Official Episode Discussion S4 Ep 16: Broken Foot

[victory_angel]

Leo apparently hasn't learned his lesson about going off on his own as he secretly joins forces with Karai and finds himself in serious Danger.

Will Leo truly be acting on his own, or will a certain Foot Clan witch be responsible for turning him rogue?

[snake]

Pretty excited about this episode. I hope Dark Leo is more Dork Leo with him attempting to act "cool" in front of Karai and Shinigami.

[KrN]

The episode is out on iTunes! https://itunes.apple.com/us/tv-seaso...s/id1134575658

[Vicky82]

Oh my god!!!!!!!!! that was intense and has to be my favorite episode so far.

Leo become a vigilante and helping Karai and Shinigami out and keeping a secret from the others. They were obviously angry when they found out.

Chompy and Ice Cream kitty don't get along and Chompy breaths fire.

Poor Donnie, he got injured by saving Mikey and Raph when the Auman Chemical plant was blown up. I loved that Mikey, Raph and Leo ran up and hugged him when he woke up.

The best funny moment has to be the 2007 movie reference that Raph said he wanted to dress up as a vigilante but got talked out of it.

Karia can cure her injuries by turning into her snake form.

[Redworld96]

Spoiler:

April: “Hurt my nerd mutant again and I will use the Dragon’s tail with you”

Yeah, that was totally a 2007 reference

[Fang Wolf]

That was good Ep.
I like new Footbots....

[GoldMutant]

Saw the episode earlier; overall Broken Foot I feel is better than last week's episode, but still possesses similar issues.

Similarly to last week, the little moments in the episode were good. The whole Mazes and Mutants part was adorable; in addition, there were nice Turtle moments. Raph mentioning Nightwatcher, Don's sacrifice and hug (though I feel it should have been Mikey), in general the small moments are well done.

Additionally, the action is also solid, good intensity and visual flare this time, but it feels slightly a step back from last week. Don't know why, maybe the April vs Shinigami duel was the highlight in City at War. Lastly, there's further plot progression with what I assume are the Foot Elite, but again it's subdued.

Unfortunately, Broken Foot carries identical flaws from last week as well. Though the action is well done, there's not that much story outside "Let's break in and cripple Shredder by doing X!" It won't surprise me if that's the new formula; it has newer ways of doing so to destroy a criminal empire if the villains are switched up each week, but there's something missing. I feel due to action taking over, there's really no story this episode besides destroying Shredder's robotic army. It doesn't do a really good job

Lastly, Dark Leo. I thought it'd be Shinigami (who I'm not huge on still) controlling him, but it's instead Leo gone rogue. The design's really good, heck the animation in general is excellent, but something feels amiss. I wish it were mentioned when the episode takes place after last week, because there's really no explanation of Leo outside the artwork for future episodes or selling merchandise. His talk with Splinter was fine, but I don't know, it feels quick.

It's solid, but could've done so much more. Maybe a little less action and more substance would've helped. I give it 7 burning Chromedomes out of 10.

[pannoni1]

Pretty much what I expected featuring pretty much the "A" cast looking to see what's about to happen next, although the ending was well worth it and you can really feel Leo after he caused Don to get in trouble, and this is also where Splinter shines. I'll have to say with Shini, we got a good new "female villain" in place of Karai, who I see as a good midway between an April and Shini, leaning toward one or the other as the series has progressed, which makes this Karai one of the more interesting versions of her.

Show Grade: 7.5/10

[Aaronardo]

Just like last week's ep, this one has little to no identity of its own. Things that should be a big deal are pretty much swept under the rug (Donnie's injury, which isn't brought up again until the very end of the episode, Leo going off on his own yet again).

I appreciate that they are trying to listen to us, though. There are cute, lighthearted, humorous moments in there that did get a couple laughs out of me (the Mazes & Mutants gag was probably my favorite). And the characters are getting their personalities back, but we're still not quite at that point where you can really relate to them.

I liked the Nightwatcher reference, though being a huge fan of that arc myself, I feel it would've been better as a stand-alone Raph-centric episode. But that's just me. Glad to at least know they acknowledge its existence.

However, they couldn't have hammered in the moral any harder than they did here. It got pretty annoying. Rather than doing it somewhat subtlely, the episode comes right out about five or six times saying "REVENGE IS BAD KIDS!!" and not being the least bit subtle about it. It's episodes like these that show me the days where it didn't just feel like voice actors reading off lines on a piece of paper are gone.

