Jungle deco?

Oh how about Urban Camo like RID Ruination...now that'd look nice.

 

Ya no se que hacer conmiiiiiiiiiigo — I’m so glad that Optimus is back in RiD From...

There's screenshots only optimus prime's expressions

 

I found this episode rather ridiculous for a number of reasons:

1) Acting like Windblade going over the waterfall would've put her in any danger.

2) The fact that despite in Overloaded Part 2 they sink to the bottom almost immediately, here not only is the river running fast enough to sweep her away, that she's able to stay above the water for any reason at all.

3) The entire groundhog/prairie dog scene. There's zero reason she couldn't have immediately transformed and spared herself hitting the rocks considering how quickly they can transform on a moment's notice.

Basically, it felt like the entire episode existed to bring Windblade down a peg or two by means of making her an idiot and having her pay for incredibly well-meaning mistakes with stupidity.

 

I so agree with you, MelficeCyrum ; that's why I couldn't fully enjoy this episode. This has to be my least favorite episode from the season - even though it had some nice things.

It saddens me to say that, but Windblade really made herself look pathetic from the beginning to the end. Not only did she look like a joke getting almost killed because of a groundog, but she looked so weak in that fight against Razorpaw. That's just not the Windblade I remember from the previous episodes - I mean come on she took down a recolor of that guy in the previous season ! It is gonna take a while before I take her seriously again...

Regarding the good points, now that I watched the episode again, Sideswipe and Drift were of course amusing, especially at the very end.

I believe this episode made me finally like Drift; I never really cared about him before, but now I hope to see more comical scenes where he gets annoyed at Sideswipe or, most especially, scenes like "Class is over".

I also realize how badass Razorpaw actually is for a puma: cool voice actor, cruel and threatening attitude. Too bad he didn't as much screentime as the Mini-Cons who held much of the spotlight.

However, there remains something that feels like a slight but frustrating plot hole: Optimus had a nice thinking making himself look like the weakest of all so he could take down Razorpaw at the moment he would least expect, but telling the others about his plan in the first place would sure have avoided Windblade some troubles. But I guess that wouldn't have offered much twist endings though...

 

MelficeCyrum, I agree with your assessment.

Also, what exactly is the moral supposed to be for the target audience? How is a kid supposed to apply this to real life? Is the moral "If someone close to you seems to be hurt don't worry, they'll walk it off"? Maybe they were trying to teach a lesson about overconfidence. But the problem is Windblade wasn't really overconfident--just concerned. Even after she got hurt it's not like she had an attitude of "WELL, I am the great Windblade, I am still the BEST and no one can beat me", it was more "I'm hurt but I must protect Optimus anyway, that's my duty."

Like, the ending implied she was in the wrong, but how? Every appearance of Prime so far they've made a big point about how weak and drained he is, they just got done with the Arctic mission where Prime's pride nearly got them killed, and even at the start of this episode he's moving like he's in pain, so for Windblade to assume that he shouldn't be in front is perfectly logical. Especially after last episode where Prime was lying about feeling fine. Man, I initially thought this was going to be an episode about blindly following an authority figure even though you know they're not up to it (Drift and Sideswipe).

I wish this episode had been a lesson in communication instead of . . . whatever it was supposed to be about. Windblade should have bluntly talked to Prime about her concerns that he was too weak to be in front instead of trying to spare his pride. Optimus should have told Windblade about his plan to appear to be weaker than he was.

 

I think a lot of people are confusing what Optimus said. He wasn't pretending to be weak the entire episode, he still is struggling and recovering. Razorpaw knew who Optimus was, and was smart enough to see that even weakened, a Prime is a difficult target.

Optimus' plan didn't hatch and go into action until the fight at the military base, he saw how Razorpaw was targeting Windblade because she was weaker. In order to save Windblade Optimus pretended to be defeated by the minicons, feigning defeat so that he could get the jump on Razorpaw.

It's unreasonable to think Optimus planned all of this in advance.

 

So..... what happened to Polarclaw?

Did Fixit repair the groundbridge between episodes so they could get him back to base and put him in a stasis pod?

 

He went into a stasis pod at one of Windblade's caches. Where she put cons before she joined Team Bee.

 

There are so many things wrong with this episode and very little to redeem it.

Again they're treating Optimus Prime like Orion Pax. The dude has millions of years of experience and they're acting like he's a rookie. This is why I hated Smokescreen so much and it's even worse when they're doing this to a Prime! The only difference here, unlike the last episode, Optimus isn't acting like a total moron this time... in fact quite the opposite, he seems to know things that he shouldn't. I'll get more into that towards the end of the post.

Also we again have another color change that makes me glad I've decided to sell off my repaints because apparently there are more coming. This poor excuse to sell toys is actually putting me off buying figures because at this rate the molds are going to degrade before this series ends. At least in other toy lines the reuses of a mold were different characters and reuses of a mold as the same character were kept to a minimum. I don't think I've ever seen more than two versions of the same character using the same mold before... Except maybe movie Bumblebee and look how that turned out, everyone is sick of him now.

