01PLOT
The Turtles are at a garbage dump, testing their abilities against cardboard cutouts. Michelangelo is having trouble taking it seriously, so Splinter decrees that he and Raphael will instead compete against Leonardo and Donatello, to see who can capture or defend whose mountain of garbage. Leonardo utilizes battle strategy, Donatello makes a garbage cannon, and Michelangelo sunbathes and orders pizza, much to Raphael's dismay because he‘s trying to focus.
Since a tanker truck of rat poison has gone missing, Burne demands that April find out what really happened. She soon finds a secret passage into the sewers, and a piece of cloth left behind by the Rat King.
Meanwhile, Leatherhead has stowed away in a truck and arrived in New York, searching for the Turtles. However, he has no idea where in the sewers they live, and he soon discovers the sewers are more than he can cope with. Soon he stumbles across the domain of the Rat King, who immediately enslaves him.
He also reveals that not only did he steal the rat poison, but he is chemically changing it into a gas that will turn humans into mindless slaves. There are a series of entrapments and escapes down in the sewers: Leatherhead frees himself from the collar put around his neck, the Rat King successfully captures Vernon and Irma, and though April escapes him she's immediately caught by Leatherhead.
In their garbage-mountain battles, Raphael and an indifferent Michelangelo seem to be getting trounced by Donatello's garbage cannon. But when the garbage destroys his pizza, Michelangelo goes berserk, tramples Leonardo, destroys the cannon, and claims his brothers' mountain, leaving his brothers mystified.
Just as they finish, April calls them to notify them that she's been captured by Leatherhead. Leatherhead also lets slip what the Rat King is planning - and he's using Irma and Vernon as his test subjects. Only after locking them in a room with the gas does the Rat King notice Leatherhead is gone.
The Turtles arrive just as a fight breaks out between Leatherhead and the Rat King, saving April from a soda pop bomb. As the two villains continue duking it out, the Turtles set out to save Irma and Vernon. But as they free the two news people (who are unaffected by the gas), Donatello checks the gas and finds that the entire tanker has become unstable.
The Turtles formulate a plan to get back at both Leatherhead and the Rat King, luring them back to the Rat King's home and tricking Leatherhead into firing his bazooka at the tanker. Leatherhead is blasted into the ocean, and the Rat King is trapped in the rubble of his home.
Vernon rejoices that he has a top story, which he believes will make him the new star reporter at Channel 6. But the Turtles are not convinced... partly because they noticed that he left the lens cap on the camera.
02CAST & APPEARANCES
03OBJECTS, VEHICLES & PLACES
04SCREEN GRABS
9 frames. Screencaps via Turtlepedia (CC BY-SA).
05NOTES & GOOFS
- Shredder, Krang and the mutants cardboard cutouts are based on their actual animation model sheets but with weapons added and a fake moustache added to Rocksteady's cutout.
- The cardboard cutout of Krang is not wearing his Android Body.
- The first two shots of Bebop's cardboard cutout showed him without his bandolier.
- In one scene, we see cutouts of Michelangelo and Donatello instead of Michelangelo and Raphael.
06HOME MEDIA
07FAN REVIEW
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Episode data adapted from Turtlepedia / Wikipedia under CC BY-SA. Spot an error? Fix it in the forum.