The Immobilizers

« Transformers: Cyberverse ep 63 »
"The Immobilizers"
Production company	eOne
Airdate	November 6, 2021 (YouTube) November 22, 2021 (Netflix)
Writer	Zac Atkinson Dan Salgarolo
Director	Ehud Landsberg
Animation studio	Boulder Media Studio
Watch this episode on YouTube

When a gang of Mercenaries time-locks all of Cybertron, Grimlock and a group of new friends must combine their efforts to save the planet.

Synopsis

In the Tomb of Nexus Prime, Arcee and Grimlock happily dart towards the exit with ancient relics in hand, pursued by the gigantic invisible bird that has made the tomb its home. Narrowly dodging booby traps and projectile eggs, the two manage to escape in their shuttle, blasting off towards Cybertron. As they fly, they review the contents of their haul, including the mysterious Enigma of Combination. Grimlock remarks offhandedly how nice the Enigma will look at the centerpiece for the party he'll be holding after the signing of the peace treaty happening that day—which the two realize in a moment of panic that they are now very late for.

Indeed, shouts of joy can be heard all across Cybertron over the treaty's impending ratification, with nearly the entire population having gathered along the border wall dividing the planet to celebrate. Parades march through the streets and vendors hock their wares as Cybertronians anticipate the reunification of their people. A delegation of Autobots and Decepticons, led by Optimus Prime and Soundwave respectively, take the stage above the wall as Optimus happily announces the end of the war and the beginning of a new era of peace for for their world. Indeed, it seems everything is going perfectly—until a stream of green energy waves descend from above. Without anyone ever even noticing, all life on Cybertron is frozen in place as the waves cover the surface of the entire planet. The source of the waves is revealed to be an enormous black ship, the captain of which orders the crew to approach the surface.

Arcee and Grimlock arrive back on Cybertron, immediately noticing something is wrong. Confused as to why their friends are all unmoving, they hear the other ship land and arm themselves before splitting up to investigate. As Arcee explores, she notices a Cybertronian bird flying by and moves to follow it, radioing Grimlock to follow. The hatch of the black ship opens, and its occupants emerge: the Mercenaries Nightbird, Bug Bite, Afterburner, Doublecrosser, and their leader Soundblaster. As his companion Buzzsaw returns to his chest, Soundblaster gives the order to start ransacking the planet, only to be interrupted by fire from Arcee's gatling blaster. Arcee demands to know what they've done to her friends, only for Soundblaster to demonstrate firsthand by using his time blaster to freeze Arcee mid-fire like the others, and Bug Bite snatches her blaster for himself. With the threat neutralized, the Mercenaries grab Arcee and take off towards the celebration.

Grimlock gets worried when Arcee doesn't respond to his calls, only for his fears to be confirmed when he finds her in a pile of frozen bodies. Grimlock swears vengeance, only to pause when he notices voices coming from nearby. Investigating, Grimlock comes across a group of four bots bickering their next course of action. Assuming them to be the culprits, Grimlock orders them to restore the planet to normal. Caught by surprise, the intruders transform and attack Grimlock, but he quickly overpowers them with his dinosaur mode and a cry of "Me Grimlock!" This shocks the flying robot, who claims that they know who he his. As everyone calms down, the four confirm they too are trying to stop the Mercenaries, calling him "King Grimlock" and sharing a rallying cry that Grimlock recognizes as his own words. The four introduce themselves as Sludge, Snarl, Slug and Swoop, explaining that their people intercepted one of Grimlock's video logs from his time on prehistoric Earth and were inspired by his message, taking on forms resembling his dinosaur friends in homage to him. However, the Mercenaries similarly time-locked their planet before looting and destroying it, with them as the only survivors. Now the four seek vengeance for their planet and their fallen friend, Tiny Arms. Now determined, Grimlock demands they taken him to the Mercenaries.

