Endgame, Part I
| This article is about the Animated episode. For the Beast Machines episode, see Endgame Pt. I: The Downward Spiral. |
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 You're telling us this entire series was just to get Prime a hammer and a jetpack? Again? | ||||||
| "Endgame, Part I" | ||||||
| Airdate | May 16, 2009 | |||||
| Written by | Rich Fogel | |||||
| Directed by | Kalvin Lee Kentaro Mizuno | |||||
| Animation studio | Mook | |||||
The Autobots race to find an advantage over Megatron's control of Omega Supreme.
Synopsis
At the plant, Jazz and Prowl are working on Prowl's processor-over-matter by having Prowl lift some oil cans. Jazz is impressed with Prowl's skills, and wonders why he never completed his training. Suddenly, Bumblebee and Bulkhead coming tearing in, causing Prowl to lose his concentration and drop the oil can, which Bumblebee and Bulkhead skid across the floor, crashing into the wall. As the two bots collect themselves, Prowl says that they're two reasons he never completed his training. Bulkhead and Bumblebee then explain why they came in so quickly: they've found Omega Supreme's energy signature, and it's on Earth's moon.
On the moon, Shockwave continues his efforts to probe Arcee's memory banks for the activation codes to Omega Supreme. However, all he's found so far are some prewar datatracks of her school teaching days. Megatron is convinced that his "most loyal servant" can find it in time. Starscream takes a moment to goad Lugnut that Megatron has another favorite, and Lugnut bashes Shockwave aside in protest, citing his great loyalty and never ending search for Megatron. Shockwave counters that while Lugnut was fawning at Megatron's stabilizing servos, he risked his spark by going spying on the Autobots for stellar cycles. The two get into a fight, much to Megatron's annoyance, while Starscream gloats and rolls his head out of the room...
At the plant, the Autobots debate their options. Ratchet says that they need to act now, and that they need to use the Magnus Hammer. Optimus is hesitant, and thinks back to his past...
- At the High Council chambers, Ultra Magnus reviews Cadet Optimus and Cadet Sentinel's recent unauthorized visit to an organic world which resulted in the loss of Cadet Elita-1. Sentinel makes a final statement that he wanted to go back for Elita, but Optimus prevented him. Ultra Magnus again asks whose idea it was to go to the planet, and Optimus takes full responsibility as the senior Cadet. Ultra Magnus had high hopes for Optimus, even believing he could one day be Magnus, but now that will never be. Ultra Magnus pronounces his judgment: Optimus is to be expelled from the Autobot Academy and ineligible for service in the Cybertron Elite Guard...
Snapped back to the present, Optimus reaffirms that they don't need to use the Magnus Hammer. What he was thinking was more a flight mechanism to keep up with Megatron. Ratchet is resistant, but the other Autobots point out various examples of Autobot flight, such as Jetfire and Jetstorm, Prowl's rocket boosters, and Sari's own jetpack. Ratchet finally relents. Optimus says that they need more information, so Prowl volunteers to go and spy on the Decepticons. Jazz vetoes this, saying that Prowl is on the verge of a major training breakthrough, so someone else must go. Bumblebee asks who would be crazy enough to go spy on the Decepticons, and realizes that everyone is staring at him.
In the ruins of the Decepticon warship, Starscream is overseeing the process of creating a new body for himself from the shell of a clone and a protoform. Once he attaches his head to it, Megatron reveals his presence and destroys the already complete clones. Starscream begs for mercy, saying he planned to make an army for the Decepticon cause, but Megatron has bigger plans in mind for the protoforms needed to make the clones. Starscream assumes that Megatron intends to clone himself, but Megatron had something much bigger in mind. Even bigger than Lugnut. Three somethings, in fact, about the size of Omega Supreme...
In the woods, Jazz guides Prowl in meditation, directing him to commune with the AllSpark. His efforts succeed, collecting the ambient dispersed AllSpark energy in the area and forming it into a solid AllSpark fragment. Meanwhile, Bumblebee is transwarped to the moon. He manages to avoid being seen, but the transmitter he brought is destroyed when he avoids some construction work that Shockwave and Lugnut are doing. Making his way into Omega Supreme, he finds Arcee, and realizes that she isn't quite functioning right. Since he doesn't know how to disconnect her without deactivating her, Bumblebee decides to activate her communicator to allow them to listen in on the Decepticons, and quickly transwarps out. On Earth, the Autobots are unable to get the specifics of what's going on, but it quickly becomes obvious that Megatron is building something.
