap
yells at Optimus for accusing him of that. Optimus says that Rattrap’s loyalty
is in question so sends him to sector 12, the lava pits, to look for Energon.
It’s right beside the Predacon territory, so everyone is rightly shocked by
this choice. Rattrap leaves in a huff, Optimus saying this should prove Rattrap’s
loyalty one way or another.
Rattrap searches the area for
Energon but doesn’t find any. He radios in as such, guess they fixed the range
issue. We then cut to the Predacon base, where we learn that the Predacons have
broken the Maximals codes and are monitoring their communications. Terrorsaur
is sent to take care of him. Rattrap and Terrorsaur fight, Rattrap being knocked
to the ground. Terrorsaur goes in for the kill but Rattrap begs for his life
and offers to switch teams. This shocks the Maximals, all of whom were still
listening over his comm link. Terrorsaur agrees, provided Rattrap gives him certain…
services. Rattrap waves his hand over the Maximal insignia over his forearm and
turns it into the Predacon bee.
At the Predacon base, Terrorsaur
introduces Rattrap to the Predacons as his new lieutenant. He says that with
Rattrap and Blackarachnia, they’ll defeat the Maximals once and for all. But because
he brought in Rattrap and Blackarachnia, taking full credit for a group effort
there, he should be made the Predacon leader. Megatron calls him an idiot right
off the bat, saying Rattrap is obviously a spy, but is cut off by Rattrap getting
out of the cage he was in to zap him from behind. The device he used shorts out
his servo circuits and stopping him from Transforming. Terrorsaur announces he’s
the new leader. Scorponok is against it, Blackarachnia seems to be for the
change in management, and Tarantulas somewhere in the middle, but the bigger
spider suggests they discuss this in private. Terrorsaur orders Rattrap and
Megatron taken to the holding area while the discuss.
Back at the base, Cheetor is
shocked by Optimus ordering the team out to capture Rattrap. He thinks they need
to rescue him, but a depressed Rhinox says to just let him go. Optimus insists
they go, though, saying Rattrap is too dangerous to be left with the baddies.
Dinobot is gung-ho for the capture and implied torture. Wow, pot calling the kettle
black, am I right?
Rattrap and Megatron are lowered in
cages into the holding area. Megatron seems surprisingly upbeat about the
situation, but reveals why a moment later. Turns out, he’s got a voice command
override for all the Darksyde’s computer systems. He frees himself and gets a
hover craft to take him to the CR Chambers. “A wise tyrant always ensures his
prisons are designed for his… personal escape,” as he puts it. Once alone, Rattrap
reveals to us he’s a Maximal infiltrator not a spy, changes his insignia back
to the Maximal insignia and picks his lock. Once free, he escapes into the air ducts.
The Predacons, meanwhile, are
arguing whether to follow Terrorsaur or not. Rattrap overhears Terrorsaur
demanding the Predacons follow him while Scorponok loudly disagrees. Rattrap
spies an actual rat slinking through the ducts and follows it.
Outside the base, the Maximals have
gathered. Cheetor and Dinobot wonder why they aren’t going in to get Rattrap.
Optimus tells them they move on his signal, not before.
Rattrap finds Waspinator working at
a computer terminal. The computer voice helpfully says it’s scanning for
Maximal frequencies but detecting none. Once Waspinator leaves, Rattrap pries
the computer open and finds a Maximal chip in it. He removes the chip and
continues exploring. He trips a laser wire and gets stuck in one of Tarantulas’
stasis webs. The spider come to investigate, but Rattrap escapes before he
arrives. Tarantulas, not being an idiot, goes to check the cells and sees
Rattrap getting back into his cage. Tarantulas transformers, but Rattrap shoots
him, badly damaging him and keeping him from sounding the alarm. He sends a
signal to Optimus and the attack begins.
Terrorsaur is shocked that their
codebreaker didn’t warn them, but obviously the battle keeps him from investigating
thoroughly. Megatron, fully repaired comes out and asks the ‘leader’ what they
should do. Terrorsaur is also shocked that Megs is letting him lead, but
Megatron is clearly hoping this will prove to the others to never follow
Terrorsaur in another coup in the future. Give him enough rope to hang himself
sort of thing. The fight begins, the Predacons and Rattrap vs. the Maximals.
They’re outnumbered, but Optimus says they have a secret weapon. He takes off but
is shot down by Rattrap, proving to Cheetor that he’s a traitor. Cheetor saves
Optimus from being executed by Blackarachnia, by distracting her and getting
kicked in the face. Tough break kid. Dinobot throws Terrorsaur aside and
prepares to kill Rattrap, but he’s grabbed by Megatron who tells Rattrap to prove
himself by killing Dinobot. Rattrap shows his loyalty by shooting Terrorsaur’s
head off and letting Dinobot sucker punch Megatron. The Maximals fall back,
mission accomplished. As the dust settled, Megatron has an official vote and
screams at Terrorsaur for screwing up this badly.
Back at the base, Dinobot prepares to
punish Rattrap, but Optimus reveals that Rattrap was sent in on an infiltration
mission. The chip he took is revealed to be a Maximal decoder, hence why the Predacons
could hack their signals. Rhinox asks why they kept this a secret from them.
Optimus says it was to protect his cover but says that Rattrap didn’t have to
make the shot so believable. Rattrap shrugs and says he was trying to miss and
the credits roll.
This episode is kind of in between two
of the main plot types I’ve mentioned before. There is a pod that lands and a
new character is introduced, but it’s more about the one-off technology of the
Predacons using a decoder and the Maximals trying to stop it. Shame for
Blackarachnia, as she’s not the main motivating course of her introductory
episode like Tigertron was, but she makes up for it with a fair number of focus
episodes in the future. Shows like this were always hesitant to have too many
girl characters back in the day but the funny thing is that they’re usually some
of the most stand out characters. I mean, Blackarachnia had three scenes in
this, one of which is her telling veteran Scorponok he’s an idiot for being overly
loyal and another was her not even flinching when her spider legs were shot off
and then kicking Cheetor in the face. Bad ass. As to the codebreaker, this was
a cool episode in theory but I kind of wish it’d been the first two-part episode.
Like, do a full episode that is just a red herring about Rattrap’s loyalty, have
him bad mouth his friends, doing seemingly underhanded things to earn the Predacons
loyalty, and only then reveal it was all a ruse to get him inside and steal
things. It could have also played up Cheetor’s denial that his friend would betray
them and Rhinox’ depressed certainty that he did. Ya know, character development
type stuff. But that is asking a lot from a show that was only one series
removed from the long format toy commercial that was G1. Don’t get me wrong, I
still like G1 Transformers, but it IS a toy commercial first and foremost. I do
give them props for showing us insight into Megatron’s mind, having built in escape
routes in the prison because he’s a self-described tyrant and letting
Terrorsaur lead so poorly that it’ll hurt any future coup attempts. Mostly
because he has five soldiers at the moment and really can’t spare killing or
imprisoning Terrorsaur for treachery without weakening his force overall. It’s
nice to see how the Tyrant Lizard thinks. Next time, a probe is a coming.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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