Review: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles “Insane in the Mama Train” ; “Endgame”

Overview (Spoilers Below)

“Insane in the Mama Train”

The Foot Clan is getting ready to ship what they have of the Dark Armor that will be used to resurrect Shredder, but the Turtles are a bunch of idiots. April has already infiltrated the Foot HQ and Splinter has to round up his Turtles to help. First, Splinter’s most serious bout of training that eventually leads the Turtles to shed their silly ways and take on a more onerous personality to achieve their missions. When the Foot ships out, April finds herself in a trapped situation.

The Turtles show up and save April and then head to the part of the train that has the Dark Armor after much resistance. As expected, Baron Draxum is there waiting and he both takes April and incapacitates the turtles in one fell swoop.

“Endgame”

With the Turtles captures, April heads back to Splinter to get the last part of the Dark Armor which, today, is being used as a teapot. Splinter vows to get his kids back and assembles the “B”-team to help out. That turns into a disaster, but it doesn’t matter because the Turtles break free of their confines and Splinter gets through 300 bad guys by himself to get to Baron. Splinter beats the shit out of Baron but hands over the teapot anyway for the guaranteed safety of his sons. By the time the Turtles show up to the battle, Baron gets the Shredder Armor and all of the powers that go with it.

We get a quick flashback that teaches us the origin of Mayhem and why he’s in this battle, but the now Shred-powered Baron is causing all sorts of damage downtown. We find out that Baron won’t fully turn into the Shredder due to some sort of flaw..the teapot. We learn that the Turtles had smashed the teapot at one point and there was a piece missing that was replaced by a Jupiter Jim piece. April finds the weakness in the helmet and is able to take advantage which defeats Baron, but brings the rise of Shredder!

Our Take

Alright, FINE! You’ve won me over Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The two-part finale was an exhilarating experience that should NOT be missed. The action sequences are insane, there are portions of the episode that exhibit true technical brilliance in terms of directing, and the slightly darker tone imbued on the Turtles did the show a lot of good in the dialogue department that focused less on jokes and gags and more on action and mayhem. There’s a lot to be excited about for the future of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles except…

Nickelodeon has officially thrown up the flag on the franchise more or less following a recent deal with Netflix that will see Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles showcase on Netflix first before heading to Nick. And while this doesn’t guarantee that the show will see an overall improvement that would satiate fans of the old school franchises, it’s a step in the right direction in terms of organization. What I mean is, Nicktoons showcased the first couple of episodes of Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a month ago, and are just NOW getting to the season one finale. As a result of this premiere schedule, an obvious sign that the networks do NOT give any shits whatsoever, any attempt at tension build-up for this two-part finale is somewhat buried under the fact that we know exactly what happens after. Why the network would do this is beyond me, but it’s indicative of the network’s past of not being organized with its premieres. It’s the same type of reason why we go years without new episodes of Spongebob or why we are on Nickelodeon’s third or fourth incarnation of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise.

Yes, watch this two-part finale. Even if you’ve only seen a couple of episodes of Rise’s first season, you should be fine, the action is Dragon Ball level jaw-dropping with a delicious plot. And yes, I know April gets annoying in this show, but you’ll be so engulfed in eye candy you’ll forget she’s there. John Cena is fantastic as Baron, and while I think the artists are overdoing the look of Shredder and his back story is somewhat bastardized, I do think the show works better as a longer-form series rather than a Cartoon Network-esque format which will hopefully allow the producers to correct a ship that could veer of course at any moment.