PANIC IN THE SEWERS

01PLOT

The episode begins with a scene in which the Turtles are stealthily sneaking around the city apparently in search of the Shredder or posing simply as bait, the Turtles joyously begin conversing with each other, but this joy soon ends when Michelangelo is suddenly dragged away and his nunchucks are dropped. Donatello then glimpses the silhouette of the Shredder and attacks him, but his staff is broken by Shredder's gauntlet again and he is then utterly defeated as well. Leonardo then attacks his foe head on, while Raphael chooses to strike from above, but the Shredder merely steps aside and unloads a round of damaging punches right into the Turtle's chest, before kicking Raph so hard that it sends him flying very high into the air and he then vanishes in but a blink of an eye. Leo stands alone in the complete darkness and void, horrified and not knowing where his opponent truly is. When Leo hears the Shredder's voice and is distracted, the villain manages to come up from behind and catches Leo utterly off-guard.

Just when Leo is about to be decapitated, Splinter wakes up, revealing that this whole scenario was just a horrible nightmare. Feeling that this dream of his could've actually been a trepidation, Splinter decides to make his sons train much, much, much harder than they have been already instead of letting them go up to the surface to do their daily patrol and stop crime. After having them train hard for weeks, the Turtles are completely exhausted and their harsh sensei finally allows them to take nothing but a short break.

Leonardo uses his free time to watch _Space Heroes_, while Raphael turns off his show and claims that it was Spike's idea and that the show is too stupid for the tiny turtle. Michelangelo then utilizes his energy to declare a prank war and immediately hits Raphael squarely in the forehead with a water balloon, which angers him a lot and he starts throwing a multitude of objects at his younger brother in response. Donatello, meanwhile, is constructing a brand new invention; an all-terrain Patrol Buggy with four detachable sidecars. Michelangelo then hits _him_ with a water balloon, and while Donatello chases after him, he announces that Leonardo will be his very next target.

Meanwhile, April is pretending to be a pizza delivery boy in order to sneak a listening device into the Purple Dragons' hideout (as she too is quite aware of the impending danger). When she meets up with the Turtles back in the lair, they quickly use the device (installed under the pizza box) to overhear the gang conversing about Shredder's newly dispatched plan to destroy the Turtles' home way down in the sewers. Seeing that their home is now in great jeopardy, Splinter reluctantly allows the Turtles to go topside and find out what Shredder's plan possibly is.

Later that day, the Turtles manage to follow the Purple Dragons to Shredder's hideout, but our heroes end up running into some trouble: A mutated and much more powerful version of Chris Bradford not far outside of the building (Mikey later dubs him "Dogpound"). He is now four times his initial size. They get into a pretty big fight with him, but his brutish strength proves to be simply way too strong for some of their ninjutsu training and the four are soon forced to use a smoke bomb to escape. Back in the lair, The Turtles and Splinter begin talking about finding a new home to which they will have to adapt to, but April refuses to let them give up and she insistently volunteers to spy on Shredder. At first, everyone can only disapprove, but they are then forced to give in when April points out that there is not one other choice.

That night, April confidently goes up to Shredder's hideout, with the Turtles carefully watching over her from a nearby building. She tries the same pizza delivery trick with a Foot Soldiers, but it does not work, so she merely trashes the pizza. So, she then comes up with a new plan and tricks a man living in the building next door to let her in (as she easily disguises herself as a Fireman) so that she can ultimately find a way upstairs and onto the roof. She manages to narrowly jump to the roof of the Foot Headquarters and she then peers in through a window, just in time to hear Shredder tell his wicked plan to his lackeys once more. April puts her phone on speaker so that the Turtles can hear. They do manage to hear Shredder mention a rare chemical and that exactly five people are to participate in the little scheme, but the brothers then start arguing and they unfortunately miss the rest of the plan.

With Dogpound being the field-leader, he leaves the building with his small team, although he manages to hear April and Leo talking on their two phones. He catches April and instantaneously kidnaps her and tosses her directly into the van, and the Turtles are unable to come to her rescue in time. Leo begins to panic, but Raph quickly snaps him out of it by reluctantly quoting a line from _Space Heroes_. The Turtles then chase after Dogpound's van in Donnie's incomplete yet relatively operational Patrol Buggy. Dogpound and his team then pursue a certain tanker truck on the street known as Houston. They easily catch up to it and Dogpound successfully stops it, before breaking the door in half, discarding it, and frightening the driver into leaving. Just as he's about to order one of the Foot Soldiers to call Shredder, the Turtles appear in the buggy and Dogpound is greatly surprised to see them there. A big chase soon ensues, during which Donnie reads “chlorosulfonic acid” on the back of the truck and appears to have figured out Shredder's atrocious plan. He informs Leo that the contents of that tanker is an extremely rare and dangerous chemical compound that instantly combusts in the presence of water, which means the Foot hijacked the tanker to empty it into the sewers. And when they do, it’ll unleash an inferno that will incinerate the entire New York sewer network in a matter seconds, including the lair and Splinter along with it.

