The blind leading the blind.
Last time on Beast Wars, the
Maximals embraced the wild side. The Predacons raid the Maximal base and steal
their rectifier coil, the part that shields the base from Energon radiation.
The Maximals are forced to stay in Beast Mode and on high alert as the Predacons
attack their base constantly for days. This prolonged time in beast mode plus
the insomnia eventually causes the Maximals to ‘sleep prowl.’ Basically, while
in Beast Mode they dream and act like they are their animal forms. The Predacons
call a hunt and try to kill the Maximals in their feral state. Tigertron finds
them, though, and is able to coach them through deleting the program that is
causing the prowling and to get the Maximals to embrace their Beast Modes. They
beat back the Predacons, and Airazor is able to steal the coil back from the
deserted Predacon base. All’s well that ends well. Enough recap. Let’s get to
it.
The episode begin with Rattrap
digging around outside the base. He discovers an Energon crystal and picks it
up with a grabber. He calls Cheetor over and puts the crystal into a backpack container
the cheetah is wearing. Cheetor congradulates him, saying just a few more piece
that size will give them enough power to use the Quantum Generators at the
base. Rattrap brags that he’s got a nose for Energon, saying he was the best
miner in the Vespar system. Rhinox cuts in and points out the whole area is Energon
rich, which helps. Dinobot is searching for deposits and whining about it,
right up until he finds a huge deposit. Cheetor compliments him and Dinobot
says he’s better at everything than Rattrap. We hear the scuttling sound of one
of the Predacons just before an arrow fly at them. The arrow hits the deposit
and Dinobot yells at Scorponok and Waspinator that they missed. Scorponok says
guess again and the arrow starts vibrating. Rhinox Maximizes, runs over, and
throws the arrow aside, but Scorponok says they’re too late. The whole deposit
starts shaking. The others Maximize just as the Energon explodes. Don’t know
why they’d want to do that when they’re vulnerable to Energon, but what are you
going to do. The Explosion is huge, big enough that Scorponok declares nothing
could have survived that blast and they revert to Beast Mode to report in.
A few minutes later Rhinox is the
first to get up. His body is burned all over and he complains that it felt like
he was hit by a squad of Predacons. He tries to do a diagnostic on himself but
his internal systems aren’t responding. He’s pretty sure the blast did that. But,
a worse side effect than not having the digital voice tell him what’s broken,
is when he discovers his eyes have shorted out. All four of the Maximals are
blind, shown by having all their eyes gray. Rhinox shouts at the others when
they freak out about it to get their attention. Rhinox says the damage they
sustained in the blast blinded them and that the damage will get worse over
time. He says they need to go to Beast Mode to slow it down, and hopefully get repairs
started. They revert but are still blind. The transformation is visibly painful
as well, their bodies sparking and jittering. Dinobot swears to rip out Scorponok
and Waspinator’s processors for this. Rhinox says they need to return to base
and get to the repair chamber. Dinobot, still freaking out, asks how they can
do that when blind, but Rhinox says there are other ways to navigate, and they
have no choice. They’ve got 60 cycles (minutes) to get to a recovery chamber or
the contamination will put their sparks out.
Scorponok and Waspinator got close
enough to radio in and get yelled at by Megatron for not finding the bodies to
confirm they are dead. Scorponok apologizes, blames Waspinator and they fall
back to find proof they destroyed half the Maximals.
The Maximals make their way toward
the base, walking in a line with each other’s tail grabbed to help guide.
Rhinox leads, followed by Dinobot, then Cheetor and Rattrap brings up the rear.
Dinobot complains but compliments Rhinox’s plan to follow the scent trail back
to the base. Rhinox stops suddenly, causing a traffic jam when he hears a
noise. They all freeze up trying to figure out what it is. It turns out to be
an anaconda, it drops down and starts constricting Cheetor. Dinobot freaks out
and slams into a tree. Rattrap is able to find Cheetor and bites the snake, but
get’s launched for his trouble. The snake chases after him, probably assuming
the rat is more to his taste than the cheetah. Rattrap starts panicking as the
snake gets close, but Rhinox steps on it before it can grab him. He throws it
aside with his horn and we hear him slam into an elephant, if the sound effects
are accurate. Cheetor is badly damaged from that, so much so that Dinobot says
they should leave him as he’ll only slow them down. Rhinox tells him that’s not
how Maximals operate. They get Cheetor on his back and they head out.
