This episode is unexpected, with Soundwave returns for a short time after he gets trapped inside the Shadowzone by Raf in Prime; And this episode is as awesome as it sounds. I wish that Soundwave stays for a few more episodes and didn't just get send back into Shadowone by the end of episode, but it's still possible that Soundwave would return for another time since he's not really killed and Soundwave could possibly figure out some ways to escape the Shadowzone given his intelligence.

At the same time, Steeljaw's subplot with Saberhorn and Glowstrike starts with Steeljaw began his efforts to gain Saberhorn's and Glowstrike's trust by obeying their order to get rid of a Sharkticon. I do have to admit that it's a little bit odd to see Steeljaw obeying orders from other, despit it's possible that this is just a part of Steeljaw's plan to get closer to obtain control over the Decepticon hunter weapons.

 

Portals definitely gave me more hope that more Prime characters or references would be appear in the show, hence why it’s one of my favourites; plus Soundwave is one of the best characters in the franchise, so whenever he appears, everything is better  

There’s only 3 episodes left in this season now. The next one is the last singular plot episode (which I enjoyed, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy as well), and then it’s a 2 part finale, which leads towards an epic showdown.

Afterwards, you will be on season 2 & 1/2 (sometimes refered to as season 3), which in my opinion is the best season of the show, and then you’ll be on season 3 (sometimes refered to as season 4), which is the final season; sounds confusing I know   Thank goodness there is TFWiki  

 

Well Soundwave wasn't just any Decepticon. He was Megatron's right hand man. He was capable of beating up fellow major cons like Starscream and taking on multiple members of Team Prime. So yeah, it's no surprise he's more dangerous than the cons that Team Bee's been fighting so far.

 

Hey guys and girls!

So, I wanted to drop a quick update on the blog. Since the start of the new year, I set some resolutions in place for myself with the two main goals being to start working out more (common I know, but this desk job is killing me!) and to start teaching myself C++.

Currently, I get up in the morning, shower, go to work for 9 hours, go to the gym for an hour to an hour and a half, come home and study for an hour or more, do chores and then usually have about an hour to do something I enjoy and I've been favoring video games as opposed to the blog since I run a community.  

This weekend was supposed to be me finishing up Season 2 but a little game called 'God of War' came out and I just wasn't able to stop playing! I tried, honest!

But with that being said, tomorrow morning, my wife and I are going to try going to the gym BEFORE work instead of after. This will require us getting up even earlier (4 AM, oh boy!) but we believe it'll free up a whole lot of time for us considering the travel distance from work to the gym to home.

If this works out, the blog will be back to full steam ahead coming soon. I would say Season 2 will be finished before the weekend but as I'm going to see the new Avengers Friday Night, I'm not sure I'll be able to watch the two part finale and I'd really rather not split the episodes up.

With that said, I'll be reviewing my next episode tomorrow and definitely finishing the season over the weekend at the latest.

Then depending on how the new gym schedule goes, I will likely be back to posting on a near daily basis!

I'm sorry for disappearing for a week or so. I've still checked in to read replies while at work but have just been super busy. This site means a lot to me and I love coming here. I don't want anyone to think I've just decided to poof away.

Which, then again, you can ask anyone who followed the G1 blog. It could be wayyyy worse. I'm pretty sure I took an entire year off there but C'MON! G1 IS SO FREAKING MASSIVE!

 

Thanks for understanding and I look forward to hearing all of your thoughts on tomorrows episode  

---

Off topic, has anyone seen the new Transformers toys recently? My wife and I went to Target the other day and found a release of the Bayverse Ratchet. Everyone knows Ratchet is my absolute favorite Autobot of all time so I had to get him and now I'm debating if I should open him or keep him preserved in all of his beautiful glory... thoughts?

See ya' soon!

 

Thanks for the update. Your posts are written in high quality, and interesting to read, so I don't mind if you take time off to focus on other needs (although I might need to buy God of War as well!) and look forward to your piece of the next episode.

 

open him, i did and he is so fun to pose with the new bee figure   i did have to tweak him though with a metallic silver sharpi. it always irks me when the figures dont paint his beard.

 

Graduation Exercises​

Well, we finally get to hooked back up with the away team for a while and then we get to meet a new Decepticon, who in my opinion, looks more animal than bot than all the rest.

