Megatron goes recruiting.
Last time on Beast Wars,
both sides went through some big changes. Within a few minutes of Optimus
Primal’s death, both Maximals and Predacons were hit with a Quantum Energy
Surge created by the Transwarp cell detonating within the alien doom moon. The
surge painfully upgraded several Transformers, Megatron, Cheetor, Rattrap and
Tarantulas, into new “Transmetal” forms, giving them more vehicle-like beast
modes. The Maximals did their best to check on Rhinox and Dinobot while also
searching for Blackarachnia. The Spider escapes, dragging Tarantulas’ body with
her. The elder spider has infected her mind, allowing him to telepathically
cause her pain if she disobeys him. Tigertron and Airazor nearly capture her,
but Megatron arrives with Waspinator, and they have a standoff. Megatron nearly
finishes off Cheetor and Rattrap but is distracted when Rhinox hurls Inferno
out of the Axalon and then grabs his machine guns. After the fight,
Rattrap announces that the Beast Wars just got a whole lot weirder. Unbeknownst
to him, two Stasis pods crashed and activated their DNA sequencers, but were
heavily damaged, one of the protoforms bursting from the metal container before
the credits roll. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
We open on a gnarled tree during a
storm. We’re show the two crashed and damaged stasis pods before cutting back
to the Darksyde. Megatron and Inferno head out to claim these new troops
before the Maximals can. Waspinator is left to watch the base and notes that
with the destruction of the Doom Moon, there’s only one Moon in the sky now. He
also notes some unusual markings and says that he ‘knows’ before darting
inside. Dinobot watches him go from the cliffs near the crashed ship. He’s
sighted by a turret and shot at. He dodges and notices a pit of mud. Pulling a
Dutch, Dinobot coats himself in Mud to hide from the turret’s scanner, gets in
close and destroys it.
Waspinator heads into Megatron’s
vault and sees both Golden Disks floating in a stasis field. He tries to grab
one but is blasted back by the field, landing at the feet of the mud covered Dinobot.
He grabs Waspinator by the head and disarms him. He asks Waspinator if he noticed
about the moon, Waspinator does, and Dinobot realizes that Megatron had been
right all along. The coordinates they got from the Golden Disk, aka the Sounds of
Earth, and the Transwarp drive had taken them to a prehistoric Earth, one that
was unrecognizable due to the interference, or lack thereof, of the Aliens. Waspinator
says that the disks gives record of the future, ultimate Power. Waspinator
suggests that they team up and steal the disks together, Dinobot thinks that’s
a great idea. He hurls Waspinator at the field, temporarily disabling it as it
shocks him. He casually grabs the Golden disks as Waspinator is ripped to pieces.
He’s then also compacted into a tight cube, because the universe hates
Waspinator. Blackarachnia comes in, kicking Tarantulas’ body across the floor
as she does. Dinobot escapes with the disks. Tarantulas demand Blackarachnia to
go after him, but she refuses, not realizing how powerful the disks are. Tarantulas
tells her fine, and they go to transfer his mind back into his body. As they
walk off, Waspinator drags himself away, complaining about how no one cares
about him and how he’ll drag himself to the CR Chamber for repairs.
The Maximals gather around a pod, having
recovered one near their base. Rattrap’s happy this one landed near them, but Cheetor
reminds him two more landed in Predacon territory, and there’s no telling where
the others landed. We learn that Tigertron and Airazor are headed out to try to
find out this very moment. Both Rhinox and Cheetor wish them well, Rhinox
saying that they’re part of this world and to let it guide them, and Cheetor
asking the Big Cat to look after himself. He chuckles and says, “I will,” to
the Little Cat. Rattrap complains about everyone getting schmaltzy and suggests
they pop the Stasis Pod and welcome their new buddy. Rhinox then tells him they
can’t, this pod has a blank protoform. There’s a body inside, but no Spark to give
it life. Rattrap asks what good this’ll do them. Rhinox says none, yet, and that
they can only hope Megatron has similar luck.