Meanwhile, we learn the others are
on the look out for their missing companions. Tigertron hasn’t found them in
his sector and reports that to Optimus. Optimus tells him he’s setting Sentinel
onto Auto and going to search from the air. He advices Tigertron to radio to
Airazor if he finds them.
Scorponok and Waspinator have
returned to the bomb site. They obviously don’t find anything besides ash. Waspinator
says they must have been vaporized, but Scorponok insists there should be something
left. He tells the wasp to fly higher and look for Energon trails. He Terrorizes
and searches, he spies their trail and Scorponok tells him to fly ahead and
find them.
The Maximals are making their way
to the base. Rhinox smells and hears running water, making him think they’re close
to one of the rivers that feeds into the base. He tells Cheetor to just hang on
a little longer. Cheetor, sounding incredibly tired and depressed, says that he
will.
At the Darksyde, Tarantulas has picked
up an odd reading. It looks like walking Energon. Megatron realizes that at
least one Maximal survived the ambush and is contaminated with a ton of Energon
to get that reading. He orders Terrorsaur to fly out and finish them off.
The Maximals reach a waterfall near
the base. Rattrap is able to find a long bridge and attempts to navigate across
it to see if it’s safe. He makes it thanks to his nose. Unfortunately,
Waspinator flies by as they attempt to cross. He laughs maniacally when he sees
they’re blind. He Terrorizes and fires. Rhinox hears the shot just before it
hits. The bridge is destroyed, and they all fall to the waterfall’s basin. Terrorsaur
joins him and the two Predacons start searching for wreckage.
Thankfully, they survived and
washed down stream. Too bad Rhinox isn’t Hippox, he’d be in his element in the
river. They do their best to hack up the water and orientate themselves.
Dinobot is sure they’re going to die here, as Waspinator isn’t dumb enough to
just assume they’re dead twice on the same day. The flying Predacons find them
and swerve around for an attack. Rhinox orders them to transform and prepare to
fight. Dinobot complains, but Rattrap tells him to just do what he says for
once. They try shoot at the Predacons as they fly by but miss, because of
course they did. They start freaking out, but Rhinox tells them all to picture
a targeting grid in their minds. They do so, Dinobot whines some more, and they’re
able to make a mental grin. Rhinox uses his ears to get a general location and
orders them to fire towards the grid space he calls out. They’re able to hit and
take down Terrorsaur and then Waspinator. Everyone starts shorting out from the
contamination and get stuck in stasis lock. Thankfully, Tigertron found them as
they were firing and radioed Optimus. He flies in and they’re able to get
everyone back to base. The other three thank Rhinox for leading them, Dinobot
snidely. Rhinox think this was a good learning experience for what they’re
capable of in Beast Mode. He reverts to Rhino mode and goes to smell some
flowers.
In general, this was an okay
episode. The blindness and extreme damage to their bodies lead to a unique situation
where they’re all much more vulnerable than they’d otherwise be. It lead to the
battle hungry Dinobot being scared witless on multiple occasions, which was odd
for him. My complaint is that the ‘lesson’ by the end was for the Maximals to
trust their sense in Beast Mode, a lesson they already learned last episode
with not fighting their Beast Modes. And Tigertron arriving to talk them
through the process felt like less of an ex machina than Rhinox randomly coming
up with the targeting grid idea and that working. I’m not too worked up over
it, I can believe three intelligent robots are able to work this sort of mental
computing on the fly, it just annoys me a little. While technically both
episodes 19 and 20 are filler in that they don’t further the plot or delve into
a character more, I’d say this feels more like filler in that it’s largely a
rehash. But that’s just me. Have a good night, everyone.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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