WRATH OF THE RAT KING

01PLOT

The Turtles attack the Hall of Science in an effort to flush out Shredder and Krang, but they're driven back by Rocksteady and Bebop using lasers and a catapult.

To get rid of the Turtles, Shredder seeks out the Rat King and offers him a deal: a new type of mutagen for his rats if he destroys the Turtles. When the Turtles return to their lair in dejection, they're greeted with an enraged Rat King, who blows out one of their walls and sweeps them away on a tidal wave of water. Presuming them dead or defeated, he goes off to get the mutagen.

Meanwhile, Krang has been contacting General Traag in Dimension X and learns the bad news about the Technodrome: it's stuck in a black hole, and nothing in Berserko's lab could get it out. So Krang orders Traag to send him the Shock Wave, a powerful weapon kept in the Technodrome. But because of the gravity anomalies, it ends up landing in a street and immediately being mistaken for a bomb by the police. Desperate to get the Shock Wave back, Krang has the idea of mutating the Rat King's rats and using them to burrow into the Westmore Research Facility where the Shockwave currently resides.

After seeing another slanderous Channel 6 broadcast, the Turtles are depressed. Leonardo and Donatello have begun to think that they are causing as much trouble as they stop, and that (having lost to the Rat King, Bebop and Rocksteady in the same day) they may have lost their heroic touch. When they tell Splinter that they may not bother stopping Shredder and Krang, an enraged Splinter vows to go himself if they won't. Leonardo promises Splinter that they'll take up the battle, no matter how bad the odds.

The Giant rats are formidable enemies for the Turtles, nearly collapsing a building on them. But fortunately, Donatello still has the retro-mutagen ray and goes to fetch it.

Once the research facility has been invaded, the Rat King, having overheard how he and his rats are mere pawns in Krang and Shredder's plans; betrays his "allies" and steals the Shock Wave for himself, blasting the ground open under the Turtles. Fortunately, Donatello is able to grab the retro-mutagen ray and return the rats to normal. They manage to stop the Rat King and destroy the Shock Wave, which April O'Neil successfully records.

As the story ends, April breaks the news of the Turtles' heroic actions on live TV, which causes an enraged Burne to make good on his threat that she now work in the mail room.

02CAST & APPEARANCES

03OBJECTS, VEHICLES & PLACES

04SCREEN GRABS

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

05NOTES & GOOFS

• Final appearance of the Rat King in the series. He is also finally brought to justice, whereas he had managed to avoid capture by the Turtles in previous episodes.
• The Rat King is presented in a much more mature, sinister way than in the previous episodes he had starred in, rather than an over-the-top joke villain. In fact, the Turtles often note that he has changed drastically.
• The Turtles say they have Shredder's retromutagen ray, but in "Revenge of the Fly," Leonardo destroyed it. The Turtles never even considered using it to turn Splinter back into his human form. The ray gun also looks different.
• In previous episodes, the Rat King controlled his rats with a flute; in this episode he doesn't use a flute at all. Leonardo refers to him as having telepathic rat-controlling powers at one point.
• Rat King's eyes glow a bright baleful red when he greets Shredder. He never had this ability before, and it isn't clear how he came by it.
• The buttons on Bebop and Rocksteady's catapult are red, but in a closeup shot they are gray, right before the turtles flee in the Turtle Van.
• When the Rat King attacks the Turtles' lair, the blaster he uses doesn't make any noise the first two times he fires it after the commercial break.
• Right before the Rat King attacks the Turtles with Krang's Shockwave weapon, there is a massive explosion as the Turtles exit the Turtle Van. A layering issue causes one of Donatello's legs to vanish behind the Turtle Van as he shields himself from the explosion.
• The footage that April broadcasts of the Turtles hogtying the Rat King is filmed from in front of the turtles, despite the fact that April is behind them when she films it.
• One of the giant rats bites off the end of Donatello's bo, but it appears to be intact in the next shot.
• When the Turtles are recovering from being washed away in a flood, Michelangelo is wearing Donatello's colors.

06HOME MEDIA

07FAN REVIEW

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