LEONARDO IS MISSING

01PLOT

Leonardo is reading in the lair when an alarm goes off, and there's no one else there to answer it. It turns out to be a distress signal of some kind coming from Donatello's lab, and in the process of trying to answer it, he accidentally knocks over a bookcase and loses his Turtlecom.

When the other Turtles return, they find Donatello's lab wrecked and Leonardo's Turtlecom on the floor. They suspect that he was attacked and dragged away.

On the Technodrome, Krang spots a very intense energy source, which he plans to use to blow the Earth off its axis and melt them out of the Arctic. He sends the Foot Soldiers to create a massive hyper-thruster, while he and Shredder are going to find the energy source.

The Turtles are searching for Leonardo when they see a broken wall at a bubblegum factory, and discover two individuals stealing bubblegum cards: Bebop and Rocksteady. In the fight that results, the two mutants find out that Leonardo is missing. When they tell Shredder, he decides to take advantage of the situation. Bebop is given a temporary holographic disguise that makes him look like Leonardo, and told to go cause mayhem.

The real Leonardo is following the source of the distress signal, using one of Donatello's gadgets.

Discouraged, the Turtles take Splinter's advice and start meditating, hoping to get some kind of insight. What they see are dinosaurs in spacesuits. Meanwhile, Shredder and Krang then go after the mysterious energy source, which leads to a hole in a gravel pit, and a vast underground tunneler with power cells they can use.

Bebop causes trouble under Leonardo's guise; he steals cars and skateboards, drives dangerously, mars wet cement, and takes over a TV billboard. The Turtles recognize his voice, and apprehend the pair of thugs just as the holographic disguise vanishes.

At the gravel pit, the Turtles head underground and are confronted by bipedal dinosaurs in spacesuits - and Leonardo, who has befriended Speega and the other intelligent dinosaurs. They live in an underground civilization at the Earth's core, saving endangered species surreptitiously. Unfortunately, they can't leave without the power cells, which Krang has taken.

The Turtles and the dinosaurs arrive and begin fighting Shredder and his followers, while Donatello takes the power cell and destroys the hyper-thruster. After an environmental message, the dinosaurs depart.

Back at the lair, Leonardo explains what he was doing, and Splinter advises him to leave a note next time.

02CAST & APPEARANCES

03OBJECTS, VEHICLES & PLACES

04SCREEN GRABS

9 frames. Screencaps via Turtlepedia (CC BY-SA).

05MEMORABLE QUOTES

Shredder: I've had it with your idiotic schemes, Krang. From now on, _I_ call the shots! Krang: Don't annoy me, Shredder...I've had a very bad day!

06NOTES & GOOFS

• When Krang is introducing the components of the Hyper Thruster to Shredder his android's hand flashes from red to flesh colored when it lifts its arm.
• When Krang says that he's found the dinosaurs' energy source, his android's hands are flesh colored.
• Leonardo replaces Raphael when the three Turtles arrive at the rock quarry. He's later seen replacing Michelangelo after they first spot Speega and his friends coming out of their drilling vehicle.
• Replays of the series on the t\ubi app have this episode at the start of the season following the two-parter ending the previous season.

07TRIVIA

• This episode should serve as the season opener as the Technodrome is still trapped in the Arctic ice.
• Second and final appearance of Krang's holographic cloaker. Donatello would use it off-screen to disguise Michelangelo as Krang in "Shredder Triumphant!"
• Two penguins can be seen in the Arctic landscape despite the fact that penguins reside in the Antarctic.

08HOME MEDIA

09FAN REVIEW

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