At the plant, Ratchet, Sari, and Professor Sumdac work on the jetpack they're building for Prime. Ratchet is having trouble, so Sari scans the device and discovers the problem. Once it's ready, they have Optimus take it for a test run. After losing control, flying around the city, and crashing in front of the plant all on five percent power, Ratchet and Sari decide to add some stabilizers. Once they're ready, Optimus conducts another test run. This one is much more successful, and Optimus actually enjoys his flying, thinking back to a conversation with Ultra Magnus...
- Despite being expelled from the Academy, Optimus continued to serve in the Autobot military, showing considerable skills in his stellar cycles of service. Managing to pull some strings, Ultra Magnus was able to get Optimus promoted to Prime and get Optimus a ship to command. Although Optimus is grateful, he soon sees his ship, Teletran-1, a rusted out piece of junk. Ratchet is performing maintenance and tells Optimus to ignore the appearance of the ship. It's the young bots he should be worried about, indicating Bumblebee and Bulkhead...
While Optimus flies around the city, he attracts the attention of the Female Starscream clone, who thinks that he's Starscream returned to Earth. Her overriding (and still unexplained) hatred of Starscream compels her fly and attack him. Optimus takes a hit, and crashes into the river. On the moon, Shockwave is finally able to bring Arcee's memory to the point where she and Ratchet were attacked by Lockdown. Posing as Longarm Prime, he asks if she still has the activation codes for Project: Omega, which she does. Pleased, Shockwave pulls the wires and takes her to Megatron. Bulkhead and Bumblebee alert Optimus, who is in quite a funk after being beaten by a "Starscream wannabe".
Finally, the time has come to implant the protoforms into their base shells. They scan Omega Supreme, assuming his form. Longarm instructs Arcee to transfer the code Megatron, but she recognizes him and refuses. Shockwave deactivates her and prepares to download the information. However, Starscream knocks Megatron aside to take the codes, but Lugnut knocks him aside and receives the codes instead—just as Megatron wanted. He knew that imprinting his personality onto the clones risked making them too ambitious, but there is no such threat from Lugnut, Megatron's most loyal lieutenant. Furthermore, with the AllSpark fragments from Omega Supreme, they no longer have need of Starscream, who Megatron immediately shoots.
At the plant, Optimus is being repaired, and Ratchet insists that Optimus must use the Magnus Hammer. Optimus, however, still believes that using it isn't in his programming. Prowl, however, believes that fate makes its own programming, and Optimus thinks back...
- Working on repairing the space bridge they started this on, Bumblebee and Bulkhead soon find Prowl meditating. He tells them that he's been trying to commune with the AllSpark for a thousand stellar cycles, but he has failed so far. Unfortunately, one of the Energon cubes Ratchet was setting up falls into the cavern the Autobots are in. They barely make it out, but Prowl's ship is destroyed. Optimus offers to take them back to Cybertron after their finished here in fifty stellar cycles, but notes that with Prowl's help, it could go faster. Prowl bemoans how he has strayed so far from his path, and Optimus says that he can sympathize...
Optimus is snapped back to reality when Bulkhead says that he's getting several signals from the moon. Meanwhile, Lugnut has finished uploading the codes, but a glitch forces him to remain on Omega Supreme with Shockwave to coordinate. Megatron, meanwhile, says that he will take the clones on a test run by destroying Detroit. As they launch, the Autobots head out to get a visual, while Optimus reluctantly grabs the Magnus Hammer. He asks Ratchet if they can still reason with Omega Supreme, but Ratchet doubts it, as the Lugnuts Supreme transform and touch down.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Humans | Others |
|---|---|---|---|
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Quotes
Lugnut: I am the most faithful!
Shockwave: Have you blown a diode?! I'm trying to work here!
[A scuffle insues]
Megatron: Oh, for spark's sake...
- —You get what you pay for, Megatron. And these guys are free.
Prowl: I'll transwarp to the moon and spy on them.
Jazz: And take five on your Cyber-Ninja training? No dice. You're close to a real breakthrough. And I got a vibe that says we're gonna need every advantage we can get our servos on.
