Go with the Flow

« Beast Wars: Transformers ep 47 »
You just know this won't end well.
"Go with the Flow"
Production company	Mainframe Entertainment
Airdate	February 18, 1999
Written by	Bob Forward
Directed by	Cal Shumiatcher
Animation studio	Mainframe Entertainment
Continuity	Beast Wars continuity

The Predacons build a cannon that could destroy the Maximals, but require an organic life-form to finish the construction.

Synopsis

Phineas J. Whoopee, you're a genius!

Quietly, Cheetor sneaks through the forest. He whispers his activation code to switch into his robot mode, and is ambushed by Chak, the protohuman. Cheetor laughs at his company, and the two are joined by Una, putting Cheetor in a hammer-lock. Rattrap arrives and makes fun of Cheetor's attempts to teach the primitives self-defense. Cheetor moves on to trying to instruct the kids in basic engineering principles, language, and comedy through self-abuse. On a mountaintop, Megatron's army works to assemble a new, powerful weapon capable of destroying the Maximals, but because the "bi-polar energon source" to the device is installed before the shielding, the Predacons can't get near the machine they have erected. In order to complete the weapon, Tarantulas suggests recruiting the two educated protohumans on whom he happens to have been spying.

This is one of two operations Una had to do.

Waspinator and Inferno attack the two Maximals. Waspinator captures Una and brings her back to Megatron. Depth Charge arrives to aid his two allies against Inferno, but with one of the humans captured already, Inferno retreats. The danger gone, Cheetor radios back to the Maximal base to report on the attack. Optimus calls Cheetor home and sends Depth Charge and Rattrap on a mission to retrieve the abducted child.

En route to the Predacon development, Una recalls Cheetor's self-defense lesson, and with her primitive spear, she removes several of Waspinator's wasp-mode limbs. Megatron is entirely unconcerned with the well-being of his underling, but hopes the girl is still in functional condition when she arrives. Once she is dropped off, Megatron orders the disruptor cannon fired on just low enough a setting to knock Rattrap and Depth Charge out of the sky. But even at a low setting, the unfinished weapon causes harm to the Predacons, forcing Megatron to order it shut down.

Depth Charge and Rattrap crash-land in a forest, lucky to be alive, but Depth Charge is no longer flight-capable. Rattrap leaves the manta and races off on his own to finish rescuing the damsel. Megatron begins his plot and instructs Una on how to install the shielding that the energy weapon needs in order to function. Una experiments in using the shielding plates as both fashion accessories and cuisine, but doesn't entirely comprehend the meaning of each of his precise instructions. After a fancy screen transition to show the passing of time, Una has completed the shielding installation in an adorably haphazard manner. As a final step, she installs the stabilizer crystal.

This is the second one.

Rattrap arrives to save the girl and stop Megatron, but Dinobot prepares to devour the intruder. Tarantulas approaches Una to kill her, too. She squashes the spider by knocking over a huge piece of machinery, but then falls off her platform. Rattrap drives through Dinobot's legs and transforms in time to catch the girl. Together, the two drive out of the Predacons' territory.

At the site where Depth Charge crashed, Una helps Rattrap unearth Depth Charge by recommending that he use a lever. With teamwork, they slide Depth Charge into a lake and then use the giant Maximal as a raft to ride away from the attacking Predacons. They escape from their pursuers by falling down a waterfall, tossing mud in Waspinator's face so he flies blindly into Inferno. The combined airborne mess of Predacons then lands on the Dinobot clone.

I can't believe we've gone this far without making a "monkey throws poop" joke!

Megatron prepares to fire the disruptor cannon and destroy his enemies. As the massive gun charges, the Maximals prepare for the worst. But the machine malfunctions, and instead of destroying the Maximals, it explodes in place—because Una stole the stabilizer crystal. With the Predacons slagged, Una and the two Maximals float into the sunset.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Maximals	Predacons	Protohumans
Cheetor (1) Rattrap (4) Depth Charge (11) Optimus Primal (12) Rhinox (13) Blackarachnia (14)	Quickstrike (5) Tarantulas (6) Dinobot (7) Megatron (8) Waspinator (9) Inferno (10)	Chak (2) Una (3)

Quotes

"Sit down and keep quiet."
"Yeah, yeah, story of my life."

—Cheetor and Rattrap

"Peh, educational stuff. I'd rather watching things explode."

—Rattrap speaks for the intended audience.

"Waspinator sees helpless target! Oh happy day!"

—Waspinator is overjoyed.

"Waspinator to Megatron. Waspinator has female fleshy-bot, but there is problem."
"She'd better not be injured."
"No, she injuring Waspinator."
"Ah, situation normal, then. Yes. Make sure she arrives safely."
"Oh, Waspinator want to renegotiate contract."

—Waspinator to Megatron, and Megatron has picked up the running gag.

[chuckles] "I ain't dead."
"This day's just full of disappointments."

—Rattrap and Depth Charge after the crash.

"What are you lookin' at?"

—Depth Charge to a butterfly that lands on him.

"Triumph is before me!"
"And da rat is behind ya!"

