Should you watch this, Wiki this, or wait for the next episode’s recap? Yep! Watch it!
When Sideswipe catches Strongarm hiding something from the rest of her team mates, he blackmails her into doing favours for him. The Autobot team goes on the hunt for a new Decepticon fugitive, Clampdown, and the chase inadvertently leads to their first clash with Steeljaw and his newly assembled Decepticon crew – Underbite, Thunderhoof, and Fracture with his Minicons! Will the Autobots prevail in their first battle against the Decepticon team?
“Sideways” is the fourteenth episode of the first season of Transformers: Robots in Disguise. It’s the sequel series to Transformers: Prime, and revolves around Bumblebee and his group of cadets on Earth, with a subplot involving Optimus Prime pursuing a mystical mission in the afterlife. This episode sees the Autobots hunting down Clampdown, and battling Steeljaw, Underbite, Fracture, and Thunderhoof.
Woo hoo! “Sideways” is probably the first Robots in Disguise episode to feel like a regular Transformers series. It features very little silly human action, but plenty of battles between the different factions. In fact, there’s even a dedicated scene that shows the Decepticons quarrelling amongst themselves (and then later, inducting Clampdown into their team). The show is, after all, about the “Transformers” and not the “Autobots,” so it’s only fitting that we get some Decepticon action once in a while.
Highlights
First sighting of the Decepticon crew
We finally see our group of antagonists in all their evil glory in this episode! Now that they are a team, we have an objective to head towards for the series finale – the inevitable battle between the Autobot forces and the Decepticon army. It feels just like the old day, seeing hordes (OK, I’m exaggerating here) of Transformers battling each other across exciting (again, exaggerating) locations.
Team battles
The other thing that really excited me was an all out battle between both the Autobot and Decepticon teams! Usually it’s just all the Autobots ganging up on one Decepticon, which doesn’t really create that much dramatic tension. I mean, wouldn’t you expect the Autobots to win when they’re always outnumbering their foes? Here they don’t have the advantage of numbers – so it’s truly a fight which could go either way.
Decepticon Hunters
At last, they’ve been built and all the Autobots have a special weapon! I like their default weapons too, but to see them given an additional advantage (which we all know they sorely need) is gratifying, and also a signal that bigger, better threats are coming.
Autobots have levelled up
Also, judging from the way they fight (and that they now have Decepticon Hunters, the Autobots have truly gained several experience levels fighting the Decepticons. Remember how it took all of the Autobots just to take down Underbite in the first two episodes? Now Grimlock is handling him with ease, while each Autobot goes up against a Decepticon. It used to take an entire team of Autobots to stop one Decepticon!
Letdowns
Decepticons have gone through villain decay
Unfortunately, the Decepticons have also been depowered just as the Autobots have levelled up. Underbite has definitely shrunk in size and power – Grimlock could hardly handle him for a few minutes previously, but now he trounces Underbite pretty easily. The other Decepticons can barely hold their own against their Autobot opponents, when it used to take an entire team just to match a single Decepticon. It’s sad, seeing how weakened the Decepticons are now.
“Sideways” is a great throwback to the mass battles of yore, and a great episode that features all the important players in the episode. It marks several turning points – the levelling up of the Autobots, the arrival and formation of Steeljaw’s gang, and the knowledge of each other’s existence (for Bumblebee’s team and Steeljaw’s team). It’s an all around great episode, and hopefully a good portent of things to come.
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