Review: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: “Fists of Furry; The Clothes Don’t Make the Turtle; Battle Nexus: New York”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

First, in “Fists of Furry”, Splinter and April help the students at Lou Jitsu (Splinter’s former human identity)’s last dojo.

Next, in “The Clothes Don’t Make the Turtle”, the turtles slowly find themselves in a repeating loop of fashion montages orchestrated by the Hypno Hippo.

Lastly, in “Battle Nexus: New York”, Big Mama brings the Battle Nexus tournament to the Turtles’ home turf, forcing each of them to team up with some of their enemies in order to complete their respective challenges. Meanwhile, Draxum, April, Splinter, and others find themselves trapped in another dimension and break out, one of which being Foot Recruit, who manages to lure the Shredder monster away from Big Mama, swearing revenge.

OUR TAKE

We have another turtle platter in front of us as we continue working through Season 2, this time not so neatly bundled in a single theme like the last four segments were. The first two are stand alone, with one giving time to April and Splinter (who have also teamed up in prior episodes this season if I remember correctly) and the other being a more typical turtles adventure. “Fists” seemed a pretty derivative Karate Kid homage with a returning Chris Bradford from the 2012 Series (now KRISTOFF Bradford and voiced by the guy who did Godbrand in Castlevania), and “Clothes” actually played around with learning its plot backwards pretty cleverly. These two would probably be a 6 out of ten at best, honestly.

The main event, pun intended, is definitely the Battle Nexus episode. Battle Nexus is a long running event throughout this franchise, sometimes handled in different ways but almost always a big showy tournament arc. I guess I’m more surprised on its placement in the season as Episode 11, as opposed to the halfway point at Episode 13 or even the finale at Episode 26. With it being a half hour story, this seems like something momentous to save specifically for milestone points in the season as opposed to…somewhere around the middle like they’re doing here, especially considering the major plot development of the Shredder armor changing hands. I think the challenges were pretty interesting, as well as the turtles having the team up with enemies (including Hypno Hippo, who we see get captured for this in the last seconds of the episode prior), though I can’t help but feel like it would have been more interesting to have each turtle facing the challenge that was exactly the opposite of their strong suit, like Raph having to make the Statue of Liberty laugh or Leo doing the cooking challenge.

Not only that, but this is definitely one of the times where the more cartoony art style really hinders when it’s trying to go for a more serious tone, particularly when the armor is going nuts or after Raph’s supposed death. This series does have a style that is infused with a lot of energy that typically serves it well, but in this case it makes me wonder what exactly I’m supposed to take seriously and muddles the immersion in the scene I’m probably supposed to be having. It’s still an enjoyable episode overall and it’s always neat to see Lena Headey in this scenery chewing role, but I still have to knock off points for keeping me out of the zone of investment. Still, having the Shredder back in a wild card role with Foot Recruit is probably going to lead to some interesting wrinkles going forward.