One Shall Rise, Part 3

« Transformers: Prime ep 26
"One Shall Rise, Part 3"
Production company	Hasbro Studios
Airdate	October 15, 2011
Written by	Steven Melching
Directed by	Vinton Heuck
Animation studio	Polygon Pictures

Jack learns more about Optimus' history on Cybertron while the Autobots continue their battle at the Earth's core.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans	Others
Optimus Prime (2) Bumblebee (3) Arcee (5) Bulkhead (6) Ratchet (9) High Council (14–16)	Megatron (1) Soundwave (13) Airachnid (18) Breakdown (19) Knock Out (20) Vehicons (21) Laserbeak (22)	June Darby (7) William Fowler (8) Raf Esquivel (10) Jack Darby (11) Miko Nakadai (12)	Unicron (4) Core (17)

Notes

Animation and technical errors

• Since when do tidal waves just stop short? Unicron's death does not make forward momentum go away.

Continuity errors

• Why is Bulkhead the only one affected by the Dark Energon?

Continuity notes

• The entire backstory given by Ratchet is essentially the first half of Transformers: Exodus, further solidifying the fact that it lies in the same continuity as Prime.
  • Interestingly, though, the Cybertronian forms of Optimus, Megatron, and Soundwave are NOT their War for Cybertron designs. Megatron's actually looks almost the same as his Prime design, but with red accents instead of purple.

Transformers references

• What Optimus previously identified as the key to the GroundBridge power supply is actually the Key to Vector Sigma.
  • Which, coincidentally, looks more like Sari's AllSpark Key than anything else.
• Optimus calls upon the Matrix to "light our darkest hour."

Trivia

• This episode aired in Singapore on October 4, 2011, again preceding its American showing.
• Jack is clearly taking very good care of that Key Optimus gave him... by idly banging it against a railing.
• According to the flashbacks, Megatron's optics are blue until he is rejected by the Council and storms out angrily.
• Fowler hugs June. Make of that what you will.