Optimal Situation

« Beast Wars: Transformers ep 40 »
Trukk and munky.
"Optimal Situation"
Production company	Mainframe Entertainment
Airdate	October 24, 1998
Writer	Bob Forward
Director	Steve Sacks
Animation studio	Mainframe Entertainment
Continuity	Beast Wars continuity

With Optimus Prime in critical condition after Megatron's attack, Optimus Primal takes on his spark to save the timestream.

Japanese title: 大きくな～れ (Ōkiku Na~re, "Gro~w Bigger")

Synopsis

Smelts in your mouth, not in your hand.

As a time storm ravages reality, Megatron gloats to the fading Maximals, since his attack on Optimus Prime ensures that the Autobots lose to the Decepticons, resulting in the Predacons having control of Cybertron. However, Blackarachnia, having been a Maximal protoform, is also affected by the time storm. She uses the information from the Golden Disk to activate Teletraan I's security system, forcing Megatron out of the Ark.

It's not the Matrix. We swear.

Blackarachnia and Silverbolt activate the Ark's repair systems to help stabilize Optimus Prime's condition, but the Autobot leader is still dying, and "reality is still in flux". The other Maximals arrive, and upon seeing Prime, realize that they must save him. However, his spark is fading. Believing there is no other choice, Optimus Primal merges his spark with Prime's to save it. He succeeds, and Rhinox summons an Autobot repair device to begin restoring Prime's body. Holding Prime's spark causes Primal to expand into a new, larger body.

Megatron and Inferno arrive and attack, though Primal manages to save the Maximals and convince the Predacons to leave, while Blackarachnia uses the commotion to escape. Outside, Waspinator provides cover fire by shooting the rocks above the Ark. The Predacons destroy the cave entrance and flee, but Megatron notices a trapped Blackarachnia. Enraged by her betrayal, Megatron shoots her as the Maximals break free. Knowing that they are heading for the unprotected Axalon, Primal and Cheetor race off.

Ug, gag unto me with a spoon.

As Silverbolt cradles the damaged Blackarachnia, he begs her to fight on and praises her defiance of Megatron. She maintains that what she did was self-preservation, but Silverbolt points out that she also saved him and the universe. He openly admits to Blackarachnia that he loves her, shocking her. While there's still time, Silverbolt asks her one last time to join the Maximals. Although she maintains that she's still a Predacon, Blackarachnia joins the Maximals for him, then goes off-line. However, Rhinox reveals that she's merely in stasis lock.

Primal and Cheetor manage to down Megatron, Inferno, and Waspinator, but Primal discovers that Rampage and the Arachnoids are literally trying to drag the base away. Optimus manages to sever the lines and dispatch Rampage, but not before Rampage fires a missile which deflects off Primal and hits the Axalon. The Axalon plummets off the cliff and crashes into the river. Knowing that he must return Prime's spark, Optimus withdraws with Cheetor to rejoin the Maximals.

And in four million years, he'll tell Ratchet he had the strangest dream.

Back in the Ark, the repairs are finished. Returning the spark causes Optimus Prime to reactivate briefly, but he almost immediately returns to stasis lock. Rattrap is less than happy, as they now have the difficult task of protecting the Ark from the Predacons. With the time stream safe—for the moment—Optimus orders the Maximals, including Blackarachnia (who still maintains she's a Predacon), to begin rounding up every piece of salvage and make fortifications.

They're moving into Mount St. Hilary.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Maximals	Predacons
Optimus Primal (1) Rhinox (2) Cheetor (3) Rattrap (4) Silverbolt (6)	Megatron (5) Blackarachnia (7) Waspinator (8) Inferno (9) Quickstrike (cameo) (10) Rampage (11) Tarantulas (12)

Quotes

Optimus: Silverbolt, what—
[The Maximals see Optimus Prime's injured face]
Optimus: Well. That's just prime.
Rattrap: Or, what's left of 'im, anyway.
[Rhinox smacks Rattrap]

—Rhinox doesn't appreciate Rattrap's graveyard humor.

Rhinox: "Hurry!"
Blackarachnia: "This technology is four million years old. It takes time."
Rattrap: "Time ya don't have, she-spider." [readies his gun]
Silverbolt: "You'll have to shoot through me, rodent."
Rattrap: "Don't tempt me!"
Rhinox: "Knock it off! We've got bigger problems."

—Tensions flare during the repairs on Optimus Prime.

"Guys? Check out Big Bot..."
[Optimus stands up... and up... and up.]
"Big bot? How do you feel?"
"In a word: Prime."

