A showdown at High Noon.
Last month of Beast Wars, I
promise. Not sure what’ll be next, but we’ll take a break from this hyper
fixation. Lol
Last time on Beast Wars, we
learned of two new combatants. The fuzors, Silverbolt (wolf with Eagle wings
and claws) and Quickstrike (scorpion with a cobra headed tail) came online and
were discovered by Megatron. He convinces the two, one naïve and one violent,
that they’re Predacons and that their job is to destroy the Maximals.
Silverbolt is clearly not comfortable even with the activation code word of
“Terrorize” so this’ll go well, I’m sure. Meanwhile, the Maximals recover one
of their stasis pods, but the protoform inside is unfortunately a blank, a body
without a Spark. After this, Rhinox decides to go offline. He says the
Transwarp explosion that killed Optimus left a window into Transwarp space
open. He needs to do something in Transwarp space but won’t say what.
Cheetor uses his new jets to spy on Megatron dealing with the fuzors and a
chase begins. Tarantulas also has Blackarachnia transfer his mind back into his
body, giving him a new transmetal look. He also kept a psychic connection to
Blackarachnia’s mind so he can now mentally punish her if she tries to disobey
him. Dinobot breaks into the Predacon base and steals both the golden disks,
hiding one but keeping the other on him. Rattrap and Dinobot get the warning
from Cheetor, and they outfit themselves with weaponry to help. The Three
active Maximals meet the six Predacons, (Megatron, Tarantulas, Inferno,
Quickstrike, Silverbolt, and Waspinator) and face off at high noon because this
is a western now for a little bit. Enough recapping. Let’s get to it, shall we?
We open on the shootout as it
begins. For a six on three fight, the Maximals do really well. They last a
whole 30 seconds before being blasted into a pile. Rattrap smacks Dinobot’s
side, who throws him off. Rattrap shakes off the hit and moans that at times
like this he really misses Optimus. Cheetor suggests flying around and
attacking from above, which Dinobot thinks is a good flanking maneuver. But
then Rattrap points out the Predacons are on a hair trigger by lobbing a rock
into the air above them. It lands about the third it’s original size. Dinobot
suggests trying anyway, but Cheetor just smacks him. They start firing from
cover and praying to Primus. Well… maybe not, I’m not sure if Primus was
established as Transformer god yet…
Anyway, we get a slight continuity
error where Waspinator and Tarantulas are shown just arriving at the fight,
despite being there since the walking lineup earlier. That’s not super
important, but I felt like pointing it out. Megatron tells his troops to
prepare to finish them off. Silverbolt asks them to wait. He points out the
obvious, that they’ve got the Maximals outgunned, outflanked, and they’ve no
hope of winning this fight. When Megatron confirms that’s the situation,
Silverbolt hopefully suggests that they give them a chance to surrender! Megatron
smacks him for this idea, and threatens to tear him limb from mismatched limb
if he questions Megatron’s orders again. He says they’ll finish them off nice
and quick and then asks if any of his minions have more to add. Quickstrike
starts to talk, and Megatron grabs him in a chokehold with his tail-lance
before asking, “yes?” Quickstrike asks if the finishing off could be slow
instead of quick, as he likes to make his enemies squirm a bit. Megatron admits
he likes the idea, but reminds Quickstrike this is a business before pleasure
situation.
Back at the base, Rhinox is still
astral projecting from the ship. He’s connected himself and whatever he’s doing
to the blank Protoform in the cargo hold. Sentinel warns for the second time
that Rhinox has been outside of his body for too long and that his chances of
recovery are decreasing rapidly.
