Five Servos of Doom

« Transformers Animated ep 35 »
"Five Servos of Doom"
Airdate	April 4, 2009
Written by	Andrew R. Robinson
Directed by	Kalvin Lee, Yoshio Frank Chatani
Animation studio	Mook

Sentinel Prime has incredible success capturing fugitive Decepticons, leading Prowl to suspect he's getting help.

Synopsis

In the dead of night, the Autobots steal through the streets of Detroit, on the trail of a Decepticon energy signature. With the source of the signal cornered, Prowl makes his move and dives through a window, only to find that the signal is coming from a beacon, and that the Autobots have been tricked. To make matters worse, Sentinel Prime has disappeared, and the Autobots spread out to search for him. During the search, Optimus Prime spots an unfamiliar shadow, and follows it around a corner… to find the sycophantic Starscream clone, captured and stasis-cuffed by Sentinel Prime. They take the prisoner back to the Elite Guard's ship, where Optimus is stunned to discover that Sentinel has also recently captured Blitzwing and Swindle, as well.

Jetstorm and Jetfire are eager to know how Sentinel managed to apprehend the Starscream clone, as is Optimus, but Sentinel gets defensive and tells Optimus it does not concern him. Prime confides in Prowl his suspicion that Sentinel is hiding something, and tells him about the strange shadow he saw. Back at the Autobot plant, the pair consult computer records to see if Optimus can identify the distinctive helmet the robot was wearing, and when they find one that fits the bill, the stunned Prowl flashes back to his past on Cybertron…

The helmet belongs to Yoketron, the ninja master who trained Prowl centuries ago. Attempting to dodge the draft during the Great War, Prowl was apprehended by Elite Guardsman Warpath and placed into the care of Yoketron, who saw potential in him and offered to train him in exchange for the charges against him being dropped.

Optimus pulls Prowl out of his ruminations, and the ninja-bot silently speeds back to the Elite Guard ship to converse with Jazz, another of Yoketron's old students. The pair suspect that their old sensei may somehow be on Earth, capturing Decepticons, and that Sentinel is taking the credit. Sentinel walks in on the middle of the discussion and laughs off the notion that Yoketron is even still online, before departing on another patrol. Knowing that something is not right, Jazz and Prowl shadow Sentinel, but when Sentinel rounds a corner and disappears, Prowl lapses into his memories once again, recalling when Yoketron taught him that it was the robot himself, not his tools, that made the ninja. With nothing left to do, the pair return to the Elite Guard's ship, where Jetfire and Jetstorm are working to repair their communications system. The two brothers tells the ninajs that Sentinel is waiting for them in the brig, and Jazz and Prowl are amazed to see that Sentinel has brought in Lugnut! As Sentinel gloats, Prowl calls him on the unlikihood of the whole scenario, and accuses him of having "help". The ninja-bot points out the missing weapons on all the Decepticons, and notes that only one bot that he knows of takes trophies from his victims, but Sentinel silences him by revealing that he has removed Lugnut's "Punch of Kill Everything" and placed it in a storage compartment in that very hallway. Embarassed, Prowl leaves, and Sentinel turns on Optimus, telling him to keep Prowl in line, lest me "bust him back to protoform". The word echoes down the hallway, and Prowl pauses…

As Prowl's skills increase under Yoketron's tutelage, he is deemed worthy of a weapon by his master and is given his shuriken. Yoketron leads Prowl into a chamber containing holographic busts of his greatest students, but one plinth is empty; a spot, Yoketron reveals, previously held by a former student who disgraced the cyber-ninja corps. Prowl is amazed when Yoketron uses a technique known as "processor-over-matter" to open the far wall of the chamber with the power of his mind, revealing a greater chamber beyond, its walls lined with protoforms that the cyber-ninja corps has been charged with protecting. Yoketron challenges Prowl to close the chamber using processor-over-matter, but Prowl is unable to accomplish the task, and Yoketron sends him on an "optics quest" to find his center and become a true cyber-ninja.

Prowl's trip down memory lane is cut off as Sentinel comes down the hallway, and Prowl uses his hologram projector to disguise himself as a cabinet and listen in as Sentinel talks with parties unknown over his communicator. Prowl alerts Jazz before trailing Sentinel to Tigatron Stadium, where he learns that his suspicions were correct: Sentinel is working with Lockdown, who is wearing Yoketron's helmet! Prowl busts up the prisoner exchange, but it is soon revealed that Lockdown is double-crossed Sentinel, having been made a better offer by the Starscream clone. Lockdown and Prowl engage in battle, and Lockdown reveals that he was also a student of Yoketron…

Returning from his unsuccessful optics quest, Prowl discovers that Yoketron's dojo has been attacked, the protoforms almost all stolen, and Yoketron himself fatally wounded. As Yoketron's spark begins to fade, Prowl recovers one of the remaining protoforms and places his master's spark in it, saving Yoketron's life. Yoketron, however, is apalled by his students' actions; one must never sacrifice a piece of the future in order to save a piece of the past. When Prowl's time comes, Yoketron tells him, he too will understand. As Prowl looks on, Yoketron allows his spark to fade out.

At last, all is clear to Prowl: Lockdown led the attack on the dojo and took the protoforms! Prowl pins Lockdown and demands the return of Yoketron's helmet; Lockdown appears to comply, but the helmet has been booby-trapped, and binds Prowl in a tangle of cables. The captured Prowl is taken to Lockdown's ship, where the bounty hunter intends to remove his jump jets and holo-project in order to complete a duplicate set of the armor that he loaned Prowl during their last encounter. Lying on Lockdow's "operating table", Prowl concentrates, and at last masters processor-over-matter, freeing his body from the cables with the power of his mind.

