Editing The Loop

{{episode|
|otherseries=''[[Transformers: Cyberverse (cartoon)|Transformers: Cyberverse]]'' ep 41
|image=
|caption=
|prev=The Battle For Cybertron IV
|next=The Dead End
|title="The Loop"
|airdate=[[February 18]], [[2020]] (UK)
|production company=[[Allspark Animation]]
|writer=
|animation studio=[[Boulder Media Studio]]
|director=
}}

'''It is a perfect day for a parade.'''

==Synopsis==
In the gloom of a darkened and empty Cybertron, [[Hot Rod (Cyberverse)|Hot Rod]] and [[Clobber (Cyberverse)|Clobber]] race through abandoned streets, until they come to a mesh of strange, ominously glowing wires. Rigging up an interface with a [[Cortical psychic patch]], Hot Rod tells Clobber to keep an eye out while he goes in...

It's a beautiful, sunlit day on Cybertron, and all is fun and celebrations at the Parade of Metals. [[Bumblebee (Cyberverse)|Bumblebee]] eagerly rushes through the crowd, not wanting to miss a moment. He bumps into [[Grimlock (Cyberverse)|Grimlock]], asking if the Dinobot has seen [[Windblade (Cyberverse)|Windblade]]. Grimlock directs him to across the street, where Windblade is talking with [[Chromia (Cyberverse)|Chromia]]. Bumblebee's attempts to get to his friend are stymied by the parade, so Bumblebee tells her he'll catch her in a bit. Behind him, Hot Rod appears, trying to reach out to Bumblebee, but his efforts are thwarted by an oblivious parade-goer, and by the time Hot Rod's shoved him out of the way, Bee's moved. When he catches up to him, Hot Rod says they need to talk, but Bumblebee tells him to wait until after the parade. As they watch, one of the floats malfunctions, and a cube of metal comes lose, crushing Whirl. Hot Rod entreaties to Bumblebee again, telling him he ''needs'' to come with him, and he needs to transform, that nothing he's experiencing is real. Unfortunately, Bumblebee agrees. The parade is ''un''real. Then he catches sight of Optimus Prime, grand marshal of the parade. Hot Rod presses further, and Bumblebee starts to remember. Then three jets pass over head, the world turns white... and the parade starts all over again.

Hot Rod sighs at almost having gotten through to Bumblebee that time, as the oblivious scout walks past him, repeating his conversation with Grimlock. Hot Rod signs out, and returns to the real Cybertron, dejected. Clobber asks if his plan worked, noting he was in the simulation for a long time. Hot Rod laments that he was there for fifty-seven loops, wondering why it was so much easier to break Clobber out than his friends. Even Clobber isn't certain, merely recounting that Hot Rod told her to transform, so she did. The Autobot mutters about his luck, with Clobber oblivious to his sarcasm. He asks her if she remembers what happened when she woke up, but all Clobber can remember is being at the Parade of Metals, being happy, then transforming and waking up, finding herself face-to-face with something awful, scary even. Like, for example, the [[Quintesson|hovering, five-eyed tentacled head]] that has just snuck up on the two of them.

Clobber's initial confidence that they have the situation is shaken when it starts firing lasers out of its tentacles. Hot Rod tells her they need to go before more come. More ''always'' come, Clobber reminds him. The two transform and drive off, pursued by the tentacle-head. As he drives, Hot Rod cautions Clobber to stick close, but doesn't even finish his warning before realizing his companion has fallen behind. Investigating, Hot Rod finds she's been caught. ''Again.'' Hot Rod manages to rescue her, and the two drive off, pursued now by three tentacle-heads. Though they manage to lose one by tricking it into driving into a tunnel, the other two remain in pursuit, chasing the fugitives to a broken bridge, which they are forced to jump. Clobber doesn't quite make it. Hot Rod mutters this now means she owes him twice. The two transform and drive off again, this time managing to evade the tentacle-heads by ducking out of sight.