Back at the fight, Tarantulas
telepathically calls to Blackarachnia and demands she hurries with a task he’s
given her. He’s using Megatron’s obsession with finishing off the Maximals as a
distraction, so she’ll have time to steal something. No, not Megatron’s rubber
ducky floaty he uses when he uses the restoration pits, but Megatron’s Golden
Disk backups. While Dinobot took the actual physical disks, he undoubtedly made
copies and recorded them to his private data tracks. She accesses his personal
files only to discover the system was destroyed in the scuffle with Dinobot. Tarantulas
orders her to try to recover something! Megatron notices Tarantulas talking to
himself but can’t figure out why. He is monitoring Tarantulas’ communications
and he’s not using their radio frequencies. Silverbolt distracts him by
pointing out that the Maximals are extremely foolish. They’re outgunned, out
flanked, and are running out of time, so why are they still fighting and not
retreating. Megatron realizes that even without Optimus Primal, the Maximals
wouldn’t be fighting a losing battle without a reason. He does a scan and sees
Rhinox’ ion trail from their base. Megatron orders Waspinator and Silverbolt to
circle wide and attack the Axalon. The Maximals realize they’ve been
fought out, and Rattrap spells it out for us that they need to beat the
Predacons to the base or Rhinox is dead.
Back at the Axalon Sentinel
warns Rhinox’s core consciousness is fading. Rhinox’s mind is still searching
for something, though, and we hear him think/say that what it is, it exists on
the other side of the Matrix.
Rattrap orders Cheetor after the
fliers. When he mentions that he needs a running start to take off, Rattrap
literally kicks him into the sky to help him into the air. He then transforms
into his new wheeled configuration and tells Dinobot to get on. Neither is
happy with this, but he can drive faster than Dinobot can run in either form.
As they fly towards the Axalon,
Waspinator announces to Silverbolt that he’s in command. Silverbolt is very
gracious about following Waspinator, even when the dumb bug takes offense to
Silverbolt agreeing he should lead, because he worded it like an order. They’re
interrupted by Cheetor rocketing toward them and headbutting Waspinator out of
the sky. Man, he’s having a rough day. Cheetor then leads Silverbolt away, with
the implication that ‘well, dogs chase cats (shrug).’ Rattrap and Dinobot head
out and the Predacons are ordered to chase them. Back at the Darksyde,
Blackarachnia recovers some of Megatron’s earlier records on the Golden Disks.
But she’s a clever ol spider and refuses to look at the computer screen, even
when Tarantulas orders her to look. He’s distracted by the fighting and gets
squished when Dinobot breaks a boulder from a cliff wall and it crushes him.
Blackarachnia uses her few minutes separated from Tarantulas to have the
computer download and triple encrypt the Golden Disk files for her.
Dinobot and Rattrap lead Megs and
Inferno on a merry chase. Dinobot bies them a little time by shooting Inferno’s
turbine and he crashes into Megatron, causing the two to briefly switch heads
in the crash. Tarantulas recovers and demands to know what Blackarachnia saw.
She claims the records were booby trapped and exploded before she could get
anything, showing her hiding her harpoon launcher behind her back, in case you
weren’t paying attention. Lucky for her that Tarantulas can’t scan her memories,
it seems.
Cheetor reaches the base and orders
the auto-guns online. They shoot down Silverbolt when he attempts to transform.
Cheetor then gets his tail-sword to Silverbolt’s throat when Rattrap and
Dinobot join them. Silverbolt doesn’t want them to delay the inevitable and
tells them to get on with destroying him. Dinobot attempts to do the honors but
the other two stop him, Cheetor saying that’s not how Optimus would want them
acting. Dinobot is annoyed by the sentiment but goes along with it. Rattrap
orders him to take Silverbolt to the CR chamber for repairs while he checks on
Rhinox. They come in as Rhinox returns to his body. Rattrap pops him out of the
pod he was using and asks where he went. Rhinox cryptically says he went to
“where all are one.” Oh damn. He says he hopes his ion trail will last long
enough. Cheetor reports that the Predacons are launching an all-out assault.
Rattrap announces they’re all going to die. Rhinox shrugs and says it happens,
but ‘miracles happen too.’ And they head out for more fighting.
The Predacons unleash a barrage on
the Axalon, overloading the shields. As they get battered, we see
something follow the wires from Rhinox station to the pod, its lid opening. We
get a weird scene of something crawling through the base, opening the CR
chamber and letting Silverbolt out. The shields collapse, and the Maximals
starts shooting. They’re weapons quickly run dry, though, as they’ve been
fighting all day. Dinobot waves his sword at them but gets shot in the stomach.
