Should you watch this, Wiki this, or wait for the recap? Watch this if you have time, but otherwise you can wait for the recap.
With the Kraang beginning their full scale invasion of New York and the Turtles’ lair destroyed, the Turtles must regroup and find a way to repel Kraang Prime before she can mutate all of New York into a new Dimension X! Meanwhile, Leo faces his greatest challenge, and the final confrontation between Shredder and Splinter comes to an explosive conclusion!
“The Invasion, Part 2” is the 26th episode of Season 2 of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. As the season finale, it wraps up the Kraang invasion plot and sets a new status quo for the Turtles. It also sees one of the biggest and longest fights between Splinter and Shredder, which ends rather unexpectedly.
The thing about “The Invasion, Part 2” is that it didn’t quite make me want to break out my Ninja Turtles, nor did it entice me to go look up the toys (which I do in every episode). While the previous episode had a sense foreboding, this one felt incomplete. All of the necessary structural elements are there, yet it lacks a certain sincerity to make it complete. As mentioned in my review for “The Invasion, Part 1,” it felt like a 3-episode script was abridged into a 2-episode script, thus necessitating that some of the less critical build up be sacrificed to fit logic and time constraints.
Spoilers follow – this is the finale after all!
Highlights
Shredder-Splinter fight
Finally, we have a conclusion and a fair fight between Splinter and Shredder! The whole season has had fights between them, but they’ve always had to cut it short for some reason. Either that, or one of the combatants was severely handicapped, and the tension was whether the disadvantaged fighter would live to escape the conflict. This one has a conclusion, and it ends with Shredder’s win – through underhanded means, of course.
Leatherhead’s return
We haven’t quite seen Leatherhead this season, mainly because he’s been in Dimension X. There was that Dungeons & Dragons episode too, but Leatherhead didn’t come in as a character, more as a cameo (a cool dragon cameo though).
This one establishes Leatherhead as one of the Turtles’ most powerful allies. Fittingly, he is dispatched by Shredder, thus cementing the villain as the key antagonist for the Turtles and of course, demonstrating his level of power.
I hope Leatherhead comes back. With a bigger toy, too.
Leo’s gauntlet
Leonardo gets his moment of awesome by fighting through hordes of Foot Bots and also defeating Fishface, Rahzar, and Tiger Claw. Tiger Claw! The last time we saw him, Tiger Claw defeated all four Turtles. It’s testament to the level of awesome that Leo displays in this episode, that he defeats Tiger Claw.
Unfortunately, he gets taken down by Shredder – fair enough. If he could defeat Shredder, there’s no point in watching Ninja Turtles anymore.
Breaking of status quo
Nothing is ever going to be the same again! I like how we can expect something different next season, and that the Turtles don’t have much to rely on now. It adds more tension to the situation, and offers more potential for interesting conflict to occur in Season 3 & 4. Not that status quo was bad, of course, just that it offers more opportunities for different stories to be told.
Karai’s alive!
Woo hoo! We knew she was alive all along, and it was a pity she couldn’t take part in the big battle, but at least she’s kept out of the main action for a reason – to save her partner. What happened to her human-mutant shapeshifting powers though? She’s only seen as a mutant after her transformative episode.
Letdowns
The Turtle Mech
After all that buildup, drawings by Donatello, the subtle set up through SMRFF… the Turtle Mech felt like more of a Turtle Meh. It wasn’t half as large as expected, gets destroyed in the end, and isn’t as formidable or powerful as Leo feared it to be. I was disappointed. The Turtles battling Kraang, swinging from rooftop to rooftop, would have been a much more epic battle than the Turtle Meh vs Kraang Prime’s Walker.
Shredder & Splinter’s conflict lacks buildup
As much as I loved the fight, there didn’t seem to be an emotional set up for the conflict between Shredder and Splinter within the episode itself. Yes, throughout the series we’ve been given plenty of reasons for their final battle to be epic. Yet we needed a reminder, a refresher, some sort of reason (Karai, perhaps?) to give the fight between Splinter and Shredder that gravitas.
It didn’t. And so the fight was more of an action sequence than a cathartic conclusion worthy of epic rivals.
“The Invasion, Part 2” was a disappointing finale. Perhaps as a normal episode it would have been fine, but the last episode of the season carries with it certain expectations. Well, at least there’s a whole lot of plot set up for the next season. Wonder if we’ll see the Technodrome again (and get a Technodrome toy)?
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