Review: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles “The Invasion”

As far as season finales go, I was not expecting this.

Spoilers!

Yesterday, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season finale aired on Nick, in the form of the two parter “The Invasion.” And I can say that I was pleasantly surprised by the finale. There were a few things that were rather out of character for some of the characters, and that is something I will get into in a bit. Part of the brilliance is how we get there.

Like I said, this episode was brilliant. Right from the word go, you knew some serious crap was going down when Shredder traded his hold on the city to save Kurai, and to get his hands on the Turtles and Splinter. How the Krang got back to Earth was a huge surprise, as well. The writers took a long standing waste of ink named Erma, and turned her into the Krang-bot for Krang Sub-Prime. Speaking of surprises, see if you can name the voice of Krang Sub-Prime. It’s a very well known voice, and he didn’t do much to mask it.

As soon as Krang Sub-Prime revealed himself to Erma, shit hit the fan for the Turtles. with Raph and Casey out trying to find Karai, it’s the rest of the Turtles against an incoming army of Krang-Bots. Splinter has the Turtles split while he deals with Krang Sub-Prime and the lesser Krang. These Krang-Bots are seriously kicking ass in this. Let me tell you, these new Krang-Bots would kick the shit out of Krang’s Homosexual Wrestling bot from the 80’s, for sure. However, after seeing Splinter go ham on all if these Krang, I am sure he would shit all over any Krang-Bot.

I think this episode was just a spotlight to show how much ass Splinter can kick, because he is a machine in “The Invasion.” He annihilates all of the Krang in their now decrepit HQ, then goes right after Shredder after Leo got his ass handed to him by the mutants and Shredder. And that leads me to something I found odd. This is the first time Leo has been portrayed as cocky and a bit of a hothead.  Every other incarnation of the Turtles, he was the levelheaded leader of the team. He would always listen to suggestions from Donnie, but this week, he had a “my way or go fuck yourself” vibe. It was very out of character, and irked me quite a bit. He paid for his cockiness, by getting smashed by Shredder and his mutants. I think he even got his eyes slashed, but you’ll see why when you catch the episode.

But that’s okay, because Splinter is here to make things right. Splinter manages to find Leatherhead, and gets him to help look for the Turtles. For a brief minute, I though, I thought Leatherhead was going to defeat Shredder, until Shredder broke out some Pressure Point Kung Fu and floored Leatherhead in about five seconds. Splinter then broke out some Force Push-type abilities, and went after Shredder again. That was all well and good, until Shredder used the observing Turtles as a distraction, and defeated Splinter. The coup de grace was Shredder throwing Splinter down the drain like Splinter was a dead goldfish.

This is another out of character moment I think I caught. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but when someone as close as the Turtles or Splinter get their ass handed to them, doesn’t Raph kind of Hulk out? Yeah, he was pounding on those bars, but he would normally bend the bars and go after Shredder. This time, he throws a temper tantrum, and chills out with a hug from Mikey. That’s horse shit.

That’s all I can spoil for everyone, without giving away the entire ending. The end fight scene finally unveils the Turtle-Mech, which has been in the works for quite a while. The best part is that it actually works! It’s something that has to be seen to totally appreciate.

Like I have been saying throughout the review, this episode was fantastic. The only things holding it back from being perfect, were these out of character moments. The only two turtles who seem to be on point were Mikey and Donnie. Raph and Leo practically switched colors, Casey seems more focused on getting April than smashing shit, and April seemed like a special case of retarded this week. It was like Invasion of the Pod People, but it took over cartoon characters instead of people.

I actually liked how this invasion was handled. Last week, “Into Dimension X!” gave us the groundwork for the invasion, and we got said invasion this week. Making it a double episode right after the invasion plans was a smart idea, in my opinion, because they’re fresh in our minds. If they took a classic trope, and left it for next week, I would not be a happy camper. Next week, we start Season Three, and there’s no rest for the mutated!