Bear Necessities
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 Cocaine Bear II, directed by David Cronenbear. | ||||||
| "Bear Necessities" | ||||||
| Season | 1 | |||||
| No. in season | 15 | |||||
| Production company | Entertainment One Nickelodeon | |||||
| Airdate | March 3, 2023 | |||||
| Writer | Isabel Galupo | |||||
| Director | Alex Kwan | |||||
| Animation studio | Icon Creative Studio | |||||
 Watch this episode on Paramount+
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Mother's Day goes wrong when Twitch kidnaps a baby bear, leading the Maltos to discover a toxic threat in the woods of Witwicky.
Synopsis
Somewhere in the outskirts of Witwicky, a mysterious man drops some boxes brazened with a G.H.O.S.T. insignia that begin to ominously glow as he departs.
Back at the Malto family farm, it’s Mother’s Day and with Alex gone picking up her present, Dot finds herself being catered to by her children and Terrans. During the gift giving session, Robby learns from Twitch that she wasn’t able to find a gift for Dot due to her fretting over wanting to pick the perfect one. When Robby tells her that Dot will appreciate anything Twitch gets her and to go for something classic like flowers or a teddy bear, Twitch flies off seemingly haven gotten an idea. Upon returning however she reveals to have misinterpreted Robby’s statement and presents Dot with an actual bear cub. Knowing that the cub can’t be away from it’s mother at such a young age, Dot takes the cub to return it bringing Robby and Twitch along with her. While driving on the way to find it's mother, Dot’s prosthetic leg suddenly fires off a laser shot that sends the car nearly whirling off a cliff. Dot soon realizes Nightshade’s Mother’s Day gift to her was to alter her prosthetic leg with a series of enhancements triggered by keywords such as “fight”. The trio then have to continue the journey on foot after the cub escapes it’s cage and runs off into the woods.
Back with the Mo and ther others at the farm, they find themselves terrorized by the arrivval of the mother bear of the kidnapped cub. Fleeing in a panic into the woods they find Hashtag’s advice she’s found online on how to fend off a bear attack to be unhelpful at best. Realizing the animal smells it’s cub on Jawbreaker, Mo and the others use him as bait to try and lure the mother back to its cub as they race off to find Dot. Meanwhile with Dot, Twitch, and Robby they discover more of the mysterious G.H.O.S.T. boxes left in the forest that seem to be infecting the wildlife around them. Not having time for this mystery, they find the cub to have run to the edge of a steep waterfall. The trio is then surprisingly re-united with Mo and others as they arrive with the mother bear closely trailing them. As the animal rages at them, it begins to glow purple along with spawning tentacles and a series of eye-stalks.
Realizing the mother bear has been mutated by eating toxic grubs that came from the mysterious G.H.O.S.T. boxes, Dot and most of the Maltos are flung around with ease by the mother as Robby tries to make a go at rescuing it’s cub from falling off the cliff into the waterfall. He finds himself having to be rescued by Twitch however when the branch he uses as support breaks, Jawbreaker luckily grabs the cub at the last minute. Dot for her part is able to finally take care of the infected bear (the mutated part seemingly separating itself from it’s original host) by using the modification Nightshade installed on her prosthetic leg. Firing a well-placed laser shot at the mutation that seemingly causes it to breakdown and eventually dissipate.
While thanking Nightshade for their gift, Dot reminds them that they need to ask for permission when modifying something personal such as Dot’s leg. Realizing their mistake, Nightshade apologizes and says they can work together in the future. With the mother and its cub re-united, Dot and others decide to make the best of their situation and have the rest of Mother’s Day out in the woods, just as Alex finds them. Dot spotting a rare type of bird she’s been looking for and using the occasion to use her new bird watching journal gifted to her by Robby.
Elsewhere the mysterious man from earlier arrives at the G.H.O.S.T.’s mountainside H.Q, revealing themselves to be one of their operatives as Agent Croft looks on approvingly.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Humans | Terrans |
|---|---|
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Quotes
"Happy Mother's Day!"
"Twitch, did you take a baby from the woods?!"
"Hmm, when you say like that, it sounds like a bad thing."
- —Twitch learns about the concept of kidnapping from Dot
"But I only wanted to make your life easier, Mom!"
"I know your gift came from the heart, Nightshade, but something like this is deeply personal. And that means I'm the only one who decides what does and doesn't work for me."
"Oh, I'm sorry I overstepped. So no more enhancements...ever?
"I'm open to some small changes but they have to be ones we come up with together."
"I'd like that."
- —Nightshade learns about personal boundaries from Dot
Notes
Continuity notes
Transformers references
Real-world references
- "Bear Necessities" is, of course, a reference to the song from the Disney adaptation of The Jungle Book.
- Among the bad advice Hashtag finds online for dealing with bear attacks is to "give them a pic-a-nic basket", a reference to Yogi Bear.
Errors
- While probably a case of reusing a pre-existing bird model, the bird that Dot claims is a Trumpeter Swan at the end of the episode does not resemble the real life animal.
Trivia
- This is the first episode of the show to feature no Autobots or Decepticons.
Foreign localization
Brazilian Portuguese
- Title: "Necessidades de urso" ("Bear necessities")
- Original airdate: March 4, 2023
French
- Title: "Le cadeau idéal" ("The perfect gift")
- Original airdate: April 28, 2023
Hungarian
- Title: "Félelemtől ledermedve" ("Frozen with Fear", "-medve" also means "bear")
- Original airdate: April 28, 2023
