A Hail Mary plan to save the day.
Last time on Beast Wars, the
aliens made contact. Rattrap and Airazor were the first to reach the alien site
just before it morphed from an open location of standing stones into a closed
off temple. Rattrap is knocked outside of it, while Airazor is painfully
scanned by the aliens. Optimus arrives along with the Predacons, though
Megatron is ‘kind’ enough to order Scorponok to blow a hole in the building
with a poison missile. They enter and Rattrap gets Airazor out, but Optimus
stays behind to try to talk to the aliens. He’s grabbed and violently scanned
again. The aliens appear to him in the form of Unicron’s giant disembodied head
to show Optimus the gravity of the situation. The aliens tell Optimus that
regardless of their reasoning, the Transformers have ruined whatever project
they’d been working on here and they were activating a termination sequence.
The closer of the planets two moons is revealed to be a giant WMD that is now
being charged with Energon to prepare it for scourging the planet. Meanwhile,
Tarantulas is desperate to get off the planet to avoid this very fate, and gets
the idea from Blackarachnia to break onto the Axalon to steal one of
their stasis pods when he learned it’d be over a day before the next orbiting
pod landed. Megatron anticipated this scheme as he’s actively spying on all of
his minions and ordered Inferno to follow them. As the doom moon is powering
up, the spider’s knock out both Dinobot and Rhinox, and Tarantulas ominously
calls the weapon “The beginning of the end.” Enough recapping. Let’s get to it,
shall we?
We begin the finale with a few from
space as the doom moon is powering up by syphoning Energon from the surface. It
seems to be growing bigger as it does. Cheetor and Tigerton were on patrol
together and watch it for a few minutes, Cheetor asking what it is and Tigerton
rightly calling it, ‘The light at the end of the world.” Optimus radios them to
tell them to regroup at the base so he can explain what’s going on. He’s
rocketing towards the base as we speak, Rattrap clinging to his back as he
often does, and Airazor flying alongside him. Rattrap announces for the
fiftieth time that they’re all going to die, but Optimus tells him to stow that
talk as Rhinox will figure out a way to save them.
At the site, the upload of energy
seems to be complete as the temple disappears, and the alien announces that
it’s returning to Nexus Zero.
The Predacons are monitoring the
situation and both Terrorsaur and Scorponok think it’s gone. Megatron calls
them dolts for even thinking it was ever a moon and tells them to do a deep
space scan. We see that the larger outer shell was concealing two rings, one
encircling the other. The central ring expands into a flower shape, and
Megatron calls it the instrument of their destruction. He has the others seal
their base and charge the shields to maximum. He initiates program Zero Hour.
The plan seems to hinge on Tarantulas’ escape attempt, as the Darksyde’s
computer tracks his location to the Maximal base. Upon learning that he’s in
the Maximal base and their shield is down, he has the computer scan using the
alien frequency. Through it he learns that two Maximals are in the base but
offline, and that the spiders and Inferno are inside. He’s happy to learn his
little drone is still with the spiders and prepares to sit and wait.
In the stasis pod hold, Tarantulas
is frantically programming one of the pods to make the pod space worthy.
Blackarachnia joins him. She makes the observation that the one pod would be
snug for two but then switches to a flirty line about how that might be
romantic. Tarantulas at this point is not even amused with her flirty comments
and says that he has a megacycle (hour) to get this ready and he doesn’t have
time for her banter. As he gets back to work, Blackarachnia pulls her blaster
on him, saying he won’t have to put up with it for much longer, but is then
shot by Inferno. The Ant says that the Royalty will be interested to learn what
the spider’s are up to. He tries to radio their boss but can’t get through the
static. Tarantulas tries to shoot the gun out of his hand, but Inferno catches
the bolt, catches his gun and sets Tarantulas alight. Tarantulas screams as he
runs through the halls of the ship before colliding with a wall and passing
out.