The Maximals get overwhelmed. They’re badly damaged, out of ammo, and can
barely move. The sun raises and we’re once again briefly in a Western as the Villainous
Five Predacons prepare to finish them off. They march in and reload their
weapons so they can enjoy it. Dinobot says at least they go with honor, and
Megatron says to “Finish it.”
A hole gets blown in the Axalon
as the Predacons all gasp in shock. A large Maximal with a very familiar helmet
design announces, “Well, that’s just PRIME!” as his combat music plays. Optimus
is back and he’s a transmetal too! The Maximals are excited to see their leader
back, and Megatron orders the Predacons to destroy him. Optimus then single
handedly drives them off with his new cannons and then leaps into the air in
Beast Mode astride a skateboard, leading the Predacons away. Megatron announces
flight is no longer his advantage and flies after him. tricks Inferno into
blasting Tarantulas and Waspinator before they have a quickdraw contest. Optimus
shoots and takes Inferno out. Megatron arms his T-Rex arm guns and announces,
“Hello and goodbye, Transmetal Optimus Primal!” right before Silverbolt tackles
him and knocks him off a cliff. He says to consider his resignation and asks to
join the Maximals. He knows in his Spark that they’re who he’s meant to fight
with. Optimus says “I like your resume” and welcomes him in.
Later, the others get repaired, and
they fill Optimus in on what happened since he’d been gone. He asks how the new
bodies handle Energon build up. They tell him that it’s not an issue anymore.
Their sector got hit with the full blast of the death moon and it either ignited
the Energon deposits or converted them into stable Energon cubes. Optimus says
he’s got catching up to do, the first on the list is getting Rattrap to clear
his junk out of his quarters. Dinobot smacks him for being opportunistic vermin.
Back at the Darksyde,
Megatron sums up what Blackarachnia has told him of what happened since he’d
left to get the fuzors. Namely that Dinobot stole the disks and destroyed his
backups. He asks if she’s sure his disks were destroyed, and Tarantulas dangles
down on an Energon thread to ask as well. She insists nothing was recoverable
and Megatron slams Tarantulas up against a wall in frustration. He then
switches his feet to skate mode and glides around his base, saying that they’ve
entered a new phase of the Beast Wars. He transforms into T-Rex mode, saying
future developments should be interesting. Blackarachnia agrees they’ll be
interesting indeed, as binary code flashes across her eyes, reminding us she
does in fact have Megatron’s Golden Disk data.
I watched this episode back in 1997,
and several times since over the years with rewatches. I knew how and
when Optimus would return. But still, that entrance is hype as hell even just
shy of 25 years later. His new form takes a bit of getting used to, the pointed
teeth I’ve never been a fan of, but this was definitely the entrance he
deserved. I liked the build up to his return, with the Maximals having to fight
tooth and nail to buy Rhinox the time to work. This is one of the rare times where
we see the transformers build up battle damage as the fighting went on. Most of
the time they’re blown to pieces or maybe damaged to a degree, but then they’re
taken out of the scene. We don’t usually see cracked optics or burned and
broken bits of armor for as long as we do. It really sells how tough a battle
this all was. The show doesn’t officially explain what Rhinox was doing, but it
seems like the idea was that he basically used transwarp space to reach back to
the point where Optimus’ body was destroyed, leaving a trail for his spark to
follow through space/time to take the blank body as his new one. So ya, Rhinox
time traveled Optimus Mind/Soul to a new body. Neat. I liked Silverbolt’s arc
across this two-part story. He is incredibly naïve and trusting, but smart
enough to realize when things aren’t adding up. Megatron’s abusive and cruel
attitude as compared to the Maximals being willing to not execute him on the
spot and even repair him makes it clear which side the white knight here
belongs on. Get used to the horns blaring, by the way, they get used a lot when
he’s being all… Silverbolty. Megatron’s promise at the end of the episode that
things will be interesting is very much going to be paid off in episodes to
come. We’ve got new forms, new characters, minor politics shifting, things are
heating up. I should note that with Terrorsaur’s death, we will be seeing
Tarantulas picking up the treachery slack, as he’s now the primary rogue
element in the Predacon ranks. Just a heads up. But more on that later. Have a
good night.
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Bluesky: @basicssuperhero.bsky.social
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