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“Wrath of the Rat King”

Season 8, Episode 2 First US Airdate: September 24, 1994

Shredder enlists the services of the Rat King while Krang retrieves a powerful weapon from Dimension X.

“Wrath of the Rat King” is the second episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season eight. As with the rest of this year’s episodes, David Wise is credited as writer here.

Following on from the events of “Get Shredder!”, we learn that Channel 6 is back on the air, and as Burne promised the station is now going all-in on anti-Turtle propaganda. Meanwhile the Turtles themselves meet up with April – who despite having spent the entire series worrying about the prospect of being fired is now driving a flashy red convertible sports car – outside the Hall of Science. Convinced that Shredder and Krang have moved in following the capture of Berserko, the team are determined to get inside, but soon find the rooftop-mounted defences used against them.

Bebop and Rocksteady are on the roof of the old building, and use a catapult to lob hi-tech bombs at their foes. After realising the weaponry available to the villains is too powerful to be dealt with directly, the Turtles are forced to retreat. April has been filming these events, but is unconvinced that footage of her friends in battle will help change Burne’s mind about them.

Shredder is paranoid that the Turtles will eventually be able to infiltrate the Hall of Science and confront them; as a means of stopping his old foes he declares his intention to visit an old ally. Meanwhile, Krang uses Berserko’s equipment to contact General Traag in Dimension X. Following the events of “Shredder Triumphant!” last season, the Technodrome has fallen into a black hole, the gravitational pull too great for it to escape. Only one viable weapon remains within the fortress, the most powerful in Krang’s arsenal: the Shock Wave, however due to his lack of a body the alien warlord reluctantly concedes Shredder will have to be the one who wields it.

The last time we saw the Rat King he was a member of the anti-Turtle villain supergroup assembled by Shredder in season seven’s “Night of the Rogues”. Shreds visits him again, this time offering him advanced weaponry he can use to take out the Turtles. Rat King complains that this will only allow him to take over the sewers, but Shredder has a solution that will allow him to capture the rest of the city as well: a new form of mutagen that will enhance the abilities of his rats. This will only be granted to Rat King upon his successful defeat of the green teens.

General Tragg retrieves the Shock Wave, a modestly-sized weapon/contraption dealie, and sends it through the portal. The gravitational force of the black hole interferes with its journey, and instead of winding up directly in front of Krang it lands in the middle of a road elsewhere in the city. As police call for a bomb squad upon discovering the strange device, Krang orders Bebop and Rocksteady to recover his weapon.

The Turtles return to the Lair, discussing possible methods of getting inside the Hall of Science. Upon turning on the TV they see Vernon promoting an upcoming expose of “The city’s worst criminals, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. A mock-up image appears on-screen showing the team clutching firearms, clearly intended to further sully their reputation. Raphael is furious and ready to confront the station boss, but Donatello is beginning to wonder if the team really are at fault for everything that has happened, and Leonardo concedes he may be right. Before the group can discuss the issue further, they find a group of vicious rats devouring their belongings. Moments later, the Rat King - who has now updated his image with a Darkman-style hat and long coat – bursts through a wall and attacks the Turtles using the weapons provided by Shredder.

Act two opens with the Turtles shoving Rat King back through the wall and into the waters of the sewers. He continues to use the gear provided to him to attack the Turtles, before finally creating a wave of water that flushes them away. Now convinced the team have been vanquished, he leaves to claim his reward from Shredder.

As Bebop and Rocksteady determine the Shock Wave has wound up with the police, the Turtles continue to grow more pessimistic: in what comes across as a distinctly meta-textual conversation, Donnie, Leo and Raph all begin to wonder if their time has passed and if they just don’t have what it takes to be heroes anymore. Michaelangelo is the only member of the group who hasn’t succumbed to this pessimism, convinced they can turn things around.