—Megatron and Rattrap

Notes

Animation and technical errors

• Shortly after the Predacons are first shocked by the bipolar energon source, Megatron moves his chair to a screen. When the camera is behind him, he is missing his neck, and his left shoulder piece is severely shrunk.
• As Cheetor shoots at the Predacons, a copy of his gun can be seen on his back.
• When Waspinator first finds Una hiding behind a branch, the gold on his shoulders are first shown as octagons. Immediately after, the camera zooms to his face, where his shoulders are clearly circular. This happens often in the series.
• Depth Charge's wings go from damaged to normal as he falls through the sky.
• When Rattrap says, "...and die horrible, agonizing deaths!" before they crash into the forest, Depth Charge is also mouthing the words.
• When Depth Charge hits the rocks at the base of the waterfall (immediately before Dinobot II says "Target immobilized!"), his right flipper very briefly clips through another nearby rock.
• When Megatron alerts Dinobot II, Waspinator, and Inferno to clear the area, Dinobot II tries to get up, but his left shoulder does not move with him. It may have dislodged itself as a result from colliding into Waspinator and Inferno, but its hard to believe that those two have all their pieces intact, and a powerful Transmetal II loses his.
• While Rhinox is looking through the periscope at the mountain, the image is displayed on almost all of the screens at the Maximals' base.

Continuity errors

• Dinobot slices Rattrap's tail, but later it seems to be full-length as Rattrap uses it to paddle Depth Charge.
• When Cheetor's spark is shown in this episode it is the same blue as any normal spark when it was clearly shown to be green when he first became his Transmetal 2 form. Whether this is an error during this episode or the green spark was a result of his feral nature in that episode was never revealed.
• When Cheetor's spark chamber opens, it is the entire panel of his thigh that pops up. Previously it was shown to be a small hatch that opens and slides into his leg.

Transformers references

• Rattrap's interaction with Depth Charge is somewhat reminiscent of his ongoing rivalry with the deceased Dinobot.
• Apparently whenever Waspinator is repaired after a severe thrashing, he gets a little more brittle each time, seeing as how Una was able to pick him apart with a rock tied to a stick.
  • Then again it wouldn't be the first time a Predacon is defeated by a rock tied to a stick.
• Megatron appears to be aware of Tarantulas' eating habits, since he leaves Una to him as opposed to the favored Inferno or Dinobot.
• Megatron also seems to be aware of Rattrap's rivalry with the old Dinobot since he leaves Rattrap to Dinobot II in a twist of irony. Though this could be just because he likes the way Dinobot II works.

Real-world references

• Chak waves a club around while yelling "BAMM! BAMM!"

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "La Tendance" (Canada, "The Trend")

Italian

• Title: "Il raggio distruttore" ("The Destroyer Beam")

Japanese

• Title: "Biribirī! Shibire Babire Bū" (びりびりー! しびればびれぶー, "Zzzap! Tingly Tongly Too!")

Portuguese

• Title: "Seguindo a Correnteza" ("Following the Flow")

Spanish

• Title: "Sigue la Corriente" (America, "Go with the Flow")

Trivia

• Why didn't Inferno just wait until Waspinator had finished installing the shielding plate before plugging in the main power source?
• Both times the Predacons are shocked by the Disruptor Ray, Tarantulas somehow manages NOT to be affected, even though Megatron clearly states that it affects all Cybertronians. This may be used as a small premonition to Megatron's reference to him during the events of "Nemesis Part 1".
• Cybertronix:
  • On Cheetor's blackboard: Seemingly random letters and numbers
  • On Megatron's first piece of graphics showing the firing of the cannon: "SCREAMIN ROCKS", "A BIG GUN IN A MOUNTAIN", "FIRE".
  • And again, shortly before the fatal firing: "DEREK", "NIKKI DAWN", "HOT STUFF".
• Shortly after Depth Charge crashes, a puff of smoke appears to emit from Rattrap's, er, tailpipe.
• In a moment of apparent premonition, Cheetor's spark chamber pops open just before the alarms start sounding.
• This episode was used in place of the planned episode "Dark Glass".
• The moral of the episode is, effectively, "It's good to steal."
• When Rattrap rescues Una from falling, Silverbolt's 'rescue' theme plays.
• Richard Newman is not credited for playing Rhinox in this episode. Presumably because his one line of a calm and earnest "Oh no." is something Rhinox has said before and is quite probably just lifted from that earlier episode.

Home video releases

All releases listed are in English audio unless otherwise noted.

VHS

2000 — Beast Wars: Super Lifeform Transformers: Metals — Love Typhoon (Pioneer LDC) — Japanese audio only.
2000 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Volume 3 (Universal)

DVD

2000 — Beast Wars: Transformers: Metals — DVD Box 2 (Pioneer LDC) — English and Japanese audio.
2004 — Beast Wars: Transformers — The Complete Third Season (Rhinomation)
2006 — Beast Wars: Transformers — Season 3 (Madman Entertainment)
2009 — The Transformers: Beast Wars — Complete Collection (Madman Entertainment)