This episode was a lot better than Collect 'Em All That's for sure.

The episode really starts rather quickly. Fixit finished working on a proximity alarm and the Autobots come back with an mud filled stasis pod and then suddenly Grimlock attacks Sideswipe after he makes an insult. I mean we all want to smack Sideswipe sometimes but holy crap Grimlock!

This is some black comedy here, I found myself laughing when Grimlock flicks Fixit.  

Grimlock apparently is after the stasis pods but is only able to get Underbite. The proximity alarm goes off and Russell bluffs that this alerts Optimus Prime is going to come and Grimlock for the most part buys it and gets away. Nice One Russell.

Everyone can't believe what Grimlock has done. Strongarm believes Grimlock had been fooling them from the start, Sideswipe does not think so and Russell believes he's not in control of himself....which he isn't too far off from.

The Autobots head to the Crown River dam where they believe he's most likely to go and they manage to fall into a icy trap made by a cyro-inducer left by Grimlock. Wow who knew Grimlock could be strategic.

We cut to the dam and OH MY GOD IT'S STEELJAW! apparently this dam is a temporary base as Thunderhoof is out scouting for a larger one. Steeljaw is not happy Grimlock only came back with one pod and then the Autobots show up.

The scene where Bumblebee and Steeljaw clash is where the scene at the end of the RID opening came from.

It's a total brawl, Grimlock fights the Autobots while Steeljaw gets away with Underbite. Shame he wasn't in action this episode...oh well more Underbite in the future!

The way the Autobots take down Grimlock is pretty smart using cables to tie up and trip Grimlock. Fixit finally manages to patch in on the comm and we find out that this is handywork of a cyber-tick name Minitron....yes Minitron. Must be Megatron's long lost twin. He doesn't really speak and but he's a pesty little bugger where he bites a bot and can control them this results in a brawl between The Autobots against each other as he keeps on hoping each other biting the other however Grimlock catches him and defeats him.

So all is well and forgiven, Grimlock is truly on their side and Bumblebee finally decides to get Fixit to change his Decepticon insignia to an Autobots. Congrats Grimlock you're finally an Autobot now and to celebrate he gives Sideswipe and Russell a big ol' bear hug which is squeezing Russell way too tight that he can't breathe anymore.

Overall a good episode for Grimlock getting some development and Steeljaw's faction is growing bigger and bigger each episode. Can't wait for when his full crew is fully assemble.

 

I'm really hoping the show gets to a point where we can do some back and forth between the Autobots and the Decepticons like they did in previous series. I miss getting to see what the good ol' baddies are up to in the middle of an episode, not just one Decepticon being the focal point of most of the episode and then disappearing entirely.

Despite this I'll admit I would much rather have Decepticons of the week than relics of the week.

 

Without spoiling anything, I can safely say that that looks like it'll be the case fairly soon. We can even see it here, now that we've already got several Decepticons who have banded together and are looking for a larger base.

That said-- as someone who actually didn't mind "relic of the week", I still like it a lot better when it's done with new Decepticons.

 

This was a smashingly heartwarming episode. Easily my favorite of all the ones released so far.

 

I assume he was referring to killing a prisoner, not killing in a battle.

 

Great episode! I can't wait until the Decepticon roster is fully fleshed out!

 

Most likely. Minicon was at Me Grimlock's mercy; shooting someone that's in a position to kill you back is one thing, squishing someone in no position to defend themselves is just murder. It is good to see he's not too stupid to know the difference.

 

Could it just be she's not a very good writer? Or at least just not suited to TFs?

I mean, I didn't even know she wrote the episode until you told me.

 

I've been out of this loop for a while, so please forgive my stupidity but... who is Scott and why do we hate her?

 

She's a comic book writer, she's done some Transformers Comics, the best known is the miniseries about Windblade. I don't know why people hate her. I like the work she's done so far.

 

I'm in the same boat as you. I didn't know I was supposed to hate someone either.


jD001

 

Ah, okay. If she did this episode I like 100% of her work that I've seen so far, then. I'll just chalk it up to differing opinions and rewatch Steeljaw's scenes.

 

Watched the ep...quite liked it! Had some great humor! Tho I'll admit to being hopeful they'd gotten Chop Shop too but oh well.