Seriously, Stockade just looks like an armored... I don't know, dog? polar bear? something. Regardless, I like the personality of his character and that he commands and army of Minicons but I feel like he could have done a lot more with an army of regular Decepticons and I also feel like he went down pretty easy to be the most decorated Decepticon General in history.

I'm also curious as to why Windblade has these random caches of armor and weapons laying around on Earth... that doesn't seem very safe to me and when the hell did she have time to set it up in the first place?

Major Mayhem was another character in this episode that uh, I don't really know anything about. He has a cool name though so he's got that going I guess.

All in all, this felt like a pretty mediocre episode but I am happy that the team is all back together and the moment at the end between Drift, Jetstorm and Slipstream was touching.

But now I'm just eager to move on to the two part finale!  

 

Stockade looks like a hybrid between a bull and a rat to me and some reason reminds me of Kup, only with a short temper and being short sighted 

I was confused why Jetstorm and Slipstream decided to stay with Drift after all of this... I mean they wanted to prove themselves, and they did, but I guess they aren't ready to fully commit as independent bots yet. But yeah, that moment between the three bots was heart-warming.

And Windblade might have stored the weapons and armours during the gap between the Great War and the beginning of this show (which was a couple of years), but I did wish she was using them more often rather than just storing them.

Even though this episode wasn't the best, the season finale will definitely make up for it, especially this one; it's gonna be big, but that's all I say for now...

 

This was actually one of my favourite episodes, mostly because of the action, among other reasons. However, the next two episodes are very interesting to say the least.

 

Fan Fact: Stockade is voiced by Gregg Berger (also voice G1 Grimlock and others,) he's design made going for a Weasel or Wolverine look.

 

Decepticon Island
(Parts I and II)​

Last night, I went to see Avengers: Infinity War. As everyone knows, every Avengers film is basically a star studded film with everyone's favorite characters and Decepticon Island was basically a mini version of that. No mini-con pun intended.

First of all, Ratchet is back. Or, well, was. And I'm always happy to see him regardless of where I see him, what he's doing or how he's doing it. I. Just. Love. Ratchet.

I was very pleased to hear his voice was performed by the same voice actor from Prime and I really enjoyed the "I needed that!" line drops that we got, I believe one per episode, even if they did feel a bit like forced fan service.  

I understand that there would likely be legal implications but I can't be the only person who really wished Undertone would have been named Clank, right? I mean come on. That's such a good Autobot name! Ratchet and Clank!?! No? Just me?  

I loved Undertone's design and the fact that he was the 'strong silent type' which I took as "we wanted to give Ratchet a minicon but didn't really have an idea... so here's a dope ninja who can't talk." In fact, I think the most interesting part of the character is this gag line that I found under his photo on tfwiki - "Alright this party sucks. Undertone, explode this building with your mind."

Seriously, who writes the stuff for TFWIKI? I love them.

In Robots in Disguise fashion, the creators took great pride in introducing, or in this case reintroducing, a character that I really enjoyed before ripping them away likely never to be seen again. At least, that's what I'm telling myself so I'm not disappointed to not see Ratchet and Undertone in Season 2.5 or Season 3.

Although I will miss moments like Sideswipe's disbelief when Ratchet said he understood Grimlock's up-to-date tale.

The same could be said for Toolbox. Yes, I know he's pretty much the exact same character as Fixit excluding the 'well used slave labor' paint decal, but I consider him and all of the other caretaker mini-cons to be this generations Ewok taking on the tyrannical Decepticon Empire.

I loved them. I'm sure there is a massive crowd of Transformers fans out there who hate them, but I loved them. They're so stupid and adorable and legitimately freaking deadly. Has anyone here played the new Star Wars Battlefront II Ewok Hunt mode? Imagine Infection in Halo but in the dead of night with a ton of ewoks chasing you down instead of zombies - it's super terrifying, and super entertaining - just like this devilbot minicons.

The subplot of Optimus and Bumblebee fighting was a well thought out and written piece of interaction that I thought needed to happen. I haven't felt 100% OK with Optimus rejoining the team as anything other than a leader despite Bumblebee proving that he's capable. Of course, I can attribute that to years of Hasbro brain wash and constantly drilling it into my head that Optimus Prime is the leader of the Autobots ALWAYS buuuuut it was nice to see them finally have an actual conversation about the problem and work toward resolving it. During one of the final moments of Part II, when Optimus kicks Steeljaw away from Bumblebee with that sick beat going in the background I got all hyped up and it felt that for once I was actually seeing Optimus Prime support Bumblebee and not the other way around.

