Nicktoons TMNT Episode 15 The Alien Agenda

 By Mark Rodriguez

Originally written on Saturday, February 9, 2013. Keep in mind, these were our thoughts as they were back in 2012 when the show was new and was written shortly after seeing the episodes after their initial broadcast. At the time we had zero way of knowing what to expect.

This episode was long advertised about being about a teacher voiced by Cassandra Peterson AKA Elvira Mistress of the Dark who is after April and her mysterious gift. However, this actually turned out to be a direct follow-up to the previous episode and ties all previous plots together.

The episode opens up with Karai leading the Foot across the rooftops in search of the Turtles. However when she finds them she sees them fighting against The Kraang, which peaks her interest. Leo realizes Karai is watching and starts showing off, taking down all the alien robots by himself. After the fight is over, Raph questions Leo about Karai and why he isn't telling the others about her.

Back to Shredder's hideout, Baxter is finally working on Xever's robot legs that everyone has seen in his action figure since forever. However the legs aren't working as well as Baxter would have hoped, which leaves Dogpound laughing as Xever trips all over the place. The Shredder shows up and is un-amused by Baxter's delayed efforts. Karai then shows up and tells him about the Turtles fighting robots with strange aliens inside them. The Shredder doesn't care about that and only cares about his vendetta against Splinter. Karai tells him that there is more going on in the city, and points out that Yoshi has mutant turtles on his side, there are alien robots running around and his own henchmen are also mutants now. Shredder just doesn't care and reminds Karai of what Splinter did to both of them and demands his revenge.

In the sewers, Leo and Raph argue as they train. Leo continues to insist that Karai is a good guy, but Raph is angry that he is keeping Karai a secret from everyone else. Leo says they wouldn't understand which only angers Raph more. Splinter comes in and asks what is going on. Raph goes along with Leo's lie and says nothing is wrong.

Later on Leo meets with Karai and tries to get her to stop coming after them. Karai says she can't do that. Leo then reminds her that if she tries to come after them, he will come after her.

Meanwhile April is mailing off a swab sample to the Human Genome Project and tells Mikey that everyone in school is doing it. Don tries to explain to Mike what DNA is, with little success. Leo returns and assures Raph that Karai was told to leave them alone. Raph doesn't take her word for it and jokes that maybe he should also text The Kraang to stop.

Later on, April  is walking down the dark empty halls of her school and runs into a teacher from the Human Genome Project that asks her to join her. April is surprised, expecting to receive something in the mail, but Miss Campbell insists that she follow her. Our heroine thinks something is wrong, and the teacher continues to insist she come with her, repeating the same message over and over in a strange repetitive manner. April decides to run and the teacher soon follows, acting like some kind of robot with glowing red eyes. 

April hides in a locker and sends a mass text to all four Turtles. At the lair, they do get the text and wonder what it's about. The Turtles eventually show up at the school and are confused that they have to fight a random old teacher lady. However Miss Campbell displays super human strength and fires missiles from her elbows. After a brief showdown, which includes her tossing razor sharp sheets of paper from her clipboard (epic), the Turtles defeat her and find out she's some kind of Kraang-droid, but without a Kraang piloting it. The Turtles decide to investigate the Human Genome Project since some of The Kraang might be working undercover there.

As the Turtles sneak into the building, Karai is secretly following them. Inside, the Turtles realize that The Kraang are the Human Genome Project and are collecting DNA from all sorts of species on the planet. The Turtles wonder where Raph snuck off to, and find him tackling Karai down. Mike and Don are confused as to who she is, and Raph demands Leo to tell the others about her. Karai and Raph continue to fight and the female ninja asks if the Mutagen is the stuff that turns people into monsters. As Leo tries to break up the fight between them, he accidently triggers an alarm and soon they are surrounded by The Kraang.

