A Bug's Lie
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 "I SWEAR if I hadn’t promised Mother on her death bed I wouldn’t kill you… I’d KILL you." | ||||||
| A Bug's Lie | ||||||
| Season | 1 | |||||
| No. in season | 10 | |||||
| Airdate | October 4, 2025 | |||||
| Writers | Ryan Denham | |||||
| Animation studio | Omens Studio LTD | |||||
| Continuity | Cyberworld | |||||
 Watch this episode on YouTube
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Bumblebee and Chop Shop team up to raid a secret treasure from a lost temple.
Synopsis
Bumblebee tries to convince Optimus and Elita to take some energon that they have found instead of him, citing his perceived responsibility for the team's recent loss and the departure of Grimlock. Optimus and Elita reassure Bumblebee that none of that was his fault, and he caves and takes the extra EXP, repairing the damage Scorponok recently inflicted on him. Meanwhile, the Autobots are being stalked by Chop Shop, who tries to steal Optimus' axe. Elita stops Chop Shop before he can succeed and dares him to make another move. Chop Shop begs for mercy and promises the team great treasure if they let him go, but Elita is not phased by his pleas and moves to shoot him. It takes Optimus reminding Elita of the Autobots' ideals to make her back off.
Bumblebee grabs Chop Shop before he can flee and promises that he's going to "take care" of him. When the two of them are alone, Bumblebee asks Chop Shop for more information about this "treasure" he's on about. Chop Shop leads Bumblebee to the entrance of a stone temple. Bumblebee agrees to go in after reminding his accomplice to not play any tricks on him. Inside the temple, the two of them find their path blocked by a door, but Chop Shop is not deterred and digs/eats his way around, with Bumblebee following close behind. Bumblebee then stumbles upon a surprisingly modern-tech jhallway, but Chop Shop stops him before can take another step. A bit of muck falls from Chop Shop's mouth, revealing the tile below them to be booby-trapped with spikes as it hits. In order to get through unharmed, Bumblebee has to resign himself to being held by the hand and carried as Chop Shop walks across the room's ceiling. After they're done with the spikes, Chop Shop lets go of Bumblebee and goes to a place where he can guide him from afar. Bumblebee decides to go forward on his own, believing that Chop Shop had abandoned him, only to be jumpscared by a falling corpse. Chop Shop, now inside a control room, lets Bumblebee know that he hasn't left him, and shows him the way through the rest of the temple via light-up paths.
When Bumblebee reaches the artifact they were both after atop a pedestal, Chop Shop builds it up as something grand and wonderful... and when Bumblebee remarks that it's just a simple rock, Chop Shop shoots back that it is a "special rock!". Bumblebee grumbles that maybe Scorponok should have finished him off, but he still takes the rock on Chop Shop's insistence. Of course, it's trapped, and lava begins to pour into the room. Bumblebee asks Chop Shop to help him out, but the Decepticon seems to have abandoned him, and Bee has to make his way back on his own. When Bee reaches the exit, he gets stuck trying to hold up the door. Chop Shop returns to Bumblebee to get the "special rock", and leaves Bee there when he hands it to him. Bumblebee's hands quickly give out, sealing him inside the temple, with the lava closer to him than ever. Bumblebee beats himself up about his supposed stupidity, but a crack in the wall sparks a memory, and he digs his way out like Chop Shop did earlier by bashing through loose walls.
Once outside the collapsing temple, Bee makes his way back to Optimus and Elita. He proceeds to explain to them he doesn't need to be saved all the time, and show off his prize: the "special rock"! In the scramble to escape, he had actually grabbed a second normal rock and gave that one to Chop Shop. Bumblebee then gives Optimus the real "special rock"... which is revealed to not be a rock at all, the crust breaking open to reveal a metal orb that instantly levels up Optimus and turns his experience bar from blue to purple.
At the same time, Chop Shop is celebrating getting the artifact he was after, only to realize that Bumblebee had fooled him. Glumly, he puts the rock in a pile with number of other seemingly normal rocks.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons |
|---|---|
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Quotes
"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings, Elita. Even... that."
- —Optimus Prime doesn't have to sound that disgusted at his own beliefs.
"The amazing, the wondrous, the beautiful-"
"It's a rock."
"Correction! Is a special rock!"
- —Chop Shop overestimates Bumblebee's enthusiasm.
Notes
Continuity notes
- Bumblebee mentions Grimlock bailing, which happened at the end of the prior episode.
Character levels
- Bumblebee is Level 2, gaining about half a level of XP when he takes the energon. He is back to low level by the end of the episode.
- Chop Shop is Level 6.
- Optimus Prime is Level 1.
Transformers references
- Optimus drops his usual catchphrase, "Freedom is the right of all sentient beings".
- Chop Shop calls Bee “Bumblebot”, much like Wasp did back in Animated.
Real world references
- This episode's name is a reference to the Disney-Pixar film A Bug's Life.
- As the lair is collapsing, Bumblebee slides under a door, only to have to reach back to grab something important, referencing the famous scene from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
- Chop Shop's continued exclamation of "special rock!" is very reminiscent of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings.
Trivia
- Like other Cyberworld episodes, this one was initially uploaded alongside the previous episode with an SEO baiting title ("Bumblebee TRAPPED in Haunted Dungeon"). The title comes from writer Ali Lightfoot's twitter feed. [1]
Foreign localization
French
- Title: "Opération cafard" ("Operation: Cockroach")
- Original airdate: October 4, 2025
References
- ↑ "Set your alarms, Transformers: CYBERWORLD episode 10 "A Bug's Lie" goes live this Saturday 4th October."—Ali Lightfoot, Twitter, 2025/10/2