There was also a sort of "out with the old, in with the new" feeling when Optimus began to say his battle cry and Bumblebee wrapped it up. It didn't feel 'right', so to say, but it did feel kind of good. I think it's the idea of having this new world reality where Optimus Prime doesn't always have to take charge for things to work really setting in... but then again, what do I know - I cried when he died in Revenge of the Fallen.

OH! Also, sorry, this is a lot of episode to take in - but didn't I hear Ratchet mention that the new council doesn't like Autobots, particularly the Team Prime ones? Is this why Bumblebee was a street cop when the show started? If so, why was there still statues of the Team Prime cast where they found Sideswipe? Are we going to get a follow up to this whole council back on Cybertron or are we going to be staying on Earth for the remainder of the series?

Also, I could be wrong, but I thought Ratchet decided to stay behind with the kids in Prime? Am I remembering that wrong?

Either way, let's move on. Let's talk about the villains shall we?

First of all, I like the new color schemes of all the 'trash bots' from Prime. It reminds me of old Super Nintendo and Sega games where you could tell the difficulty of the enemy based on their different color t-shirt.  

I am disappointed in both Glowstrike and Saberhorn as both of these characters seemed much more capable than what they accomplished. On the opposite end, I'm very impressed with Steeljaw. Particularly his ability to survive and prosper based on what he is given - the wolf was a very good choice in design for him.

Of course I don't ever remember seeing a wolf get melted into the floor during a bombing but that's besides the point.

I was already upset that Scorponok was defeated so easily but now these other two are so easily turned on even with their legion of followers right beside them as it happens. I mean, literally the biggest weakness of the Decepticon is their inability to really sit down and sort shit out, if these guys could just pick a leader they all agree on and go for it - they'd rule the galaxy by now. But instead, they continuously fight over every inch of control they can get over one another.

It also feels a little bit wasteful to off all of these big new Decepticons at one time. If I didn't know the series had another season and .5 of a season to go, I'd assume it all wrapped up nicely (excluding the odd leadership up on Cybertron thing).

Which leaves me wondering where things are going to go from here. Obviously an amazing team of bots stayed behind on earth to get work done but if that bomb really worked then what enemy is left? It's got to be someone new right?

I've noticed the show has been introducing more and more traditional Decepticon characters even with the 'fodder' enemies from Prime so I'm curious if we will see more non-animal cons in the next few episodes or if it will continue to be a blend of both.

To be honest, it can be a little jarring at times when some characters look so much like animals and then you've got Soundwave beside them.

That being said, I'm stoked to get into our next segment and will -NOT- be taking a week or a month off as I usually do between seasons. We will be to our semi-regular-sometimes-five-days-a-week-sometimes-every-other-weekend programming  

Also, completely random question here.

The original Transformers series was created to be a commercial for toys. I imagine the shows today still serve a similar purpose. What pulls in more money - the films and tv shows or the toys?

And how?

Either way. See ya' Optimus and thanks for helping us totally stop the first Decepticon and everything but now we're gonna' go back to being a show about Bumblebee because you stole too much of the spotlight. Bye. <3

(but seriously... "Optimus crossing the Delaware, oil on canvas"... who the hell writes this stuff for TFWIKI!?!)

 

Okay, glad you finally watched the finale, it was defintely something interesting to say the least...

- Ratchet is back for the finale which was a nice treat after just getting Soundwave back. He said his catchphrase and even had two one on one moments with Optimus during the first part, which was welcome. Seeing two old friends just catch up and talk was just so satisfying.

- Regarding Ratchet staying on Earth, he was initially going to (as seen in Deadlock), but he returned in Predacons Rising to tend to Ultra Magnus and Optimus Prime’s farewell speech. That was the last we saw from Ratchet and Team Prime, so in the first part of Decepticon Island, Ratchet mentions he stayed on Cybertron to help others rebuild before being exiled/banished.

- Just like Soundwave, don’t count Ratchet out yet, he could always return. In RID, if a character is not dead there is a chance that they will come back.

- Ratchet’s return was also the creative team’s way to introduce the new sub-plot about Cybertron’s new corrupt High Council. The point of introducing it now was so if RID was cancelled, the Alchemor plot was wrapped up, so a sequel series could continue on if necessary, however since this was not the case, you’ll be seeing more of it in the future.

