Official Episode Discussion S2 Finale: The Invasion

[The Big Bad]

Originally Posted by Kilowog

Wait i thought they always said the mutagen didnt work the exact same way it does in Dimension X and that they were always working to tweak it.

Yes. My point is that if it always worked in Dimension X, it makes no sense to test it in Dimension X and then claim it now works. It's like growing a potato on Earth and then claiming you can now do it on Mars.

Also i naturally assumed in the back of my head that capturing April and using her magic fairy dust or whatever was Plan A. That if they succeded in capturing her, it didn't matter if they fixed the mutagen or even invaded with a full army, they would instantly win.

Except they have captured her--several times. And they've mentioned several times that capturing her is less about using her powers and more about perfecting the dang mutagen.

With finally perfecting the Mutagen and invading with actual troops being Plan B. Hence why Irma didnt just snatch April the first time they were alone. After millennia of just... waiting for this perfect DNA person or whatever, they got complacent and expected an easy win. So once theu got thwarted once they finally decided to not continue with the same plan. Maybe it's just me but i liked that, showed the kraang at least marginally capable of planning things ahead of time.

I'm not sure I follow. Given how long they've been at the perfecting mutagen business and how random the process seems to be--we don't see the dang thing becoming more stable over time--there's no way succeeding isn't, essentially, a random occurrence. No matter how many times they failed at getting April, getting her was always going to be more cost-effective than more random trying—especially since a) they can easily do both at the same time, and b) the more they wait to catch April, the higher the chance that she'll just eventually end up dying, meaning they'd have to wait more millennia for their perfect match. It makes no sense that they'd have an asset like Irma and not use her to, as you say, kidnap her when she's alone.

I just kind of naturally inferred this, chalking it up to the writers not wanting to bluntly state EVERYTHING.

This isn't EVERYTHING, though—it's a change in what has been one of the more consistent bits of series lore. What's more, the weird thing isn't that April turned out to be not as important as advertised, but that what should have been treated as a game-changer goes completely unremarked. Even April-obsessed Donatello apparently has nothing to say about the fact that kidnapping April was apparently optional.