Some might say this paradise was lost along the way.
Last time on Beast Wars,
Tigertron got lost in the clouds. After being attacked by Terrorsaur and
Waspinator in the frozen north, he ended up dropping from a cliff onto a cloud.
It’s revealed that the cloud is hiding a giant tropical island with a Monolith
at the center of it. Terrorsaur and Waspinator are shot down by the Obelisk and
crash to the ground. Once alone, Tigertron begins investigating the island and
finds out that there are booby traps hidden across the island. Upon learning of
the island, Megatron sends Scorponok and Blackarachnia to investigate. Upon
learning this and that Tigertron might be alive, Optimus Primal sends Airazor
to follow them. She’s shot down by Scorponok but found by Tigertron. He tells
her to rest and that he’d sent a message to their allies. He’d grabbed a Cyber
Bee that Scorponok launched and reprogrammed. The episode ends on his warning
that the Predacons are on the island and there’s a weapon on there that could
destroy their base and win the Beast Wars. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.
We open with the Maximals watching
Tigertron’s warning. We then cut to the island where some butterflies flutter
around before we get to Tigertron. He kind of loves being on the island,
feeling that he’s finally come home. He claims that his ‘heart’ is a Maximal
Fluid Pump, but his soul is that of a tiger, and he’s at peace here. He vows to
keep the island from the Predacons.
Blackarachnia and Scorponok are
making their way toward the Obelisk. She investigates one of the markings and
accidentally triggers it. A pit opens under her, and she drops. She’s able to
launch some of her webbing and catches herself before falling too far. She
climbs back up and realizes that using these traps could be advantageous to
them.
Back over with Tigertron and
Airazor, they prepare to move out. Airazor is still badly damaged, though. She
can’t fly, and obviously an aerial bird on the ground tends to be a tad slow,
so she’ll ride on Tigertron’s back.
At the Axalon, Optimus Primal and
Rattrap are soaring away from the base and towards the island. Rattrap
complains about riding piggyback on Optimus again. Optimus reminds him that 1.
He’s the only one small enough for Optimus to carry, and 2. The Island has
booby traps and disarming those is like 30% of his job. At the base proper,
Rhinox launches a laser probe to link with Optimus’s communicator to overcome
the Energon interference. It’s a line of sight connection but it’s better than
nothing. Cheetor runs in and warns them he just spotted the Predacon fliers
leaving the Darksyde, about 15 seconds after they started attacking Optimus and
Rattrap. Optimus has trouble dodging with a passenger and Rattrap can’t
transform like this so the two end up getting shot down.
On the island, Blackarachnia just
barely stops Scorponok from triggering another trap. Which is good news for the
Maximals, as Airazor was able to spy on them from a distance with her enhanced
vision. Unfortunately, they don’t realize mark = trap until the short valley
they’re in gets blocked off on both sides and the walls start sliding toward
them. Oops.
Optimus and Rattrap plummet for a
few moments before Optimus’ jets reactivate. He shoots at the Predacons and
promises to catch Rattrap, but he’s distracted by Waspinator’s shots. Rattrap
screams bloody murder as he falls, saying he’s flightless and helpless.
Terrorsaur, being a sadist and an idiot, flies in close to mock Rattrap as he
drops. Rattrap transforms and shoots him in the face. Terrorsaur, damaged and
startled, reverts to beast mode. Rattrap lands on him, says that he only needed
to act helpless to get him in close and to fly or he’ll shoot him again.
Optimus shoots Waspinator down just as Rattrap joins him, Terrorsaur still at
gunpoint and they head toward the island.
In the shrinking valley, Tigertron
asks Airazor if she can fly out of there yet. She says no, so he decides to try
a dangerous idea. He transforms and shoots the boulder and then sprints for the
exit he created. They escape just before the Obelisk’s beam hits them.
Scorponok and Blackarachnia notice, and the spider insists they hurry before
the Obelisk can recharge. Optimus and Rattrap arrive at the island just as they
start shorting out. Optimus lands and Terrorsaur knocks Rattrap off him before
flying away. They find Tigertron and Airazor right away, Tigertron warning them
of the Traps and the Predacons almost being at the base. Optimus throws a rock
at a trapped arch of rock and sees the mark glow before the rocks fall. Rattrap
has a lightbulb moment and realizes something. The island is covered in traps,
markings that reveal the traps, and defenses to keep out advanced weapons. He
thinks that the island is some kind of puzzle, designed to attract intelligent
lifeforms and then to see if they can figure out how to get to the center. He
wants to get off the island, but Tigertron wants to protect the island. In the
distance they see Blackarachnia and Scorponok reach the Obelisk.