The Mini-cons are basically smaller, evil, less interesting versions of Animated Jetfire and Jetstorm.

The main villain looks really similar to another Decepticon who Windblade fought in a previous episode, so similar that at first glance I didn't even notice they weren't the same character.

Speaking of Decepticons, how did the Autobots get from the Arctic to a desert with no Ground Bridge and where was Polar Claw in this episode? They have no way of containing him, they basically just slapped some stasis cuffs on him and he should still be with them as they had no way of getting him into a stasis pod back at the scrap yard. So what the heck happened between that episode and this one? I would assume that the Ground Bridge was repaired off camera but there's not even a mention of it being fixed so what the heck is going on?

Back to the thing about Optimus knowing more than he should. Razorpaw was after the weakest Autobot so Optimus faked his injuries to make himself seem weaker than Windblade. How did Optimus know that they were targeting the weakest Autobot, there was never any indication that was their plan as they only discussed this in secret. Optimus should not have know they were targeting the weakest Autobot. Plus Optimus actually was weakened by the power drain from the other Primes and since when is Windblade the weakest? How did Razorpaw not see Optimus as the weakest when he's literally the only one who's been walking with a limp. Is it because she's a girl? In her introduction episode she was one of the strongest Autobots and now she's been reduced to being weaker than a guy with an obvious injury... WTF? The only thing I can think of is that she's the girl and girls are stereotypically seen as the weaker gender. So Windblade just went from being one of the best female characters we've had to suddenly being more sexist than G1 Arcee. On the bright side at least we don't have to wait 30 years to get her as a toy... though I'm still waiting for show accurate BW Blackarachnia, Airazor, and Botanica.

On the other hand rather than being sexist, that moment could also be seen as Razorpaw showing Optimus the respect that he deserves. He actually refereed to him as "the Prime" so maybe he recognized that yes he's been weakened but is still a Prime. That could be taken as even a weakened Prime is stronger than all the other Autobots. I still don't get how that makes Windblade the weakest, I think that would actually be Sideswipe or the Mini-cons.

All this being said, this episode is the worst episode of this series if not the worst episode of any Transformers series ever.

 

Actually I believe that honor should go to "Carnage in C-Minor"... God I hated that episode. Then again, that's my opinion.

Anyways onto my three counter arguments.

1. We had two whole episodes without Team OP so it's reasonable to believe they traveled a great distance.

2. Razorpaw did not single out Windblade as weak because she was female. He didn't select her as a target until after she got injured (Though don't get me wrong how she got injured was still very embarrassing, like G1 Optimus getting defeated by Laserbeak alone levels of embarrassing.) And while yes Optimus was still limping, there's the matter of size of Razorpaw simply chose to go after the smaller prey, once again has nothing to do with Windblade being female.

3. It didn't dawn on Optimus until during their battle with Razorpaw and the minicons. He did not plan ahead to purposely be weak without even informing his team. When he saw Razorpaw go after an injured Windblade, he knew in that split second he had to do something that would make him look like the more appealing prey and so he faked defeat and when Razorpaw least expected it, he attacked.

And those are my counterarguments. But don't get me wrong, the episode does have problems which I stated in my review of the episode.

 

1. Not that great of a distance. And still doesn't answer how they didn't just freeze to death in the Arctic or what happen to Polar Claw.

2. It has been a few days between actually seeing the episode and writing that post but I don't even remember Windblade being injured.

3. Optimus has been limping since before they even encountered Razorpaw or his Mini-cons. He didn't come up with this plan at the last minute, according to him, he's been faking that limp this entire time. The idea that he was weakened by the power drain from the other Primes is far more believable than Optimus faking an injury for a Decepticon he hasn't even met yet. Also if we're simply going by how big Optimus is, the Mini-cons went after him first and they're tiny so I don't think Windblade being the smaller target had anything to do with it. No one ever said they were targeting the smallest Autobot, only that they were targeting the weakest. Even if Windblade was injured which I don't remember I don't think it was anywhere near as bad as Optimus. He was obviously the weaker target, even I thought they were talking about Optimus that whole time because he's the only one with an obvious weakness and it's carried over from the last episode they were in. So this means that Optimus has been faking his limp since before they even left the scrap yard which makes no sense.

 

1. Well I'll give you that we still don't got a good explanation to which I chalked up to them driving through the water. It was my best guess from G1, then again that's G1.

2. It was after the whole river scene. Optimus comments about how Windblade is hurt to which she insists that she'll survive. It is then that we see Razorpaw and how he speaks about going after the weakest. I'm basically going off of animal instincts here since it is logical since Razorpaw is using Puma hunting tactics.

3. Yes but that was the mini-cons, they weren't thinking with the mindset of picking off the weakest but rather who would be the greater meal which is why they chose to attack Optimus since when they appear they comment about his size.