- You’ll learn more about the corruption in the future, obviously I can’t say anything else now besides that it will be addressed sometime before the series ends.

- Optimus Prime, Ratchet and Windblade are going to investigate the new High Council while the Bee Team remains on Earth to face future threats.

- The Stasis Bomb put everyone into stasis lock and Prime’s new trio will transport them to Cybertron, however, just like with Soundwave and Ratchet, anyone has the ability to return when it comes to RID.

- Most people actually enjoy Season 2.5 a lot more than the rest of the series for a reason I can’t say, but I’m sure you’ll understand it when you watch it.

 

Glad you like the season 2 finale than. I enjoyed it as well back when it watched it as well, and agree with the comparison of it to Avengers a Infinity War.

There’s nothing wrong with having too much Ratchet; nice game reference as well.

Optimus Prime and Bumblebee bumping heads with each other did seem odd to me at first, but eventually made sense to me, and show Bumblebee trying to prove his maturity

A lot of the questions you asked will be answered during season 3, which you are close to, but before that, there’s season 2.5, which is the best season of this show, in my opinion, despite being six episodes long.

And if I were to guess, I’d say the toys pull in more money, due to how they are making their toys to appeal to different demographic much better than the films and TV shows.

See you for the next episode!

Also I didn’t know people cry when Optimus Prime dies...guess that’s what happens when you watch a complication of all of the deaths he’s faced...or don’t understand about it when you are young...or are spoiled about it by accident  

 

So I'll just briefly mention the previous episode. I loved Stockade since he was an actual Decepticon. The Drift , Sideswipe and Minicons parts were great, and now onto the two parter.

Right off the bat Ratchet is back. First Soundwave comes back and now him, so at this point anyone else is fair game if they're popping up this frequently. Not only that but he captures the crab god and has a new Minicon with him. It just feels so good to have some of the main team back even if it's only for a little while. I liked that Optimus and Bumblebee had conflicts over who leads. You could see both sides of the argument clearly and it makes them overcoming their differences all the more satisfying.

On Steeljaw's side he successfully betrays Glowstrike and Saberhorn but while I'm happy he has his moment of glory it has one of my biggest issues with the show. Glowstrike is compeltely shafted. There was all this buildup with her and her powers and she never got the chance to do anything. What was she even going to attack Steeljaw with? Some sort of heated blade? That would've been nice to see. Also this was somewhat rushed like season 1's two parter but I think they handled it better. I also wasn't a fan of him getting the Power Ranger upgrade, and the frame rate really took a beating with it. But this is Steeljaw's biggest loss in the show so far. Bumblebee beat him and beat him hard. There's a debate on whether the floor was melted or they melted his legs, and I'm choosing the latter because it's a much more hardcore option.

Steeljaw's line telling Glowstrike and Saberhorn not to be surprised with his betrayal because they're Decepticons was really funny.

So Ratchet tells us the council is corrupt, and that has been hinted t before when they sent Jazz to investigate and then hired Drift and Fracture to capture them. That seems like too big a plot point to be abandoned.....

Now you didn't see it happen but the creators confirmed that Kickback was also captured on the ship when Optimus, Ratchet, and Windblade left. Though I'm pretty sure everyone may have missed a spot...

Next up is season 2,5, and to many of us this is the best arc in the show. Perfectly balanced across all episodes and a great ending to boot. Even though the early episodes are more standalone they still are connected to the main plot in some way. You're in for a real treat.

And movie toys are always the biggest money makers for obvious reasons.

 

History Lessons​

This episode was pretty slow moving and I'm still not a big fan of the bland color scheme the bots like to pick up when they're out in the middle of no where.

We return to the original base of operations from Transformers: Prime but would you be disappointed with me if I said I didn't recognize it? At all?

The entire military base looks completely foreign to me and I'd thought that everything remaining of the original base was destroyed in that one heavy blast. Yet somehow, our heroes are managing to run around through a bunch of tunnels without much of a problem while encountering a bunch of defense mechanisms I don't ever remember seeing in Prime either...

The new Decepticon, whose name I didn't catch, looks like a Scorponok recolor and uses a minicon as an admittedly dope looking battleaxe. In fact, the overall design of the minicon is really cool, particularly his wings being blades.

I'm sure it'll be explained later but I don't understand where these two came from or why they're planting bombs. They mentioned more Decepticons but I thought they'd all been rounded up?