Channel 6 is now operating out of rinky-dink premises that, I assume by coincidence, resemble the station offices used by Channel 3 in the first live-action TMNT movie. Burne and April have an argument about the forthcoming anti-Turtles hit piece, during which he insists he can run the operation as he pleases, and warns her that she’ll be demoted if she airs a piece defending them. April doesn’t seem to take this on board, marching off and declaring she won’t be prevented from filming an exposé of her own.

Krang has been out of the loop regarding Shredder’s activities and is aghast to learn he provided weaponry to the Rat King, who he dismisses as a “lunatic”. Shreds is insistent that the sewer-dwelling villain has changed. (I don’t know what he’s basing this on, maybe he was really taken in by the new hat.) Bebop and Rocksteady relay the news that the Shock Wave is now being kept at the highly guarded Westmore Research Center, a facility that the villains have struggled to gain entry to in the past.

Speaking of gaining entry, I don’t know if Rat King was provided with a key to the Hall of Science or what, but he manages to saunter in and demand the mutagen he was promised for defeating the Turtles. This is news to Krang too, but Shredder fumbles his way out of this awkward conversation by pointing out that with the powers granted by their new mutagen, Rat King’s rodents could get inside the research facility and help recover the Shock Wave.

April uses her Turtlecom to advise the team she just spotted Rat King walk into Shredder’s new hideout, but the Turtles – who following their redesigns really are coming across as mopey, depressed teens going through some kind of dark phase – don’t even see the point in trying to do anything about it. Not only is Channel 6′s reporter aghast to hear this, but Splinter is too. Speaking like a true weary dad of four troubled boys, he tells them he’s “had quite enough of [their] poor attitude!” He goes on to shoot down Donatello’s concerns about Burne’s attacks. “If you believe the ill others speak of you, then you have lost before you begin. Winning is nothing. Doing your best and acting with honour are the only things that matter.”

Splinter marches out of the Lair, declaring that the only thing left for him to do is jump the gorge himself fight Shredder and the Rat King himself. The Turtles are horrified by this prospect, knowing that there’s no way their Sensei can win. Rather than put him through that, they agree to take up the battle on his behalf. The team meet up with April, who is thrilled to see them back in the game, but an unexpected threat soon emerges as Shredder and Rat King arrive with a group of mutated, wolf-sized rats.

Act three opens with the Turtles battling the giant rats, but finding themselves overpowered. The team attempt to lure them into one of the domes left over from the World’s Fair event and escape underground using a hatch, though the rats soon tear through the walls and return to their masters. Krang orders that the villains move on to the research facility to retrieve the Shock Wave; unbeknownst to the bad guys, April is continuing to track them.

The Turtles re-emerge and are now dejected even further, having been handed yet another loss, this time to the giant rats. They’re again on the verge of giving up when they happen to pass by – yes! - an electronics store with a bunch of TV sets in the window with the volume turned up, all of them set to Channel 6. Vernon is seen laying into our heroes, and presumably this is the “exposé” Burne promised earlier, as footage is shown of the green team that suggests they were in control of the Annihilator, Berserko’s destructive vehicle seen in the previous episode. Spite is a tremendous motivator, and the Turtles become furious at the sight of Vernon shit-talking them on live TV. Determined to prove him wrong, they resolve to defeat Krang and stop the mutant rats. How will they do it? With the help of Shredder’s retromutagen ray of course, the one that they retrieved in “Revenge of the Fly”. The one that they... uh... destroyed.

I mean, it’s gone. Leonardo sliced that thing to pieces with his katana, they made a big point of showing everyone watching at home that the retromutagen ray was not gonna be a thing anymore. And yet... here we are.

(Sigh)

Okay. Let’s continue.

Some scientists are seen at the research facility attempting to make sense of the Shock Wave when the assembled villains use the mutant rats to tear down the walls and confront them. Krang is thrilled at the prospect of getting his doohickey back, but Rat King has heard enough about this all-powerful weapon, taking the device and going into business for himself. Tired of being used as “some rat-obsessed crackpot”, he vows to get rid of Shredder and Krang before taking the city for himself.