We return to the damage pods to see
that, no, their luck isn’t that good. Their crashes have critically damaged the
DNA sequences, and the pods data tracks. The multiple system errors lead to… interesting
results. One pod unleashes a Transmetal Scorpion with a Cobra head for a tail,
and the other a wolf with eagle claws and wings. The wolf seems very confused,
but the Scorpion has serious anger issues and immediately attacks the wolf to
prove he’s the toughest. Their fight is interrupt by Inferno flying in and
shooting at them both. The Scorpion attacks Inferno, biting him with his cobra-head
tail. Inferno doesn’t bat an eye, saying pain is his friend and that he’ll gladly
introduce the Scorpion to it. He whips the Scorpion around with his tail. The
wolf calls that dirty fighting and tries to help. Inferno shoots at him.
Megatron watches from a distance, he enjoys the fighting, but then has his
computer to access the new Transformers activation codes while they’re
distracted. When that’s done, he slaps Inferno away with his tail, muttering to
himself, ‘Goodbye bad cop, hello good cop.” He introduces himself to the new Transformers,
claiming Inferno attacking them is just a misunderstanding. He claims they’re
all Predacons here, and that they’d know this if their data tracks weren’t
damaged. The wolf takes Megatron at his word, but the Scorpion is much more warry.
Megatron asks for their names, and they introduce themselves as Quickstrike,
the scorpion, and Silverbolt, the wolf. Megatron clearly knows Silverbolt is going
to be annoying for him, but continues his rues, telling them they just need to
say “Terrorize” to transform. Quickstrike does so first, followed by
Silverbolt. Quickstrike’s robot mode uses his Cobra-head tail and scorpion legs
for his arms, his scorpion claws becoming his feet. Silverbolt effectively does
a handstand, his eagle front paws becoming his legs and his back legs his arms.
Silverbolt clearly doesn’t like the word at all, but Quickstrike loves it. He
uses his Corba-tail arm to blast Inferno with a poison shot.
Back with the Maximals, Rhinox is
working on a device of some kind while Rattrap complains about their luck. He
mentions how half their team is currently gone (Optimus is scrap, Dinobot disappeared,
and Tigertron and Airazor went on their scouting mission) which makes it insane
that Rhinox is about to go offline to do something. He says that the
explosion that destroyed the alien weapon opened a hole into Transwarp space,
and he needs to do something there while he can. Rattrap tries to stop him, but
Rhinox isn’t listening. As ranking officer, Rattrap tells Cheetor to take off
and try to find Dinobot before they get attacked. As Cheetor races off, Rattrap
shakes his head and asks Optimus how he did it.
Meanwhile, Dinobot is performing a
remix of Hamlet’s “To Be” speech, wondering if the golden disks show
what WILL be, or only what MAY be. The idea that he lives in a determinist
universe terrifies him and he claims he’ll end himself if he discovers that to
be the case. He briefly considers destroying the golden disks but says that
would be the coward’s way. He buries one of them instead, planning to think it
over more.
In his lab, Tarantulas transfers
his consciousness from Blackarachnia into his new Transmetal form. He screams “I
LIVE” like he’s Dr. Frankenstein and the Creature at the same time.
Megatron continues to lie to the
new Transformers, claiming teamwork and cooperation are part of the Predicon
way. Quickstrike asks if Treachery and Backstabbing is part of that way too,
and Megatron laughs, saying they’re flexible. Clearly, Quickstrike is going to be
a great addition. He tells them that they need to focus on the destruction of
the Maximals, though. He then sees Cheetor flying by and says they’ll have
their chance to do so right now. He shoots at Cheetor and orders Silverbolt to
pursuit and kill him. Silverbolt is confused by the order, asking why he’d hurt
someone that did nothing to him. Megatron shoots him tiny T-Rex hand guns and
angrily tells Silverbolt to NEVER question him again. They all transform into
flight mode, with Inferno carrying Quickstrike.