Optimus: Agreed. We'll send someone else.
Bumblebee: Who'd be crazy enough to go on that mission? [Everyone looks at Bumblebee] Why is everyone looking at me? Why is everyone always looking at me?!
- —Bumblebee gets tired of all the suicide missions he keeps going on.
"Instilled with my own powerful personality, the clones might try to overthrow me. But not so my most loyal lieutenant..."
[to Megatron] "Ah. I am honoured, my Lord." [to Shockwave] "Hah. Megatron trusts me the most!"
- —Megatron makes all Lugnut's dreams come true. He responds by showing what a child he is.
Notes
Animation or technical errors
Continuity errors
Transformers references
- Optimus's new flight attachments (specifically the colors and details of his wings and gauntlets) are based on God Ginrai's flight-endowing Godbomber components. The flight pack itself, to which the wings attach, doesn't seem to owe as much to the Masterforce character, appearing instead to resemble booster pack from the original Jetfire (and thus, the FAST Packs from Super Dimension Fortress Macross). His shoulder cannons also appear to be based on his Voyager-class toy's water blaster.
- The wingless rocket pack could also be seen as a reference to the final scenes of More than Meets the Eye, Part 3 from the original series, when Optimus Prime borrowed Sideswipe's rocket pack to chase Megatron's space cruiser.
- As he jets into the sky, Optimus shouts out "Yessssss!" and "Excellent".
- The creation of the Lugnuts Supreme, evil clones of Omega Supreme, hearkens back to Omega Sentinel and the Dark Guardians.
- This episode finally confirms the real reason why Optimus is no longer a member of the Autobot Academy- he was expelled by Ultra Magnus for what happened to Elita-One. Also of note is that Sentinel said absolutely nothing in his friend's defense while the latter willingly took the blame, but really, should that come as a surprise by now?
- The episode also confirms why Prowl never finished his Ninja Bot training- his not-going-so-well "optics quest" was interrupted by Optimus' crew (who accidentally caused the destruction of his ship), and he did time on the vessel in exchange for a ride home. However, with the ability to materialize All Spark fragments out of thin air with this episode, it seems that he is becoming ever so closer to mastering his training.
- Ratchet once again harps on the fact that "Autobots don't fly", a common if frequently broken rule throughout most of the Transformers fiction, before being confronted with the harsh reality.
- This is not the first time that an Optimus has taken up a huge, Matrix-related melee weapon for the final battle against a Megatron.
Real-world references
- When testing the jetpack for the first time, Optimus started by using only 5% of the power and still went ballistic in flight, a reference to the comical scene from the movie Iron Man. Also his second test mirrors Stark's behavior while testing the Mark II armor.
Trivia
- Prowl has been on his optics quest for at least "a million stellar cycles" before he joined up with Optimus... and had accomplished jack squat in all that time.
- It is shown and explained that Prowl's sidecar contains shoulder boosters that allow him to fly. His samurai toy version counterpart, on the other hand, doesn't.
- Megatron purposely started the Shockwave/Lugnut feud, knowing Starscream would try to seize Omega Supreme's access codes, just to be sure Lugnut would be in his most loyal state at the moment of the transfer? Now, that's some sleeky fore-thinkings...
- Shockwave has enough of a sense of humor that he can laugh. Who knew?
- We learn several bits of information regarding protoforms that were stolen in Five Servos of Doom:
- They have been kept in Megatron's warship all this time.
- The Starscream clones were created with them.
- The protoforms were sparkless, what the Beast Wars called "blank protoforms." Starscream used his AllSpark fragment to animate them.
- Interestingly, Megatron destroys all of the remaining (albeit inert) Starscream clone shells, instead of reprogramming them to serve him and boost the number of troops under his command. Starscream even suggests this, but apparently Megatron prefers sheer brute force over numbers.
- After spending all of Season 3 as a disembodied head, Starscream finally regains his body....only to have Megatron blow it to smithereens at the end of the episode. Tough break, Screamer.
- This is the Female Starscream's first appearance in Season 3 since the events of A Bridge Too Close, Part II. Aside from having a serious grudge against Starscream, we neither learn what truly happened to her since that time, or even how she managed to elude the Autobots for so long.