Soon, both the tanker truck and the van with April inside split up in completely different directions. So, the Turtles detach the buggy's sidecars in order to follow both vehicles at once. Leo and Mikey settle on following Dogpound, while Donnie and Raph go to save April. Leo and Mikey try to stop the tanker by using grappling hooks installed in the vehicle to latch onto it's rear, but they easily break. Meanwhile, Raph and Donnie stop the van by throwing a ninja-smoke bomb into it through one of the open windows, blinding the driver, Fong, and then popping all of the tires with numerous Makibishi spikes. Some Foot Soldiers quickly emerge from the back of the van, but Raph and Donnie easily defeats them. Fong then emerges and begins running at them with two cleavers, but April finishes him off by slamming the van's door into the thug's face, knocking him out cold.

Mikey and Leo finally catch up to the tanker truck, and they then take on Dogpound (who takes off a sewer lid and throws it at them), but they are unable to defeat him and he proves to be their better yet again. They smoke bomb away, and then catch sight of one of the Foot Soldiers both taking out and putting an extendable hose into the sewers. Leo quickly orders Mikey to try and stop him, which he does, while Leo attempts to provide a big distraction for Dogpound, which unfortunately results in Leo being grabbed by the arm and one of his katana blades puncturing the tanker. However, Leo quickly remembers what Donnie said about the chemical and tells Mikey to throw the water balloon that he was going to hit Leo with. Mikey chooses to cooperate and throws the balloon. It flies up and slants downward, hitting it's mark, which causes the entire truck to explode. Leo is about to congratulate Mikey when the latter throws yet another water balloon in his face, much to Leo's surprise.

At the Shredder's Lair, Shredder both humiliates and humbles Dogpound because he got defeated with but a couple of awfully lousy weapons this time. For the millionth time, the mutant promises that he will not fail the next time, but the Shredder is just very skeptical, and thus, he slices off a piece of Dogpound's shoulder spike as punishment, attempting to say that he might indeed not hesitate to _kill_ Dogpound at the next failure.

Back at the sewer lair, Mikey tricks his brothers into eating the rancid pizza that April threw out. Splinter then congratulates the Turtles on their admirable performance and also slips in an apology because he was the one who fueled their fear of confronting their opponents, which he even confesses. He then says that he has decided there will be no more arduous training that day - unless Mikey throws a water balloon at Splinter (Mikey was actually about to do that). All of the other Turtles then playfully attack Mikey, while the latter screams out.

02CAST & APPEARANCES

03OBJECTS, VEHICLES & PLACES

04SCREEN GRABS

4 frames. Auto-matched screencaps via Fancaps.net.

05MEMORABLE QUOTES

Raphael: I can't believe I'm gonna say this... _(Imitates character from Space Heroes)_ Get it together captain! You're our leader, so act like one! Leonardo: _(Calms down)_ You're right Raph, that was the anxiety ray talking. Raphael: That's it? You're not gonna slap yourself? Leonardo: _(Leo shrugs)_ Let's save April! Raphael: And our home!

06NOTES & GOOFS

• April is tied up and gagged with duct tape during the chase scene. When she gets out of the van later, her hands are still tied, but her mouth is uncovered.
• When Michelangelo throws a water balloon at Donatello, it is yellow, but when it hits Donatello, it is blue.

07TRIVIA

• This episode was originally titled "Mojo Rising".
• First appearance of the Patrol Buggy.
• Around Leo's name on April's caller ID is "ichiban turtle", which means "number one turtle", and his picture is Captain Ryan.
• When Dogpound hijacks the tanker, he shouts to the driver, "Get Out!" This is a reference to the popular movie "The Terminator" when the T-800 hijacks a tanker and tells the driver to "Get Out". This is also a reference to the sequel when the T-1000 tells the SWAT helicopter pilot to get out.
• 2012 TV series Season 1 episodes
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