Meanwhile, Optimus Prime, Jazz, Jetfire and Jetstorm have arrived to rescue Sentinel Prime from the clutches of the Starscream clone, but the fight is not going well, as the clone uses Sentinel for a shield most of the time. The clone takes to the air, but Prime blinds it with a faceful of foam and it crashes into the middle of the stadium field, dropping Sentinel head-first into the ground.

Back aboard Lockdown's ship, the bounty hunter turns to discover that Prowl has freed himself and donned both Yoketron's helmet and the armor, knowing that he will be able to handle its power this time because of the lesson he has finally learned: it is the ninja-bot, not the weapon. The two engage in battle once more, and their fight soon carries them out of the ship and into the middle of the other fight going on in the field outside. Optimus Prime and Jazz are in the process of dropping the stadium's scoreboard onto the Starscream clone, but Prowl and Lockdown get in the way at the last second, before they can stop the giant screen's tumble. As the dust clears, Optimus and Jazz discover that Prowl has used processor-over-matter to protect the combatants from the debris. Optimus quickly stasis-cuffs the Starscream clone, but Lockdown gets away. A little later, everyone has returned to the Elite Guard ship, where Jetstorm and Jetfire open a communications channel with Cliffjumper on Cybertron. Cliffjumper thell the Autobots about Shockwave's attack on Ultra Magnus, and rather than add to the trouble, Prime refrains from reporting Sentinel's misconduct, instead simply informing Cliffjumper of the capture of the Decepticons on Earth, crediting Prowl. Sentinel thanks Optimus for covering for him, but Optimus promises that once everything is done, he and Sentinel will have it out.

Back at the Autobot base, Jazz compliments Prowl on his armor, and tells him that Yoketron would be proud to have him wear his helmet. Prowl vows to do everything he can to be worthy of it.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons
Prowl (1) Jazz (2) Optimus Prime (3) Sentinel Prime (4) Jetstorm (8) Jetfire (9) Yoketron (10) Warpath (11) Safeguard (15) Cliffjumper (16)	Sunstorm (5) Blitzwing (6) Swindle (7) Lugnut (12) Lockdown (13) Liar Starscream clone (14)

Notes

Animation or technical errors

• When the scoreboard crashes onto Prowl, Lockdown and the Liar, Prowl is missing his samurai armor.

Continuity errors

• It's not technically an error, since Prowl has always remained quiet on his history and could just have been holding back from correcting anyone, but this episode reveals that he was online during the Great War, prior to the creation of Omega Supreme, where previous episodes have suggested that none of the main Animated Autobot cast, except for Ratchet, were around back then. Notably, this makes Prowl older than Optimus Prime, which… sits ill, at best.

Transformers references

• Prowl performed the titular "Five Servos of Doom" technique back in "The Elite Guard".
• Swindle is still stuck in vehicle mode after the events of "SUV: Society of Ultimate Villainy".
• Yoketron is named for Takara's lead designer, Hideaki Yoke.

• In addition to Yoketron and Jazz, the busts in Yoketron’s little “hall of fame” depict Animated incarnation of various Transformers that have otherwise not appeared in the series. Those clearly visible onscreen include Springer, Sky Garry, Devcon, Dai Atlas, Heavy Load, Star Upper and Roadhandler, but there are many more busts in the room that are only seen from a distance, and are essentially unidentifiable. Derrick J. Wyatt has identified the other Transformers as Ultra Magnus, Star Saber, Tap-Out, Kick-Off, Grandus, Motorarm, Powerhug and Road Rocket.
  • Additionally, Wyatt classifies the characters as being specialists in different categories, namely Fencing/Swordfighting/Melee Weapons (Star Saber, Magnus, Dai Atlas, Springer) , Boxing/Kick-Boxing/Street-Fighting (Tap-Out, Star Upper, Sky Garry, Kick-Off, Devcon), Sumo/Wrestling (Grandus, Motorarm, Powerhug and Roadhandler) and Martial Arts/Ninja (Yoketron, Jazz, Heavy Load and Road Rocket). These classifications speak for themselves more often than not (no explanation is needed for the melee-weapon characters, nor for someone like Star Upper, who was all about boxing), but sometimes the rationale is a bit more obscure (Heavy Load, for instance, was only ever noted to be a martial artist in his bio; it never came across in the cartoon), or is a reference to some past fiction (Roadhandler being classified as a wrestler is the main example, being that it’s a reference to his stint in the squared circle from the Marvel Comics story, "The Interplanetary Wrestling Championship!"). Conversely, sometimes it’s just a joke - Grandus as a sumo, for instance, is purely a gag based on the fact that he’s a big fatty fat-fat.
• Tigatron Stadium!
• Lockdown identifies Prowl's techniques as Metallikato and Circuit-Su.
• Prowl's samurai armor was previously seen in "A Fistful of Energon", in which Lockdown last appeared.

Real-world references

• The title of the episode is apparently derived from wrestler Bret Hart's signature "finishing sequence", the "Five Moves of Doom".
• Tigatron Stadium is most likely named after Tiger Stadium, the former home field of the Detroit Tigers, which has been partially demolished.

Trivia

• Like the previous episode, this episode received an early online debut when a copy loaded onto the Cartoon Network website server, intended to go live after the episode premiered, was leaked out on March 27, over a week before the episode premiered on television.
• The voice cast for this episode does not credit David Kaye with the role of Cliffjumper.

• Having three faces warrants three mouthclamps it seems, as the animation depicts the mouthclamps on Blitzwing's faces rotating when he switches personality.