The computer warns Megatron that
the upload of data to the pod has stopped and Tarantulas is now offline. He
angrily shouts, “NO!” and demands to know what that fool has done.
Optimus and company reach the Axalon
and aren’t happy to learn the shield is down. Airazor spots the cats and
says they’re nearly there. Rattrap says that’s great and now they can all be
reduced to hot burning scrap together. Airazor and Optimus tell him in unison,
“Shut up, Rattrap!”
In the hold, Inferno examines the
modified pod but is jumped by Blackarachnia in spider mode. She bites him and
that seems to mess with his aim. They have a quick fight, with the smaller
spider ultimately stealing his blaster and shooting him in the face. She grabs
Tarantulas’ headgear and plugs herself into Tarantulas’ mind to get access to
his data tracks to finish the ship. We see a psychedelic image of a
Blackarachnia avatar entering Tarantulas’ lab and snooping for the data she
need before we hear Tarantulas’ chittering laughter. She’s briefly surrounded
by Tarantulas’ heads before she gets out of his head, screaming.
The Maximals find the base empty,
Dinobot and Rhinox nowhere to be seen. That is until Airazor steps on some of
the spider’s Energon silk and they see their missing companions webbed to the
ceiling. The cats are ordered to get Rhinox and Dinobot to the R Chamber for
repairs and Airazor and Rattrap to look for the spiders. Rattrap asks why they
can’t just let Sentinel handle it, and Optimus tells him they can’t spare the
power. He also tells his hunters that he wants the spiders functional, making
Rattrap whine about him ruining the fun.
Megatron’s computer informs him
that the data upload has resumed, which is good. But then Scorponok tells him
the doom moon is powering up. We get an ariel shot of the weapon charging its
main gun and firing. Optimus tells Sentinel to get the shields up. Sentinel
tells him that the shields are holding but the outside heat is hitting 140 RADS
and climbing. That’s enough radiation to cause cancer in mammals, just an FYI.
Optimus realizes that the weapon is going to heat the Energon deposits until
they all ignite. The boom will be massive if that happens. Megatron explains
that it will be a big enough boom to rip the planet to atoms and remove all
traces of the alien’s existence. He’s impressed by the showmanship, if nothing
else. “I rather like these aliens,” as he puts it. The others are panicking
slightly, though Scorponok says that Megatron will save them. Megatron says
he’s going to leave that to Tarantulas. He tries to reestablish a link with the
Maximal base but the shields are back up.
Rattrap and Airazor search the ship
for the spiders. Meanwhile, Blackarachnia finishes setting up the pod. Before
she can celebrate, the hunters pull their guns on her head and say, “whoopy for
you,” Blackarachnia calmly reminds them both they have a truce. The RADS have
hit 300 and are climbing. Optimus tells Sentinel to modulate shields as
necessary. The heat is getting so bad it’s causing the Axalon to shake
on its foundation. Optimus asks Cheetor how long before Rhinox is functional,
and he says about a megacycle (hour). He took a big hit of cyber venom. Optimus
then asks Sentinel how long they have based on the present data, and Sentinel
says about 28 cycles (minutes). Rattrap radios in and tells Optimus to get to
the hold.
They examine the pod and Optimus
says that it might fly. Rather insulted by this, Blackarachnia says it WILL
fly, but only for her. She’d set it only to respond to her commands. Optimus
demands she change it to accept his, and when she doesn’t immediately comply,
he has Sentinel remind everyone they’ve got 20 minutes to figure this out. The
others question the plan, Rattrap pointing out that he’s pretty sure Tarantulas
didn’t build this thing to duke it out with a planet buster. Optimus thinks
that if the doom moon follows other alien artifact’s designs, it was built for
a singular purpose, one it’s fulfilling so it’ll be too busy to defend itself.