Something's also been bugging me for awhile -- where the hell is April's personality? Is it gone? Did it die? I remember April being a pretty fun character once upon a time. Now she's just the dues ex machina in every situation (see the very beginning of this particular episode, where they rushedly already figure out what Leo's up to because "ooh, mind powers, oooooh"). Can April's personality come back?

Can Splinter's, too? Because I get that he's the mentor/father and all that, but he used to remind me of Mr. Miyagi in that most of his humor came from his strange teachings that somehow even made sense. Now he's just, "don't do thing, bad thing is bad, now you see why bad thing is bad, cheese-sicle." I don't get it. For a show that's trying so hard to be lighthearted now, it sure isn't doing a very good job being humorous.

Mikey's "relationship" with Shinigami just hammers in that these writers probably never had an actual relationship with a girl as a teenager. I mean, maybe they did, I can't know for sure, but the way they write all these female characters as love interests for everyone, and kinda slutty at times (Karai's "charms" with Leo in this very episode), it just doesn't seem that way. Mikey and Shinigami "flirting" is just nothing short of cringey (I hate to use this word, but there really is no other way I can describe it). Renet better come back and both her and Shinigami better give Mikey a piece of their minds. Otherwise, this is just useless.

Okay, one last thing and then I'm done. The new Foot. I thought this was going to be really cool at first. But, like every other major thing in this episode, it's swept under the rug almost like it doesn't even exist. At this moment, the shock value is too high and the actual value of the show is too low, and that's just an example. Many major things happened in this episode, but there were too many. This whole show just feels like a bad episode of Family Guy now because of that. Nothing's memorable because everything's a big, memorable thing.

Yeah, this episode wasn't too good. Better than last week, but not by much. Had most of the same problems. However, I do appreciate they are at least trying to make the show better. Who knows? It might actually get back to its original levels of writing by the end of this season. We can hope.

[gibbs615]

She now attempting to go after Shredder AGAIN despite what happened the LAST time she tried that!!! She's still so STUBBORN!

[TigerClaw]

Finally watched the episode on my Tivo, I thought it was pretty good, plenty of action, nice seeing TigerClaw, Bebop, Rocksteady and Hun back.

[Powder]

Originally Posted by gibbs615

She now attempting to go after Shredder AGAIN despite what happened the LAST time she tried that!!! She's still so STUBBORN!

It's not a surprise, really... Think about what her life has been like! There's a whole lot to overcome.

[TMNTInsighter]

Originally Posted by Powder

It's not a surprise, really... Think about what her life has been like! There's a whole lot to overcome.

Exactly! Karai was never raised like the turtles have been and so while Karai is also trying to do right by her family, her approach is the only way she knows how. You can't fault her and you can't dismiss what she's trying to bring about either.

[THGhost]

Really enjoyed this episode.

• Loved Leo's new outfit. Very IDW.
• "Maggot Boy!"
• "Yo Momma wears combat boots." "Hey, Momma does wear the combat boots!"
• Shinigami - Awesome as always. Where does she get those wonderful hats?
• Thanks for the Elite Foot, Nick. Now how about some 2K3 DVDs?

[ranger_scout]

Karai really does have a very long way to go for a full chance at redemption. It was kind of strange seeing Leo wearing a black mask for the majority of the episode. Obviously, he won't keep it now that he won't be doing anymore of these secret missions since the last one resulting in Donnie getting knocked out pretty badly.

[Lil Karai]

"I like your style, Witch Girl...."

Wow what a great episode!!! Nice homage to Mirage Shredder with those New Foot Bots.

ALSO- glad I purchased 3 red ninjas in the Articulated Icons Kickstarter. These will look great next to Karai!

[DevilSpooky]

Originally Posted by Lil Karai

"I like your style, Witch Girl...."

Wow what a great episode!!! Nice homage to Mirage Shredder with those New Foot Bots.

ALSO- glad I purchased 3 red ninjas in the Articulated Icons Kickstarter. These will look great next to Karai!

They are actually a re-used model from Chromedome from season 1, who in turn was a re-used model of Bradford's Foot attire on his first appearence.

[Powder]

Originally Posted by Lil Karai

Wow what a great episode!!! Nice homage to Mirage Shredder with those New Foot Bots.

They're supposed to be Elite Guards, like in Mirage.

[snake]

Chromedome kind of pissed me off when he first appeared. Pretty lazy to just use the bradford model.

[CyberCubed]

Chrome Dome is supposed to look like a robot Shredder anyway, it makes no difference.