Official Ep Discussion: S3 Ep16: "Clash of the Mutanimals"

[billbot85]

Good episode, great fight scenes. I always enjoy seeing Leatherhead go to work. Pretty cool that the mind control was in the form of those disgusting worms, and that they were able to finally spit them out. They kind reminded me of the Yerk creatures from the Animorphs book series.

[victory_angel]

The episode was a fairly straight forward continuation of the mind control plot that we’ve been getting the last few episodes.

Shredder as we have established is creating a mind control serum. However the mind control plot has been used multiple times in this series so it feels old hat now. Particularly when it comes to the Turtles, but Shredder’s intentions with it at this time is to use it on Karai so he can force her to be loyal to him once more.

To be on the safe side he wants the mind control serum tested to make sure there isn’t any unexpected side effects or flaws. So he tests the serum on Slash and Rockwell and then later on Raph which works, but it’s also quickly figured out on how to resolve this issue which disappointed a lot of fans of this series.

For example in this episode when we see in the previews that Raph is going to be mind controlled and forced against his brothers. People were expecting this to be a sprawling epic where the Turtles are forced to fight one of their own. And of course all the drama of having to deal with one of their brothers being their enemy, how do they get him back so on and so forth.

But unfortunately that’s not what happens, and while Raph being turned to the dark does cause some dramatic tension…it realy wasn’t the point of the episode. The actual point of the episode was so the mind serum could be tested out; that way when it is used on Karai in an upcoming episode it won’t have any unforeseen situations that render it useless. And now that the Foot know that that the serum can be counteracted with intense emotion, they are going to make sure that doesn’t happen with Karai.

One of the main focal problems with this series aside from its plot amnesia is its cerebus syndrome. For people who are unfamiliar the trope, cerebus syndrome represents to tonal shift from something being light hearted and comedic to something more dark and dramatic and vice verse. This term is coined from the Cerebus the Aardvark comic series ( a comic book that is no stranger to the TMNT universe) and how the tone of its story lines would shift from light to dark.

What fans seem to want in this series is to have the seasons released with a light hearted beginning and then gradually shifting to a dramatic dark as the series gets to the finally.

Instead what we get is a cerebus roller coaster. The cerebus roller coaster is caused when the tonal shift zig zags between dark and light. As we know the Nick tends to release episodes in batches of 4-5 episodes. Each group which starts with an episode that has a light-hearted story line and ends on an episode that descends into dark drama before returning to a light-hearted high once more. It’s generally the episodes between the light-hearted high and the dramatic low that are a real mix bag, as they can give us what we expect. However occasionally the episode preview would offer one thing and give the exact opposite. Some times this is good as there are times we expect something fillerish and end up being rewarded with something greater. But other times we expect something great and instead are given something lackluster instead.

I’m sorry to say I feel that this was one such episode where you go in expecting a full meal and you are given popcorn instead. In other words a tasty snack, but not all that satisfying. There was so much that could have been done with this situation. As I said before I understand Raph being with the Foot Clan was not the point of the story, but still there is so much that could have been done. Even just having an aftermath where Raph is emotionally distressed at being forced to hurt his bros would have been nice. But I still enjoyed what this episode did try to offer and hopefully the next episode will offer what it promises.