Rattrap sarcastically asks if he’s going to beat it into submission with a
heroic speech and Optimus says, “No, a transwarp explosion.” Blackarachnia says
he’ll blow himself to atom and laughs. Optimus points out that if it works,
it’ll be worth it, and if it doesn’t, well, they aren’t going to be any worse
off. Blackarachnia gets to work reprogramming the pod. Everyone volunteers to
do this instead of Optimus, except Rattrap who says suicide isn’t in his job
description. Optimus agrees it’s not in his either and asks everyone to get to
work rigging the Transwarp cell to explode with just enough of a delay for him
to get clear.
The pod is finished, and Optimus
gets inside. Blackarachnia asks if he realizes that this is crazy, and he
shrugs and says sometimes crazy works. The others say goodbye to their leader,
Tigertron and Airazor give heartfelt goodbyes, and Rattrap asks if he can have
Optimus’ quarters if he doesn’t come back. Classic Rattrap. Optimus says no and
tells his crew that they’re the finest beings he’s every served with.
Blackarachnia asks if Maximals always talk such slop, and Airazor punches her
in the face. Optimus lies back and takes off.
The pod has difficulty flying
through the heated air but gradually climbs. Once it’s clear of the shield,
Megatron realizes that Optimus is in the ship instead of Tarantulas, and he
dubs this turn of events ‘delicious.’ The Maximals get their monitoring equipment
working, Cheetor saying he used a trick Rhinox taught him to get a micro pulse
out. He wishes Rhinox was with them. Rhinox does come to in the R chamber and
seems to sense his friend is in danger.
Optimus reaches nearest point and
commences ignition sequence on the bomb. He tries to blow the pod hatch, but
Sentinel tells him it’s magnetically sealed. Optimus says that’s impossible,
but Megatron transmits to him that it is quite possible. He says it’s amazing
that they both thought of the same plan to destroy the weapon, but in
Megatron’s version the pilot goes down with the ship. The Maximals on the
ground don’t know what’s going on and wonder why he hasn’t blown the pod yet.
Blackarachnia suddenly speaks in Tarantulas voice and says “It’s too late.
Goodbye, Optimus Primal.” Megatron points out how all Optimus’s seemed to love
making heroic sacrifices. He tells Optimus that this one, though, will see his
troops dead. He announces that the Beast Wars are over and that the Maximals
lose. As the pod hits the doom moon, Optimus screams, “MEGATRON!” before being
destroyed, along with the doom moon. It unleashes a massive blast wave of energy,
and we unfortunately see bits of Optimus mixed with the wreckage. The episode
ends with an ominous “The End?” title card.
Nearly 30 years after first
premiering and that finale still gives me chills. I mean, as an adult I can
really appreciate how insane it is to end a season on your hero dead, the
villains in a position to seize victory, and there’s no guarantee at the time
of making it that you’ll get another season. The gambit clearly worked as we
get two more seasons, but that had to be at least a little nerve wracking back
in production. Optimus choosing to risk his life to stop the attack, and
Megatron ultimately using that against him, is very on brand for the character.
I would say from a purely logical standpoint that yes, Airazor would make more
sense as she’s the more expendable flier of the Maximal forces, but Optimus
would 100% never allow a subordinate to do something he wouldn’t do himself.
Their goodbyes all felt on brand, even Rattrap’s flippant remark about getting
Optimus’ quarters. Scavengers gotta scavenge. This final reveal of Megatron
rigging the pod to explode is what cemented him in my mind as the superior
tactician of the two Megatrons. Don’t get me wrong, classic D-16 Megatron is a
brilliant commander and a warlord, but from what I remember of the G1 series,
most of his plans are more… brute force than this. He’s all about new troops,
bigger weapons, one off technologies, and yelling at Starscream. I just don’t
see him coming up with a fiendish plan to trick one of his most traitorous
subordinates into kamikaze-ing the doom moon and instead getting his rival in
the trap. It’s a diabolical plan. But
this plan will have a few… unforeseen side effects, but I’ll get into that next
time. Have a good night, everyone.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/posts/viewer-log-beast-137600242
Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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