Karai and the Turtles fight against all of The Kraang, which makes Leo think she really is on their side. Karai however is fighting for herself and soon activates a device that pours all the different kinds of DNA samples into the Mutagen. The resulting creature is a weird octopus mixed with shark, snake and even cat DNA. The creature is so weird, even Mikey can't come up with a name for it and just calls it 'Justin'. Karai takes one of the broken Kraang robots with her and gets ready to leave the Turtles and The Kraang to fight the monster. Leo yells out that he trusted her, and Karai replies with "I know, that's messed up, right?"and leaves. Upset and disappointed, Leo has to put his head back into the game and help the Turtles take down the monster.

Back home, Leo finally tells everyone about Karai. Don and Mike ask why they weren't told about her and Leo admits he thought she was a good guy and that he kinda liked her. April and Raph both agree that he shouldn't have trusted her since she was with the Foot Clan. Splinter reminds Leo that kunoichi's strongest weapons are the use of deception and Karai is a master. Leo is happy Splinter isn't mad, but his sensei says 'who said I wasn't mad?' and slams his walking stick onto his foot. Raph talks to Leo and hopes that he is finally over Karai, and the Turtle Leader says he is. As Raph leaves, Leo sighs and still thinks about her.

Back to the Shredder's lair, Dogpound is still laughing at Baxter's poor attempts to program Xever's new robot legs to work correctly. Karai comes in and shows them the Kraang robot she found. Shredder doesn't care, but Baxter sees that it's the kind of technology he needs to get Xever's legs to work perfectly. Shredder then considers The Kraang's technology to be useful in his war against Yoshi. He now commands Karai to get all the information she can about The Kraang. When the time comes, she will have to help destroy the Turtles, and the episode ends with her smiling evilly.

My Opinions-

This was a great episode and I like how the multiple plot threads are finally coming together. It took someone not blinded by hatred like Karai to realize 'hey, our enemies are mutant Turtles... maybe we should look into how exactly they came to be'. One thing I noticed about Shredder is that the sides of his helmet seem to be leather or something because they seem to shake whenever he turns his head. I kinda liked it better when his helmet was solid metal. Also, the line that Shredder mentioned about getting revenge for what Yoshi did to both him AND Karai might be a hint that Karai is Hamato Yoshi's daughter Miwa, and that Shredder raised her with lies that Yoshi abandoned her and that he was the one that really raised her.

I like how Raph and Leo's little arguments continue but with good reason other than 'Raph hates Leo, just because'. I also liked how Karai and Raph got to fight it out, and that Don and Mike finally got to see her too, although they were more confused than anything.

There's not much to say about the episode except that it's awesome and I really liked it. We also finally got see all the villains, Shredder, Karai, Baxter, Dogpound and the Xeverfish share 2 scenes. I am surprised that it took so long for Xever to get his robot legs, and we have yet to see the episode where he returns to the front lines, considering that he is in the theme song and we've seen his action figure several months back. My only complaint was 'Justin'. Just didn't like the ugly thing and hope we don't see an action figure of that.

I do want to end this review with the surprise that despite being informed that this was going to be an April episode and that this new villain was going to be voiced by Elvira, Mistress of the Dark.... it was hardly touched upon. It was a short scene in which April mostly ran, the fact that 'she was after April because of her special ability' was never mentioned at all, and Miss Campbell only said a few lines before being destroyed. And seeing that she was just some random robot, there's really no reason to bring her back... so wow... what was the point...? I mean, Mae Whitman herself (voice of April) could have voiced her with a deeper voice or something, I didn't see why go though the trouble of bringing in Cassandra Peterson to do it. But oh well, it's another paycheck for our classic vampires I guess. And she can always say she was in a Ninja Turtle episode.

And finally.... all we've seen of April's kunoichi training is that she knows how to dive and roll out of the way of attacks. When are we actually gonna see her fight? At least a spinkick or something. Or SHOW some of the training.... Just a thought. As for April just running around an empty school.... well I do know that it does cost money to make CGI cartoons and design new models for the episodes... so it woulda been tough to animate a school full of other characters.... but it just looks weird to see April hanging around an empty school in the middle of the night. Why was she there anyway at that time of night? The school would have been closed anyway. Or it could have been a Saturday.