Yes, I know the show couldn't really go on without Decepticon baddies and that I'll probably get an explanation a little later in the series but man am I confused.

Why are there Decepticons? Why did the little guy lead the big guy away from the gun? Since when are there weaponized minicons?

I guess we'll try to find out more in the next episode!

Thanks for reading  

 

All your questions will be answered, but let me say when you find out what is really going on, you’ll be surprised for sure.

- Right off the bat I would like to mention that they removed Windblade from the opening. She is no longer in the final shot of the team at the end, yet Optimus Prime remains. Just putting that out there.

- The main base was not completely destroyed, it was just rendered uninhabitable by Megatron’s Laser Cannon.

- As for the defenses, Bumblebee mentioned that the Decepticons gained access to the base through one of the Autobots and they removed the recognition codes.

- Paralon is the name of the Purple Scorponok and Buzzstrike is the name of the Mini-Cons.

- I can’t say anything about the Mini-Con because I would spoil too much, but I’ll say that you’ll learn more about him in the future.

- Paralon was just scavenging around the old base looking for anything useful.

- Bumblebee name dropped both Ratchet and Bulkhead in this episode, which was cool.

- I am also surprised you didn’t even comment on Bumblebee’s exercise video.

- That’s really all I can say for now, hope you enjoy the rest of Season 2.5!

 

yeah man you should try and do Season 2.5 as a "movie night" if you can

at the very least the last 3 are a "3 parter" but if you watch all 6 it's 22*6=132 minutes or 2 hours 12 minutes which is your average movie these days. it's coherent enough to make it good.

 

Hmmm, brown...

Even though the base is unrecognisable, it's a nice reference nevertheless.

I guess some continuities errors had to slipped in for the story.

The Deception's name is Paralon, who's voice actor (Jason Spisak) also voiced Koji Onishi, the main human character in Robots in Disguise (2001). Coincidence?

All will be revealed soon...just not the next episode per say... 

 

this next one up though is a Strongarm episode that's actually pretty good.

as a huge RID15 fan and someone who thinks this show is an unsung hero of the franchise I am thrilled to see you do this. I'm probably gonna just generally gush about it now that I'm done lurking but since Strongarm is up next for a spotlight and you've mentioned a few times that she's a mixed bag I'll say this:

She's Peggy Hill the Autobot.

She's not a criminal or a psychopath but she's also kind of a scumbag. Self centered, prone to bragging, can actually be really sloppy in practice, and when she gets knocked down a peg she mopes about it and makes the rest of the team roll their eyes and baby her (s2e4). Plus she's an asshole to Grimlock well after any sort of "suspicion" could be considered reasonable. She says to his face even though they're together she'll still be alone (s1e11), she was totally inconsiderate of his feelings when she bitched at him for not being exactly like Sideswipe (s2e3) and I think possibly others that are escaping my memory atm.

But she's not a bad character. She's very well written, as a self centered asshole who's on our heroes team. So the show itself in a lot of ways acknowledges that she's a half-useless hypocrite in large and small ways as the series goes on so while she annoys me I think she's an important piece of the show. Exactly like Peggy Hill.

If you've never seen King of the Hill then you may not know what I mean.

 

So we kick off the new arc with some interesting sauce. Right off the bat we meet Paralon, a purple Scorponok with a visor. More on him in a moment.

So we get to see the old base from prime, now to be fair the base did suffer a contagious disease called getting destroyed in season two, but yes I agree it looks quite different. Bumblebee tells us that there were defense turrets and stuff in the base..... the hell? I love Prime it's my favorite show, but you Bumblebee are a liar. You are neither gentleman nor scholar! Now unless there were some undocumented adventures I'm calling Bee S...I'm not apologizing for that pun.

With Parlaon is Buzzstrike, a weaponized Minicon. He doesn't seem like much of a bad guy to me, and seems to be forced into working with Paralon. His power is interesting, and that has what I think is the funniest moment in the whole show. When we first meet Paralon and has Buzzstrike as a sword he just drops him! All that build up to make it look like he's dangerous and he misses up his introduction. I just laughed so hard at that.

So I know you're confused but i'm confused about why you're confused. You said it yourself that it should be no surprise there are Decepticons here. Think of it this way. Either everyone missed a few or we're dealing with someone who isn't a prisoner. Remember Fracture, The Fallen, and Soundwave weren't prisoners and they still showed up.

Oh well next episode is a surprisingly good one.