Oh, you clever dogs! That title is just two hairs away from a Philip K. Dick reference! Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep indeed! Or, have… nightmares of, I don’t know, the Robot Devil or something.
So it turns out that not just crabs, but pretty much any Earth animal freaks out Grimlock. Russell is feeding a stray cat, of course, so Bumblebee felt the need to warn him about that. Bee, Fixit and Denny are heading out on a night mission to find more of the Alchemor’s lost supply of energon. Russell and the rest are going to watch horror movies in the dark while they’re gone. This works out for Russell, since he believes himself to be fearless.
Chop Shop’s (literal) right hand, however, has other plans. He slinks into the junkyard while no one is looking and steals 40 cakes tries to free the rest of his buddies from confinement. But a terror flaps in the night. And just as he reaches the containment pod, he turns to find something swooping down on him.
The bots notice that Russell isn’t even remotely scared by the events of the movie. When he goes to get more popcorn, they decide a prank is in order. All three of them actually fail, though Strongarm comes the closest by burying herself and pretending some Decepticon chopped her up. He’s not terrified by Grimlock’s Dr. Salvidor/Leatherface impression, either.
Around that point, Bee, Denny and Fixit come back. Just as they begin to unload the energon they found, they get some signals indicating that there are several Decepticons in a nearby cave system. Bumblebee botches another rallying cry, and they head out.
They come up with a plan to use the luminescent paint they got way back in, I can’t remember, episode 3? 4? They take Denny, but leave Russell to watch Fixit. Grimlock manages to hit every single stalagtite on his trek through the caves. As they explore, they get taken out one by one. Denny gets lost and drops his walkie talkie. As Fixit frets, the Decepticon flies out the mouth of the cave, terrifying Fixit. Russell reminds him to identify the damn thing , and he discovers that it is named Nightrstrike, and has a paralyzing screech that causes Cybertronians exposed to it to live their worst fears over and over.
Russell dives for cover, but Fixit has already been hit by the screech. Nightstrike picks him up and heads back for the cave. Denny, ecstatic that he finally made it out of the cave, gets caught on the passing Nightstrike and hauled back into the cave as well. Russell finally knows true fear.
He goes spelunking for the others, following the marks his dad made. The bots, meanwhile, are cocooned up and tripping balls. Bumblebee lives out his fear of failing Optimus. Strongarm? Total criminal. Sideswipe? Claustrophobic car’s nightmare. Fixit? Relegated to the planet of junk. Grimlock? Stuck on a tiny planet with a kitten.
Denny complains to Nightstrike that he doesn’t even have energon for him to siphon away. Nightstrike pretty much tells him that that’s shit luck for him. Denny notices Russell, and tells Nightstrike there’s a rescue party already on its way. Nightstrike doesn’t believe him per se, but he decides not to leave anything to chance. This lets Russell free Denny with a rock, and get started on freeing Bumblebee. Nightstrike, however, realizes he’s been duped, and comes back before they finish. They take turns freeing the bots and leading Nightstrike away.
Bumblebee comes to, and uses his weapon to free the 1/5 of Chop Shop from the beginning of the episode. Bee begs him to help Russell and Denny before he leaves. It looks like he’s about to scuttle off, ignoring that plea, but he finds a bucket of luminescent paint and chucks it into Nightstrike’s eyes. He then runs off, likely to plan his next attempt at freeing the rest of himself. Bumblebee gets Nightstrike to fly at him, and takes a good chunk out of his wing. That probably explains why they so rarely connect with the Decepticon Hunters.
Once Grimlock is free, he in turn frees the rest of them with ease. Russell tells them that the best way to beat Nightstrike is to turn off their audio receptors. So they literally negate this guy’s only real ability by turning off their hearing aids.
This was a pretty good episode of Transformers: Robots in Disguise. Nightsrike looks pretty cool, if nothing else. And it was basically a Halloween episode in June. So, plus, I guess?
Final Thoughts:
- Usually, it’s the cat that gets caught up a tree.
- No Wreck-Gar cameo makes me sad.
- Seriously, where did he get that axe?
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Serosily Grimlock runs from this super tiny kittin. Poor Grimlock.