Cheetor has clearly gotten better
at flying since the last episode, leading the Predacons into a canyon and
flying them around pillars of stone. He takes out Silverbolt, but Megatron just
brute forces his way after him. Cheetor radios back to Rattrap and tells him he’s
leading a Predacon parade back to them. Rattrap activates Sentinel and tries to
wake up Rhinox, but Sentinel warns him that Rhinox’s core consciousness has
left his body, and if he’s disturbed before it gets back, he could die. Rattrap
whines about terrible timing when Dinobot comes back in, hiding the alien
Golden disk behind his back. Rattrap asks where he’d been, “saving the world?”
and Dinobot says “possibly.” He brings up the Maximal armory as Rattrap
explains the situation to him, namely that Cheetor is on his way with Predacons
in toe and if anything happens to the base Rhinox is dead. They get outfitted
for war and head out. Rattrap races off in car mode first, sees Megatron chasing
Cheetor and shoots him down. Megatron lands and transforms, ordering all Predacons
to regroup around him.
In his lab, Transmetal Tarantulas
takes menacing steps towards Blackarachnia. She tells him to stay back, or she’ll
shoot, only for Tarantulas to reveal he kept a link to her mind intact,
allowing him to control her movements, and to psychically torture her if she
displeases him. Megatron interrupts him before he can make Blackarachnia shoot
herself in the head. Waspinator gets out of the CR Pit at that moment and tries
to tell Megatron about what happened with Dinobot and the Golden Disk, but
Megatron tells him to shut up and get to his position.
We see the forces gather, Cheetor,
Dinobot, and Rattrap vs. Megatron, Tarantulas, Waspinator, Silverbolt, Quickstrike,
and Inferno. For some reason some stereotypical cowboy music plays as they load
their guns and prepare to have an OK Corral standoff. The episode ends as
everyone prepares to fire on each other. Hell of a way to end an episode.
This episode is considered part 1
of a Two-parter called Coming of the Fuzors, referring to Quickstrike and
Silverbolt, but honestly it could be considered “Aftermath” part 2 of 3. I like
that we’re taking multiple parts to deal with the major paradigm shift that was
the death of Optimus and the near cataclysm of what has been revealed to be
prehistoric Earth. Speaking of that and the Golden Disks, be prepared for a lot
of Dinobot angst this season. The bot seems deeply disturbed by the thought
that he is not the arbiter of his own fate and is going to spend a lot of time
wrestling with what he should do about the disks. Fun fact, my introduction to
Shakespear was Dinobot cribbing lines from Hamlet and a few other of his
works, and from characters like Macbeth being a recurring antagonist in Gargoyles.
The 90s was a weird time, man. Silverbolt and Quickstrike are nice new
additions to the cast. When I first saw Quickstrike I kind of assumed he’d end
up more or less sliding into Scorponok’s position, just with a Texan accent and
a love of Cowboy desperado talk. But nope, the similarities to the late
Scorponok was just in the general shape of his beast form. I like how they
seemed to go out of their way to subvert expectations with this second scorpion
by giving him a truly bonkers robot mode. Imagine, claws for feet! I also think
it’s interesting that of the two, he looks more like the new Transmetal forms,
while Silverbolt seems more naturalistic. … You know what I mean, he looks like
a wolf-eagle, not like a robot wolf-eagle. And with Silverbolt I like that he
was an innately good person. From minute one he showed a kindness and decency
that Quickstrike was sorely lacking. He’s extremely naïve, obviously, as he
took Megatron’s word as true with zero proof, but he still has good instincts. Like,
he doesn’t even really know what Terrorize means but still doesn’t like using
it. Hopefully that good nature will get him to make the right choice in the
coming battle. Obviously, I know what he ends up doing, but I like talking about
these shows like I’m seeing them for the first time, you know that. So, the
Maximals are outnumbered two to one, if any of the Predacons can get past them
and attack Rhinox he’s dead, and their only backup at the moment would be him
unless they get a Hail Mary of some kind. Won’t you come and see how it plays
out? Next month. For tomorrow, is Superman (2025) day. Have a good
night.
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