Official Episode Discussion S4 Ep 24: Tale of Tigerclaw
 

Just a few hours before the newest episode of season 4.

This episode it looks as though we are finally getting Tigerclaw's backstory, and also being introduced to a new character by the name of Alopex.

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Who is Alopex? What is her relation to Tigerclaw? And what does she want with those twin swords?

Watched, but I prefer to talk about it once ir airs on Nick. Anyway, Tiger Claw and Alopex's story is really interesting.

Great episode but it did have some strange moments in it, Splinter training the turtles while drunk :lol:

Alopex is awesome, hope we see more of her in season 5.

We find out Tiger Claw real name and I assume he killed there parents.

Poor Casey avoiding death a lot, it felt like I was watching a Final Destination movie :lol:

Shocking moment of the episode, Alopex cutting Tiger Claw's hand off and even seeing his decapitated hand onscreen.:o

Raph: He won't be able to clap anymore :lol:

Clever episode title. That's about it.

Otherwise, a complete waste of time.

Intoxication, dismemberment, on Nickelodeon?! :tlol: Holy chalupas. The team really skirts around those censors, eh? Dope episode.

Don't forget the drug addiction too, Tiger Claw getting high on catnip :lol:

That was episode was absolutely amazing.
It looks like in the next episode or the one after the mighty mutanimals might be coming back because of the conversation with Mikey and Leo in the party waggon

- T.C. said that Stockman has tried to stabilize Shredder’s mutation for months, so apparently months have passed since Darkest Plight.

- The turtles have been graduated to the next dan. Splinter says that there’s nothing to give them, but wisdom. That means that Splinter has finally teached them everything they need in terms of combat? Because you know …

- This was already said in the last episode, but Donnie confirms that now April’s power levels are augmented, but not as powerful as they were when she had the crystal. And apparently she has the ability to analyze people’s auras.

- And of course: Tiger Claw (Takeshi) and Alopex were actually humans, and siblings. They were experimented by Kraang for months. Their relationship was actually good. But Alopex discovered that Takeshi were responsible for what happened to their parents (I wanna know!!) and she is decided to take revenge. Takeshi insists that everything he wanted was to protect her from a world that doesn’t accept them (I can see a paralell with Shredder-Karai here).

Very surprising to me as well. Also, curses.

Well with the finale just ahead, this was a nice way to tell the most enriching story of Tigerclaw, and I find it ironic to see the circus given that Ringling Bros./Barnum & Bailey will soon have its last show. Sure, I saw the Casey curse coming from five minutes away after Splinter's Aura comments, but good to see how April comes through without being so over the top like in other episodes, and I like Alopex!

Show grade: 8/10

Awesome episode. I love Alopex and her relationship to Tiger Claw. She is definitely fierce and not afraid to do whatever it takes to get revenge, even cutting off his hand! I loved the training session also and also felt like I was watching a Final Destination movie with all of the curse references and near misses. I couldn't believe they got away with showing Tiger Claw's decapitated hand on screen, but that was cool to see! Overall a very awesome episode and I hope we see more of Alopex in the future.

Audible sigh.

Where do I begin? This episode is way long overdue, so it already has that working against it. But that's nothing compared to all the things that this episode gets wrong, but the main problem can be simply put into a few words: this episode is way too crowded.

This is the backstory for Tiger Claw -- a character brand-new to this series. You have to make sure that it's good and/or hard-hitting. I like how Tiger Claw and Alopex both get to tell their sides of the story, but it just doesn't get enough time to set in or to be dramatic. I personally would've liked to see what Alopex's breaking-point was; what was Tiger Claw going to make her do that made her turn on him? What was their relationship actually like? As far as I can recall, the only times you saw these two interact is when they were fighting. One of the most important things you have to do as a writer is to make sure that the audience will care about characters that are fighting or are in some kind of conflict. This episode simply does not do that. You need to have these details if you're doing a backstory episode. It's crucial for tensions to be gradually increased for any sort of dramatic effect to be had. I guarantee Alopex would've been a more likable and interesting character and Tiger Claw's hand getting cut off would have seemed like a much more important event if the backstory was handled with more care or if they simply gave it more time.

