#love this episode because M uses a dagger sword and polearm D a blaster R a blaster and sword and L a makeshift bo

[whattraintracks]

Oh, "Combat Land" is a brilliant addition.

By this point, I think the separation anxiety from "Splinter Vanishes" is no longer an issue. He seems to have gotten over that. I forgot about "Leonardo is Missing!" which happens about the same time as "Snakes Alive!" Leonardo goes off on his own to answer a distress call without his turtle comm, but when the turtles find him at the end of the episode, he's happy as a clam. They spend the whole episode terribly worried about him, but his response in the closing scene is basically, aw shucks, my bad! Unfortunately, he experiences a lot more trauma before "Combat Land." By the end of season 7, things are really heating up for the turtles. Leonardo gets captured in both "Night of the Rogues" and "Dirk Savage: Mutant Hunter," and Red Sky is right around the corner.

So, "Combat Land." It's subtle, but we can tell Leonardo is aware the stakes are upping as he nags the others about training. He says something to the effect of "you guys need to practice more" four times in the first four minutes. At first, he says it almost out of habit, but then they take down some shady folks with sketchy tech in the sewers, and it ramps up to visibly distressed that humans are messing around close to home and frustrated the guys aren't taking it seriously. This is all before they even go to Combat Land and bear with me, but this feels like another dimension of Leonardo saying, "I knew you guys would get into trouble without me" in TMtYL. On some level, he doesn't trust them. He doesn't think they can hold their own without him, or that they appreciate the danger they're in, or are as dedicated to ninjutsu as he is.

So Leonardo's already upset with them and having a bad day when they go to Combat Land, and he's maybe just a little bit of a brat about the fact that nobody wants to go with him to the Shogun Zone. He rephrases his request as getting in touch with their ninja heritage, Raphael not unkindly responds with his typical sarcasm, but Leonardo blows the whole thing wildly out of proportion. Honestly, I think he's hurt that no one wants to hang out with him or seems to care about his interests. He uses this to feed his little frustrated flame about the whole issue and that seed of distrust becomes "Fine! I don't need your help anyway! In fact, I'll do better without you!" That he's no longer terrified about being without his team, leaving or being left behind, is a clear sign of progress, albeit in the wrong direction.

Thankfully, he has a good time fighting, blows off some steam, gets into the brotherly competition, and meets back up with Donatello and Raphael in better spirits. Just in time for them all to notice Irma, Vernon, and Michelangelo have gone missing. Leonardo starts to sound pretty worried, and, sure enough, they get attacked. He sends Donatello and Raphael after the robots and goes to save Michelangelo and the others himself. He's emotionally fine on his own even after he notices the turtle comm frequency is being jammed, but soon realises he's out of his depth. It hits him, "All the ninja skill in the world isn't going to stop those robots. What I really need is, is the other fellas." In a surprising show of self-awareness, Leonardo recognises he overreacted and is not, in fact, better off without his team. I think it's neat that instead of the others having to meet his stress-induced high standards, Leonardo concludes that he needs to put those aside and trust his team. Doubt his doubts before he doubts them. From a trauma standpoint, learning to rely on others is progress, too. See that, Splinter? Your boys can learn to appreciate each other without Machiavellian schemes and abandonment trauma! Ironically, if he held out a little longer, he might not have gotten kidnapped by fake Michelangelo.

But all is well that ends well. In the closing scene, Leonardo apologises for letting his stress make a jerk out of him. He admits they are skilled ninja and sweetly compliments how awesome they are. The guys try to say he was right actually and that things would have been easier if they practiced more, but he insists on relaxing instead of pushing themselves after a long day. I like how this episode doesn't fall into the pattern of everyone realises Leonardo was right all along, instead, Leonardo begins to see their perspective and appreciates them more. In most of the other episodes I looked at, the message is low-key that the others need to get on his level, but this episode says psych, Leonardo makes mistakes, too. They end the episode piled on the couch together to watch bad movies, and I'm very happy for them.

In the 1987 tv series Leonardo is a good leader and team player but "Unidentified Flying Leonardo" demonstrates that alone he is an on-fire trainwreck of a teenage mutant ninja turtle. In this essay I will