TMNT – “Serpent Hunt” Review

“Karai, remember us.  We’re your friends.  Remember who you are.” – Leonardo

Steranko and Zeck are trapped in the city, searching desperately for a way out.  But the only way will be to make a deal with Shredder, and they’ll need to find Karai to use as a bargaining chip.  Meanwhile, the turtles and their friends are cleaning up their new pizza parlor home, but Splinter is preoccupied by the safety of his family – including Karai.

The turtles decide now is the time to find their sister, and head out to search.  But Shredder is sending his own henchmen out with the same task.  It doesn’t take long for them to find a trail.  However, Steranko and Zeck already have Karai in their sights, and aim to capture her.  Unfortunately for them, the turtles are ready to protect their sister at all costs.  The two groups fight to a standstill, but when Karai leaves the turtles head after her.

With Kraang everywhere, it’s hard to maintain pursuit.  But it’s not long before they chase her to a warehouse.  Unfortunately, the Kraang arrive and the turtles are forced to battle.  However, they’re not alone.  Karai fights off the Kraang, but she’s losing her mind to the snake.  The boys are able to get through to her temporarily – until Shredder’s goons arrive and take her away.  Karai winds up in Zeck’s hands, though, and he rides away to trade her to Shredder.

The factions meet at the docks to make the trade for Karai.  The deal quickly sours, and the turtles fight Shredder’s team plus Steranko and Zeck.  In the midst of the battle, Leonardo manages to free Karai, who tells him of comets.  The turtles escape, while Shredder takes Zeck and Steranko to Baxter Stockman.  The fly is already prepared to dole out punishment via mutagen.  He merges them with warthog and rhino DNA, creating Bebop and Rocksteady, at last.

This episode had a lot of potential, and immediately it would have been better if it had aired with the previous episode.  An hour of them together would have made both considerably more engaging and action-packed.  That’s not to say, however, that this wasn’t worthwhile.  It effectively closed the book on all of the “catch up” from the turtles’ time away, and now the rest of the season can proceed appropriately.  They’ve finally come face-to-face with Karai, Shredder knows that they’re back in town, and the long-awaited mutation has happened.  Now a truly new chapter can begin.

The episode could have used a little more storytelling, however.  It seemed to echo a lot of the previous Karai episodes, where nothing meaningful happened in her story, even though the entire 22 minutes was about her.  It would have been great if something more had been shown, at least to the audience.  Whatever the “comet” is could have been foreshadowed better, or we could have seen her lair (what if she laid eggs or something?).  There just needed to be more of her and her story to make this an exceptional episode.

Of course, fans finally got everything they wanted in the mutation of Bebop and Rocksteady.  Both are finally here and here to stay, serving Shredder just like they did 18 years ago.  Both mutants have always been curious, and it’ll be interesting to see what the writers do with them moving forward.  In the old show, they were more or less bumbling fools.  They provided comic relief and could never get a plan right.  This incarnation doesn’t need that.  It’s a different show that doesn’t use cheap gags to advance episodes.  Tiger Claw is already the skilled muscle, and Fishface and Rahzar provide great enemies.  So what will Bebop and Rocksteady be used for?