The five Dinobots find four of the Mercenaries in the process of vandalizing a wall, and Grimlock orders the others to wait while he handles things. Grimlock charges into battle and seems to be pinned down at first, prompting the others to disobey orders and charge in. Grimlock quickly manages to turn the tide of battle, but before he can finish them off, the other Dinobots make their entrance, only to get hit by Bug Bite's grenades and thrown into Grimlock. Soundblaster arrives on the scene, arming his time blaster, and Grimlock orders the group to retreat, convering their escape as they grab the frozen Arcee and take off in Grimlock's shuttle. Grimlock berates the team for not following his orders, but is interrupted as Snarl picks up the Enigma of Combination. Moving to stop him, Grimlock accidentally bumps the steering mechanism, sending the ship into a spiral. As the group collides with each other, the Enigma of Combination activates and a giant Autobot bursts forth from the spacecraft, crashing to the ground. The five Dinobots emerge from the subsequent dust cloud, realizing that for a moment, they all shared one consciousness.

The Mercenaries arrive at the treaty signing and, with the blessings of their "boss", begin to rob the crowd of their belongings and throw them in their hovercraft's trailer, messing with various bots in the process. As Nightbird claims Windblade's Stormfall Sword for herself, Soundblaster mocks the frozen delegates before his attention falls on Soundwave. Elsewhere, Grimlock posits that it was the Enigma of Combination that caused the five of them to form that enormous warrior, which Swoop confirms through a quick Witwiki search. The five take hold of the Enigma and are once again combined into the mighty Volcanicus! Unfortunately, the combiner's elation is short-lived, as they immediately trip and fall, splitting back into the Dinobots. Grimlock believes that Volcanicus's power could be enough to defeat the Mercenaries, but they will need to learn how to use their new form first, and he constructs a training course to help them practice. Things go poorly at first, with Volcanicus failing to clear any of the obstacles. Grimlock worries for their ability to succeed, but the rallying cheers of the others reinvigorates him and encourages him to try again. This time, Volcanicus easily clears the course, discovering they possess a sword as well.

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Notes

Continuity notes

• The Dinobots intercepted and were inspired by the last of Grimlock's video logs from prehistoric Earth, originally seen in the first season episode "King of the Dinosaurs".

Transformers references

• The Enigma of Combination, the artifact of Nexus Prime, was a key object in the latter years of the first IDW continuity and plays a major role in the concurrent issues of the 2019 ongoing. Visually this Engima trades its comic counterparts' silver and red for a gold and blue paintjob.
• Swoop consults her "Witwiki" database for information on the Enigma of Combination, a pun based on the Witwicky family featured in many other Transformers incarnations. (Fun fact: many years ago, TFWiki.net was nearly given the exact same name!)
  • According to Randolph Heard, an earlier draft of the script used the name "TiffWiki" instead. We're genuinely flattered.
• Another "Soundwave Superior" for the list.
• Upon seeing Volcanicus, the Mercenaries swear by Megatronus.

Real-world references

• The two tablets at the "Save the Singlehorn" stand have a coded message written in Autobot script thanking several YouTube content creators for reviewing Cyberverse over the years: "Comodian Cam [sic], Ultra Primal, Dragonkllper19600 [sic], Threw Adams [sic], Rodimus Primal, Heyan Carlill [sic], Jillian Jones, thanks for all the reviews. We love you guys."
• "Witwiki" is, of course, based on the real-life website Wikipedia.

Other trivia

• Clobber is voiced by Deanna McGovern in place of her usual actress, Saskia Marx
• Originally scheduled for a November 21st premiere on Netflix, this episode unexpectedly debuted two weeks early on YouTube, something that was only announced literally the day before it happened.
• On a clipboard, there were some Transformers fans in cybertronian writing including:
  • Comodian Cam, Ultra Primal, Dragonkeeper, Threw Adams, Rodimns Primal, Heyan Carlie, Jillian Jones, Uhanks for all the review, We love you guys.

Animation and technical errors

• During the opening parade scenes, Clobber has an Autobot insignia. At the end, when she hugs Lockdown, it has changed to a Decepticon insignia.
• The flock of Laserbeak-type birds all have Decepticon insignia, despite being unaligned.
• When Afterburner and Bugbite begin shooting at Grimlock, Afterburner is miscolored as Dirge.
• When the Dinobots transform to Volcanicus for the second time, the screen cuts to black for a few seconds. Perhaps this would have been where the credits would appear if the episode was split into four parts?
• Trypticon's name is incorrectly misspelled "Tripticon" in the credits.
• Teletraan-X is listed in the voice credits, despite not appearing in the episode. His name is also misspelled "Teletran-X".

Foreign localization

• TBA

Home video releases

• TBA