They transform and need to find a
way inside. Scorponok points out that if they use their weapons they’ll be
blasted by the Obelisk. Blackarachnia, being a backstabber and amoral, decides
to use the arriving Terrorsaur and Waspinator to their advantage. She opens a
comm link to them, acting like it’s an accident and announcing she’s going to
shoot them down to stop them from stealing their victory from them. She fires
one of her spear gun bolts at them, pissing Terrorsaur off enough for him to be
stupid, transform and shoot at her. The Obelisk shoots both flies down and
Blackarachnia breaks into it before it can recharge another shot. Inside the
stone monument is some advanced looking hardware, and Blackarachnia announces
the island will soon be hers.
The Maximals charge the Obelisk,
Optimus and a recovered Airazor taking to the sky.
Blackarachnia monologues about how
she’ll use the island to defeat Megatron and the Maximals and rule. Scorponok
reveals he was indeed sent to stop her because Megatron anticipated her
betrayal. She tricks him into stepping back to get a shot off that won’t hurt
him, activates a trap, and falls into a pit. He catches the rim, but she kicks
his claw free, and he falls to the planet below. She quickly climbs to the top
and finds a throne room. She steps on a panel in the floor and gets infused
with the power of the Obelisk. It shifts her gold armor to silver. She sits on
the throne, not in control of the island and decrees let there be light. She
waves her claws and breaks the cloud cover around the island, exposing it to
the now night sky. She starts firebombing the Maximals on the island as she
orders the Island to move full speed to the Maximal base. Optimus warns the
others to evacuate the base. The Maximals run for cover, Rhinox only stopping
long enough to grab his plants.
On the island, Tigertron says this
shouldn’t have happened. Rattrap agrees. A blast shatters a boulder and crushes
one of Rattrap’s legs. Tigertron wants to help him, but he tells Tigertron to
get to the Obelisk or they’re toast. He starts shooting at the Obelisk to try
to draw fire. It shoots at him, breaking the boulder and freeing him. Tigertron
enters the tower as Optimus cheers him on. Blackarachnia counts down to her
victory, not realizing Tigertron made it inside. He asks forgiveness for what
he must do before shooting at the power source for the island. Blackarachnia
loses control and it soars over the base. It crosses over a cliff to a
conveniently placed and never before seen desert, the Obelisk toppling as it
crashes. The Obelisk fires a beam of energy from it, to a relay tower on the
nearer of the two moons that fires another beam out into Transwarp space. The
Maximals witness it, Tigertron is sure it’s a message. He mourns the fact they
were given a paradise that they could have enjoyed if they’d just set aside
their desire to fight. Optimus says that’s an old story and maybe one day
they’ll learn the lesson. Rattrap, always the pragmatist, points out the more
important question to the here and now, who was the message sent to? Whoever
built the island isn’t going to be happy that it got wrecked. Rhinox says
they’ll jut have to wait and see. The episode ends with the Maximals all
looking skyward.
This was a cool ending of the
two-parter. We got more of the island, and with Rattrap’s insight we learned
what it and probably the other sites on the planet are for, testing intelligent
life. This plus the Stonehenge style ruins they discovered a few episodes back
hint at a species that is gathering meticulous amounts of data about this
planet and probably isn’t too happy about the lifeforms marooned on its planet.
Though, I will say that if the island wasn’t built with Transformers in mind,
it’s super convenient it had an energy source that a Cybertronian lifeform
could absorb and use to take control of the Obelisk. I know, kid’s show. But
this same kid’s show did just deliver a poignant life lesson about the nature
of paradise and intelligent life’s inability to set aside violence for a
better, peaceful future. They also quote Shakespeare a bunch later, so this is
a very smart kids show/long form toy commercial. This is one of the better
episodes for Tigertron. It’s the first episode since his introduction that
points out his connection to the planet that they’re on and his feelings that
he’s more tiger that can become a robot than robot disguised as a tiger.
Tigertron is… not a pacifist… more like a naturalist? He has a deep respect for
nature, and more than any other Transformer tries to live in harmony with it.
Of course he’d be moved by a perfect tropical landscape that they could just
enjoy if they could only stop fighting. It’s also why he had to be the one to
destroy it, ya know, for the extra knife twist. Blackarachnia taking the island
for herself was pretty obvious, the only character I could have seen doing it
faster or more brutally was her fellow spider Tarantulas. Hate to see how she’d
explain this failure to Megatron. Next time, another pod falls.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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