Review: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles “Breaking Purple”;”Repairin’ the Baron”;”Air Turtle”;”Pizza Puffs”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

First, Donatello finds himself turning into Splinter when his sentient drone, SHELLDONN (voiced by Greg Cipes) starts acting out. SHELLDONN eventually runs away and joins a drone racing league with the Purple Dragons, so Donny finds him and helps him realize that he only acts tough because he cares.

Next, Baron Draxum is recuperating from his failed attempt to use the Shredder Armor and has moved in next to Raph. Raph is suspicious, but Mikey thinks he’s worth giving a second chance seeing how he’s the one who created them. Draxum gets a chance to show this when Garm and Freki arrive to take him in on the Yokai Council’s orders, as Draxum saves multiple people during the carnage, so Raph comes around on him too. Draxum then gets hired at the cafeteria at April’s school.

Later, Leo’s moves on the basketball court get him a job as the mascot for his local team, whose owner has also purchased a cursed archway that possesses the players and makes them demonically strong…and then turning them into monsters. So Leo has to learn to work with his team instead of prioritizing winning in order to beat the monsters and exorcise the demons.

Finally, Raph saves a celebrity chef from being poisoned by Meat Sweats’ latest dish, but later finds his brothers have eaten the poisoned food and started to mutate even more. They must then track down Meat Sweats for the antidote, while Raph tries to teach the others how to think for themselves.

OUR TAKE

Gotta be honest, I have not really kept up with this version of TMNT since I reviewed its first episode back in 2018. Going through the last handful of episodes, I seem to have missed quite a bit in the show’s first season, though my main takeaway from it looks to be that this version of the series is continuing to forge its own path and identity instead of relying very much on previous concepts and characters from preceding TMNT shows. At the same time, it seems to still be able to work in hidden easter eggs for long time fans, like bringing Rob Paulsen back as a minor villain, Greg Cipes back as SHELLDONN, and even little references here and there to other incarnations of the team. I may have to go back and give the rest of the first season a proper rewatch one of these days.

As for this set of episodes, I was surprised to find that each one actually ended up giving each of the four turtles a bit of the spotlight and gave me a look at this version of their personalities. Leo has been taken off the leader duty in this incarnation to become the cool guy who has charisma as his only stat, at least as far as he knows. Mikey has gone from a lovable dummy to a positive self-help guru, Raph is now a far more responsible older brother who now has the leading position, and Donny is…well, basically the same if his episode is anything to go by. Essentially what I’m seeing is that the base personality traits of each of the turtles has been left, but the showrunners of this version have taken them in new directions, which seems to be how it always goes when a new version of the show happens.

If I had to pick a favorite episode out of the four, I would go with “Repairin’ the Baron”, if only because I tend to like villain redemption stories on principal. Now, granted, I’m not super versed on Baron Draxum’s character in this series beyond that he used to be the Shredder equivalent and was voiced by John Cena, but it still seems like this turn to the light might help in fleshing out his character a bit. Although he was the main antagonist of the first season, which leaves the door open for someone else to take over that for this season, but we’re coming on the end of the first quarter and no one’s emerged to take that place. Guess we’ll have to see as the show moves forward. Which shouldn’t be long since there’s a new one this Friday!