—Cheetor and Optimus after the latter's Optimal transformation.

"You wouldn't dare fire in here! It might upset history."
"We'd have four million years to clean you off the walls, Megatron. I might risk it."

—Megatron and Optimus Primal are badasses.

Megatron: This is not the end of it, Optimal Optimus. Nooo. The universe cowered once at the name of Megatron, and it shall do so again!
Optimus: Freedom is the right of all sentient beings, Megatron.
Megatron: Then they'd better stay out of my way!
Rattrap: Oh, fer bootin' up cold! Will you just shoot him?
Optimus: I'm trying not to resort to that.

—The 'bots talk smack.

"You!"
"Well, what did you expect, you metal megalomaniac?! What, that I would die for your insane ambition?!"
"Then or now, Blackarachnia, there will be no more betrayals!"

—Megatron and Blackarachnia

"Jumping gyros, Optimus sure learns a new body fast!"
"Well wha'd ya expect? He changes 'em often enough!"

—Cheetor and Rattrap, who gets a rim shot.

"Blackarachnia, dark poison of my heart, abide with me yet still."
"You got a way with words there, Rover. You almost make me wish I was a better girl."

—Silverbolt and Blackarachnia have a touching moment. Rattrap is probably on the verge of puking or shooting them.

"Talk about your crispy, ice-cold slag..."

—Cheetor's reaction to the Axalon's destruction

Notes

• Optimus runs through all four of his new body's modes within a few minutes of its debut. (His beast mode is easy to miss, but he uses it when he shields the other Maximals from the Predacons' weapons fire.)
• Blackarachnia opposes Megatron's plan to wipe the Autobots from history because she was a Maximal protoform. Technically, Quickstrike, Inferno, and (arguably) Rampage all count as Maximal protoforms too, but they don't oppose Megatron's plan because Quickstrike's ignorant, Inferno's crazy, and Rampage doesn't have a say in the matter (and is also crazy).

Animation/technical errors

• When the camera pans around Prime to show the repairs starting to be made, the Autobot insignia inside his chest is upside-down.
• When Primal first transforms into his jet mode, the cockpit is empty, but should house Prime's spark.
• After the Predacons leave the Ark, Inferno, who looked like a zombie in the scene before (and after being apparently vaporized two episodes prior), is now in mint condition.
• As the Axalon is being dragged off of the cliff, the bottom of it can be seen. However it is completely flat at the rear; the engines are not there at all.

Continuity errors

Geekery.

• The "spark container" which held Optimus Prime's spark was hauntingly similar to the Matrix of Leadership. According to Ben Yee's site, the Mainframe animators used Optimus Prime's death sequence from the Transformers movie as a visual reference and used the Matrix's design as a spark container because they didn't know its significance. This, of course, leads us to ask the question: How do you get involved with Transformers and not know the most important McGuffin in the entire continuity?
  • "Primeval Dawn" later explained the Matrix-shaped spark container as being a decoy Matrix constructed to sit in front of the real Matrix.
  • Or Rhinox's "his spark has the Matrix with it" line could suggest that while he held the Matrix, the Matrix seen in Beast Wars was the Matrix and not a decoy. Consider that in The Transformers: The Movie, Prime didn't give the Matrix to Ultra Magnus until after he had died. Look, just watch the episode, okay?

• Optimus was briefly knocked out after deflecting the missile and falling to the ground. However he is awake to watch the Axalon teeter back and forth and eventually fall off the cliff. One wonders why he couldn't have stopped it. After all, in his original form, he was able to slow the ship's descent to keep it from crashing in the episode "Victory". One would think that his much larger and more powerful form would be enough actually to lift the ship up.

Transformers references

• After Optimus Prime's spark is returned to him, he reactivates, but almost immediately returns to stasis lock. The Binaltech story chapter supplied with BT-22 Convoy establishes that Optimus Prime was at least partly aware of both the spark transfer and Optimus Primal.
• When confronting Megatron on the Ark's bridge, Optimus Primal tells Megatron, "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings," the motto of Optimus Prime. When informed by Ben Yee about this fact during the Madman Entertainment Beast Wars Season 3 DVD commentary for this episode, writer Bob Forward confessed that up to this point he had no idea, and the phrase was simply something he'd picked up from the alt.toys.transformers newsgroup.
• Later, Optimus Primal tells the Maximals to "transform and roll out."
• Ravage's falling head represents that he is, in fact, totally dead. Until he isn't.