The Griffin Rock Triangle
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| "The Griffin Rock Triangle" | ||||||
| Season | 1 | |||||
| No. in season | 15 | |||||
| Production company | Hasbro Studios | |||||
| Airdate | June 16, 2012 | |||||
| Writer | Mairghread Scott | |||||
| Director | Patrick Archibald | |||||
| Animation studio | Atomic Cartoons | |||||
 Watch this episode on YouTube
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Cody finds a clue to an old mystery and makes a startling underwater discovery.
Synopsis
Captain Wild is having boat problems, as in his boat is beginning to sink. Blades and Dani Burns head out and quickly locate the boat, but when they attach a cable to it, it pulls Blades under as well. At the fire station, Cody Burns alerts the rest of the team, who scramble. The boat lands up on the very edge of a trench. Blades converts to robot mode and struggles to pull it away from the edge until the other bots arrive to help. They carry the boat back to land where Cody meets them and Wild blames the Griffin Rock Triangle. While Dani takes Wild to the hospital, the others discuss the Triangle and how boats have disappeared there. Graham inspects Wild's boat and finds it's sound and shouldn't have sunk, while Cody spots something in Wild's lobster pots.
He cleans his find to discover it's a plate with an intriguing serpent design on it. He takes it to Doc Greene, who consults the database and turns up a reference to a 28-year-old Project Midgard and something Frankie recognizes as a reference number. They head to the archive in the Hall of Inspiration where Cody finds an old film reel. When Doc Greene plays it, it turns out to be a log by one Professor Anna Baranova, describing her project to build a mobile lab, the Midgard, to be launched from tunnel 15 to investigate the Griffin Rock Triangle.
Cody is curious to know what happened to Baranova and gets Graham and the Bots to help him search the tunnels under the island. They come up empty until Heatwave mentions he saw tunnels with letters on, which Graham says are Roman numerals. They find the tunnel in question, and within, they discover a mooring station. While exploring it, they somehow trigger the docking sequence, and Graham and Cody are trapped in the rapidly-filling airlock. They manage to find the emergency override, but Graham and the Bots decide it's too dangerous to continue there. That doesn't stop Cody from pushing a button, revealing an old video player with a videotape in it.
The Burns family watches the tape, on which Baranova describes how an underwater vent is periodically releasing large bubbles of methane which cause ship sinkings, and how she intends to launch a mission in the Midgard to drop an explosive in the vent to seal it. Charlie Burns recalls meeting Baranova and that she disappeared. While Kade declares case closed, Cody still wants to know what happened, and they get the idea to launch an expedition to find the Midgard.
Venturing back into the ocean, the team reaches the edge of the undersea trench and quickly find the crashed Midgard. As Blades peers in a porthole, he momentarily sees a familiar figure. They board the Midgard, and are indeed confronted by Professor Baranova, who has survived the last 28 years. She's not particularly keen on being rescued, but shows them around. She explains that the Midgard was caught in a methane eruption and crashed, wrecking both the engines and communications. The explosive device itself is intact, but the only way to use it would be to push the lab over into the trench, and Baranova's not really keen on destroying her home, fearing how the surface world will have changed. Cody is determined and after a brief talk from him, she changes her mind.
While the other bots push the station to the edge, Chief Burns and Baranova set the explosive to go off after a minute and evacuate in Chase. The Rescue Bots push and, despite a hairy moment with a rock, manage to get the Midgard over the cliff. They climb out of the trench before the explosive goes off, sealing the vent for good. Back on the surface, Doc Greene shows off how they're building a replica of the Midgard for Baranova to live in, as way of a thank you for dealing with the Triangle.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Humans |
|---|---|
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Quotes
"But dad, you always said the Triangle was hogwash!"
"True, but occasionally when you wash a hog, you discover it was never a hog to begin with."
- —Frankie and Doc Greene
"This is like searching for a needle in a stack of... other needles."
"Why would you stack needles?"
- —Graham and Boulder
"Wh-wh-what if it isn't methane? What if it is a sea monster? Anyone think of that?!"
- —Blades
"Doesn't wanna be rescued? Why'd we even bother?"
"She'd miss her home. If anyone should understand that, it's us."
- —Heatwave and Boulder
Notes
Continuity notes
- Cody is still using Rolling Thunder, which he built back in "Cody on Patrol".
- Gadgets and powers:
- As previously seen in "The Alien Invasion of Griffin Rock", Boulder can emit light from his eyes. So apparently can Blades, and Heatwave can do the same trick with the yellow rectangle on his helmet. Chase uses whatever that is on his right wrist as a torch. Perhaps not coincidentally, the electronic Chase toy also has a search light on his wrist.
Real-world references
- Blades's "I think I can" mantra is from the children's story The Little Engine That Could.
- The Griffin Rock Triangle is a reference to the Bermuda Triangle. Methane is one of the many explanations which have been suggested for the Bermuda Triangle disappearances.
- As Doc Greene says, Midgard is a reference to the Midgard Serpent from Norse mythology, also known as Jörmungandr.
- According to Cody, Chief Burns has small film reels at home from his youth — probably 8mm film.
Animation or technical errors
- Previously Cody has been able to view locations all over the island — while this could be explained as a network of CCTV cameras, how does he get a view of events out over the ocean?
- As Chase transforms to vehicle mode after Baranova finds them, the red doohickey is on his left arm instead of the blue doohickey. The same error is repeated a few shots later when he returns to robot mode.
Trivia
- This episode debuts a slightly shorter title sequence, ending after the first chorus.
- While in Tunnel 15, Cody looks out through a window and sees what appears to be a transparent fish.
Foreign localization
Arabic
- Title: "مثلث غريفين روك" ("Griffin Rock Triangle")
- Original airdate: ?
French
- Title: "Mystère sous-marin" ("Underwater Mystery")
- Original airdate: ?
Hungarian
- Title: "A Griffin Rock háromszög" ("The Griffin Rock Triangle")
- Original airdate: 21 February 2013
Indonesian
- Title: "Sebuah Lubang Misterius" ("A Mysterious Hole")
- Original airdate: ?
Italian
Portuguese
Home video releases
2013 — Rescue Bots — "Griffin Rock Rescue" (Shout! Factory)
2014 — Rescue Bots — "Return of the Dino Bot" (Beyond Home Entertainment)
2015 — Rescue Bots — "Complete Season 1" (Beyond Home Entertainment)