As the two wander the abandoned streets, they come across the sight of a [[Sharkticon (Cyberverse)|Sharkticon]] commanding a squad of the heads, as they carry off two unconscious Cybertronians. An incensed Hot Rod spots a derelict building nearby, which gives him an idea. He tells Clobber to listen to him...

Drawing the Sharkticon's attention to him, Hot Rod stands waiting for them to get near... only for Clobber to misunderstand his instructions, and cheerfully knock down the wrong derelict building, one no-where near Hot Rod's intended targets. The Sharkticon pursues Hot Rod until he's cornered, but as it advances, a building falls on it and its minions, Clobber finally having gotten the idea. Recoinoitering, the two take stock of their luck, and an eyesore on the Iacon skyline, a giant ship which is the source of the mysterious vine-like wires spread across Cybertron. The two return "home".

Stopping outside their headquarters to make sure they weren't followed, Hot Rod and Clobber enter their headquarters, where they are greeted by Perceptor, who is still blind, but is able to deduce their trip was unsuccessful thanks to his hearing still working perfectly fine. Hot Rod reports that he hacked into the Loop, but couldn't break any of their allies out. Perceptor notes the Autobots have no idea they're being made to watch the same parade over and over, but there's worse news. He summons up a scan of Clobber, noting that at the moment, her Spark reads as perfectly healthy and normal, but when Hot Rod first rescued her, it was greatly diminished, as if something was feeding off it. And Perceptor believes this is the same for everyone in the Loop. If they don't free everyone soon, they'll never wake up. Hot Rod vows they will get everyone out, and end the Quintesson invasion.

==Featured characters==
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==Quotes==

==Notes==
===Continuity notes===
*It's another time-skip for ''Cyberverse'', and it's, uh, kind of a biggie. Just last episode, Cybertron had been restored, the war was over and everything was good. Now, there's Quintessons everywhere and the planet's been enslaved. How did that happen? Well, actually, it's a good question, since the show at no point actually explains that one.
*Also, Hot Rod's ''alive''?! When last seen, [[The Battle For Cybertron III|he'd been pretty badly wounded]], and fallen into a puddle of toxic energon, yet here he is, just fine and dandy, sporting a funky new black color-scheme (which the credits label "Dark Hot Rod"). No such luck for Drift, it seems. Teach him to be a stinkin' Decepticon.
*Perceptor was last seen as a prisoner of the Decepticons alongside Chromia in "[[The Battle For Cybertron III]]". His words suggest he managed to reason his way out of the Loop on his own.

===Transformers references===
*The Parade of Metals was first mentioned in the [[Transformers: Rescue Bots (cartoon)|''Rescue Bots'']] episode "[[All Spark Day (episode)|All Spark Day]]" as part of [[All Spark Day (event)|the eponymous festival]].
*Aw, snap, it's the Quintessons, making their first appearance as baddies in an animated ''Transformers'' medium since the 80s (though, as with their mention back in "[[The Crossroads]]", the name is pronounced here with the stress on the second syllable, instead of the first, as was the cartoon's preference). While those seen in this episode are a significant departure from their G1 counterparts, the red-eyed, one-faced hovering heads shown here are indeed Quintessons.
*Making a (re)appearance with them is a Sharkticon, who served as the Quintessons' hench-minions / pets back then. However, the Sharkticon here is shown ordering the Prosecutors about, a change in their dynamic from the old days.

===Real-world references===
*It might not be a coincidence that the rank-n-file Quintessons seen here resemble the [https://matrix.fandom.com/wiki/Sentinel Sentinels], the killer-robot servants of the machines in ''[[The Matrix]]'' film series, which also featured people being unknowingly plugged into a virtual world for sinister purposes.

===Other trivia===
*While fleeing from the Sharkticon, Hot Rod, like a protagonist from a horror movie, manages to forget that he turns into a wheeled vehicle and tries outrunning it on foot.

===Animation and technical errors===
*TBA

===Foreign localization===
*TBA

==Home video releases==
*TBA

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loop, The}}
[[Category:Cyberverse episodes]]