 

Just looked her up on tfwiki. She has written these episodes:

Transformers: Prime
"Stronger, Faster"
"Orion Pax, Part 2"
"Hurt"
"Hard Knocks"
"Chain of Command"
Rescue Bots
"The Griffin Rock Triangle"
"Spellbound"
"Quarry's Quarry"
Transformers: Robots in Disguise (2015)
"True Colors"

I liked Stronger, Faster I thought it was a great Ratchet centric episode. Hurt, Hard Knocks, and Chain of Command were all solid episodes in my opinion. Especially Hurt, Hardshell finally got his comeuppance in that one.

The comics she's done:
Rage of the Dinobots
Beast Hunters
Windblade

I thought Rage of the Dinobots and Beast Hunters were both fine, if inconsequential. I loved Windblade, I know a lot of people didn't like the ending, but I felt it fit the character of Windblade that was being written.

And this episode I thought was fun, I didn't realize not many people enjoyed it.

 

This episode is probably an evidence that RID Decepticons were inprisoned before Prime events, at least before Predacons Rising. Minitron had no idea Optimus Prime's currently not in this world & couldn't drop by offenly, that's why Russell can scared him off.

 

I read in a review that she saw the voice actors recording their lines for the episode. She loved how Combs lightly tapped Richardson's shoulder when Ratchet was baiting Bulkhead to come at him.  


jD001

 

Some people hate her because she is a woman and a feminist writing in what they want to be a boys only club.

Other people just dislike her work, which is fine. Unless they are too sself centred or ignorant to realize that not liking a writers work doesn't mean the writer is bad.

I love her work and thought this episode was very good, a lot more character development in this episode than in most of the previous ones, good team building etc. Less humour which was jarring especially after the last two episodes which have been very funny.

Because she should be totally chill about a Decepticon she had started to trust suddenly attacking the group? Give me a break. She reacted perfectly reasonably as even Grimlock could see, she did her job and they had no reason to think it wasn't Grimlock doing it, they didn't hear or witness his conflict with 'himself' that Russel and Fixit heard. You are literally condemning her for trying to do her job and arrest someone who just assaulted someone else for apparently no reason.

So Strongarm is '******ed' for wanting to apply Cybertronian law to Cybertronian criminals loose on earth? Why the hell have you put quotes around law? She's a police officer and Bumblebees subordinate but what, you think she is making the laws up? Would be much more sensible to use earth law? What the hell? She wants to take over earth on which she is a 'hobo' for wanting to capture criminals which are the teams responsibility and under orders from Bumblebee to do so? Like that is the whole teams damned job and why they were sent to earth, but Strongarm gets the blame.
If you ever need a more clear example of how female characters are judged more severely this post epitomizes that. This is easily one of the most ridiculous things I've ever read on this forum and that is an accomplishment.

She is literally doing her job and following Bumblebees orders, but you know let's blame her because obviously she's dumb. For gods sake.

Yes, just like she said in the previous episode. Yet apparently a police officer trying to arrest someone who just assaulted someone makes her ******ed.

 

My mind boggles at the logic too. Yes, it was an extraordinary circumstance, but she had no way of knowing that and was in the right for trying to do her job. The fan response was annoying too-- first they said they hated the constant rule-quoting, and when that stopped, they go after her for trying to keep the peace? What?!

 

As we were introduced to the characters prior to the show airing, I had taken an unexpected disliking to Strongarm. It didn't concern me much, as the same thing happened to me with Crosshairs in AOE. After I saw AOE, I ended up really liking Crosshairs (though I hated the movie). So I figured after half a dozen episodes, I'd end up liking Strongarm, too.

Eight episodes later, and I cannot stand the character. I keep hoping TFP Arcee will unexpectedly show up and kick her aft back to Cybertron (or the shadow zone with poor Soundwave). I wasn't even this annoyed by Bulkhead in Prime. Seriously, can we trade Strongarm for Arcee, or bring in someone like Moonracer? I'm convinced that even Prowl would be highly annoyed with her.  

 

Jeez, is it really that bad? I've never seen people get this annoyed at a fictional character since Jar Jar Binks. I mean, even among Transformers itself, you could still do way worse.

*coughcoughanimatedbumblebeecough*