The Turtles arrive in their van, carrying a weapon that looks nothing like the retromutagen ray (either the original design from “Shredder & Splintered”, or the one mistakenly patterned after the ray gun Baxter Stockman found in the alien spacecraft that was destroyed last season). They watch as the whole facility blows up, Rat King emerging with his army of mutated rodents. Using the Shock Wave, the villain blows a huge hole in the ground, forcing the Turtles to cling to the edges. Donnie struggles to reach the retromutagen gun, but after a pep talk from the other members of the group manages to pull himself up alongside the device and zap the rats.

Rat King goes on a rampage, destroying entire buildings with a single blast. He eventually winds up outside a facility where rat poison is stored and declares his intent to unleash the pesticide contained within, ridding the city of humans. The Turtles arrive to stop him, along the way taking control of an armoured truck: in defeating the villain, the vehicle is driven through a nearby wall, destroying the Shock Wave in the process.

April has filmed the Turtles successfully capturing the Rat King. Returning to Channel 6, she insists on playing the footage out live, demonstrating to the viewers at home that her friends are heroes. Burne confronts her afterwards and makes good on his promise, and as we close out today’s adventure it seems that she really will be demoted to mailroom duties. Watching from the Lair, the Turtles remark that it won’t take her long to bounce back as Burne doesn’t have many reporters to work with, something that’s been a running joke in Turtlethon from the start but... yeah, it’s confirmed here as canon, at least during this season. Having reclaimed their lost motivation, the Turtles are now determined again to beat Shredder once and for all.

I remain somewhat wary of this new era of TMNT, expecting that things are going to turn south any day now, and yet “Get Shredder!” was nothing to sniff at and here, again, I’m surprised to see the show maintaining that momentum. Some of my favourite recurring themes appear here, as Burne begins using his influence to attack the Turtles and threaten their way of life. The characterisation of the team as sulkier, older teenagers who are borderline depressed somehow works in this adventure, against all expectations: never have the Turtles been handed as many losses as they have over the course of the last three episodes, and it’s entirely believable that it would get them down. The return of the Technodrome, their banishment to Dimension X to work as slaves, their failure to stop the Channel 6 building from being destroyed and (temporary) inability to stop the mutant rats have all taken place within a short timeframe, and all of this is taking place against the backdrop of a hate campaign from Burne Thompson intended to turn public sentiment against them. No wonder they’re sad.

Last time I mentioned that Burne’s tirade following the destruction of the Channel 6 building was the most convincing anger we’d ever seen from him, rooted in a genuine loss rather than simply being hot air. Here, again, we see the characters talking with true conviction in ways they never have before: Splinter’s anger upon seeing the Turtles giving up feels real, he’s not just serving up the same hollow platitudes he has for the entire run of the series, this means something now. I mentioned earlier the meta-textual aspect of our heroes giving up, appearing to mirror their real-life decline, the world having moved on and no longer valuing them, and this adds an extra dimension to their sensei’s speech: both in-universe and as fictional characters the Turtles have lost everything, but he – and I assume, the remaining viewers at home – are rooting for them to stand up and fight, to prove they can still do this. I think this is easily Hamato Yoshi’s finest hour, the first time I’ve ever found him truly inspiring and the most effective use of him in the entire run of the show.

All of this is starting to make me second-guess my memories and preconceptions about the Red Sky era. While I don’t care for the redesigned characters, so far it’s... good? Like, really, really good? Wasn’t this supposed to be the point where the Turtles finally jumped the shark? Let’s hope this run of strong episodes continues as we move on to the season’s third adventure, “State of Shock”.

#Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #TMNT #TMNT 1987 #1994 #Ninja Turtles #Turtlethon #Rat King #The Rat King #Rat King TMNT #Wrath of the Rat King

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