And that's the main problem with this episode -- they simply didn't give it enough time. That's not at the fault of the 22-minute runtime of this episode, either. That's at the fault of including a rather stupid and pointless subplot involving Casey, which ends up taking the front seat for this episode anyway. I don't think I'm breaking anyone's heart when I say Casey is one of, if not the worst character in this show right now. The very last thing I want to see is a subplot greatly involving him overshadowing a potentially much better plot.

This is essentially my main point: if they took the pointless Casey subplot out of this episode and devoted the entire episode to simply the conflict between Tiger Claw and Alopex and how the Turtles get involved, we would've had a less-crowded episode, and we would've had a much better episode.

On top of the plot, there are other things, like the humor. I have to applaud Gavin Hignight for doing such a good job with the writing in the previous episode. I legitimately burst out laughing at many of the jokes. But now we're right back to square one with this episode. This episode has some of the lamest, groan-worthy material I've seen in this show in a good long time. Rocksteady beat-boxing, Casey's constant catchphrase shoutings, the stupid catnip joke that nobody has surely ever heard before, etc. The Casey subplot I just bad-mouthed did get a few chuckles out of me, but that's mostly because I hate this iteration of Casey, and the only time he's likable to me is apparently seeing him almost die multiple times. As soon as he was free of the curse, I was reminded how much I despise his character. As usual, I enjoy Rocksteady's Russian stereotype talking, but this episode did not do it for me at all in terms of humor.

And of course, there's the usual crap you get from a post-Season 2 episode, like the characters barely qualifying as being in-character, the stupid April psychic-powers bullsh*t, etc.

All in all, if you somehow read through this clusterf*ck of a post, my main point is this unnecessarily-crowded episode was a huge missed opportunity and a great big let-down after last week's gem.

Catnip? :ohwell:

Need to watch the episode past the intro, but wow...

I liked it alot. I hope to see more Alopex in the future.

Not a bad episode, but for some reason I actually enjoyed the Korean version (and voices, although English was also great) more for once, and that's probably because some things were somewhat odd/weird when hearing it in English.

The side-plot with Casey was too humorous and took too much away from the main plot, which now felt crowded and rushed. Like Aarnardo said, it needed more time to develop. The backstory about Alopex and Tigerclaw felt underdeveloped. We get what happened but how did it happen? And why? And for some reason I couldn't get fully into the feud. During the Korean episode that wasn't really a problem because you could fill in the gaps, but here it felt something was missing.

Rocksteady "beat-boxing" felt out of place as well.

Loved the training scene in the beginning though, that was well done.

If the crew can get passed the censors and get away with cutting Tiger Claws hand off and showing the decapitated hand on screen, what to stop them from doing there own version of IDW issue 44 and have one of the turtles (not Donnie or Leo) get there shell smashed. :o

They did have a Turtle near death, it's called The Power Inside Her. Look how that worked out. :roll:

I don't think they'll kill a Turtle again; if they did, it'd be the same thing as that aforementioned episode.

I don't count that as a near death, because Donnie just disappeared into thin air.

I want to see a turtle with a physical wound/near death. I don't want to talk about it too much here because it includes a spoiler from the last 2 episodes but i'll talk about it more in the Korean thread.

I loved this episode!
I can't believe they got away with so much.
Drunken Splinter and Alopex cutting off Tiger Claws arm at the end.:o
I have to wonder if he's going to become Verminator-X.

You got that with Leo in both Earth's Last Stand as well as The Invasion, part 2.

As for near death, then you'd have to deal with comments you brought up before:

Obviously that's the death route, but my point is at this point, what's the point of constant fake outs? Not withstanding spoilers from the upcoming episodes, but it's too monotone as a result of overusage. It's lost all luster for Donatello and especially Leonardo; I highly doubt they'd hurt Michelangelo for now due to him being the most marketable Turtle, Raphael maybe but the characterization of him makes it difficult to judge if it would work or not.