Nicktoons TMNT Episode 30- Mutagen Man Unleashed

 By Mark Rodriguez

Originally written on Saturday, November 9, 2013. Keep in mind, these were our thoughts as they were back in 2013 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.

And this is the episode everyone's been waiting for since season 2 was announced, the big debut of Casey Jones, as well as the episode where Timothy finally breaks free and becomes Mutagen Man. As well to how poor Donnie will react to all of this. And yeah, Venka called a lot of this.

 

The episode opens with a total Voltron knock-off that Mikey found in a box of VHS tapes (even though the giant robot looks like Mazinkaiser Z). At first the others find the show stupid, but later all four of them are engrossed in it. The show has a nerd character that likes the main female but is turned down cause, well, he's the nerd of the show. Mikey points out it's similar to Don and April and the turtle in question storms off calling the show stupid.

Don is in his lab bitching and complaining about April in front of Timothy, as he tries to find a way to make Retromutagen. Don has a photo of him pushing April on the swings in the park (when the hell did that happen?) that Timothy notices. One of the Mutagen vials Don experiments on freezes up and gets destroyed. As Don walks off, one of Timothy's tentacles manages to get out of the glass case and drink some Mutagen.

At school, April is at her locker and is suddenly hit by a hockey puck. She turns to meet Casey Jones, a weird creepy guy who she will be tutoring with trigonometry. They agree to meet in the park.

Outside Mikey is walking across the rooftops until he finds a pizza box with a slice of pizza left. As he tries to get it, he gets attacked by Leo. Leo considers this stealth training and asks him why he would eat some random pizza he found on a rooftop anyway. Raph goes next and catches Mikey after distracting him with his skateboard. Mikey says he hates stealth training. Don happens to see April and Casey talking in the park and is upset, thinking it's some kind of date.

Back at his lab, Don complains to Timothy about April seeing another guy. He's especially angry at how they're on the same park swings as in the picture. As he complains, he installs a voice box so that Timothy can talk. Splinter calls Don to the other room and Timothy uses this chance to suck up more Mutagen.

Splinter asks Don if he likes to fall, which of course he doesn't. So today he's going to teach him to like to fall. After several attacks, Splinter asks him if he likes to fall now, Don says you can't make someone like something. Then he understands this is referring to him and April.

Meanwhile, the Mutagen has a stronger effect on Timothy this time. This time he's able to grow arms and legs and busts out of the lab. He takes the picture of April and Donnie with him as he goes out to find her. Timothy hits the streets attacking random people and even the police as he asks them where April O'Neil is.

Don discovers that Timothy as escaped and the others soon show up to help out. As they run outside, Don says he might be going after April since he was complaining to him about her. She might be at the park with 'her new date' or heading back home. They decide to split up.

April and Casey walk back home as he teases her for thinking about studying all the time. Just then Timothy appears and April recognizes him. Timothy sees Casey as the 'punk kid' Don was talking about. Casey protects April and gets smacked around. Casey uses a steel pipe as a hockey stick and pucks things at Timothy, before trying to attack him directly (while yelling out Goongala!!!). Timothy smacks him aside again. As he gets up, he sees April defend herself with her ninja fan and is impressed. Just as Timothy tries to grab April, Casey yanks her out of the way on his bike.

 

 

Timothy gives chase and calls April his friend. She says he's not her friend. Mikey and Raph arrive, and Mikey calls him 'Mutagen Man'. They start attacking him and find out that his hands drip acid and he's about to finish off Raph. Don and Leo show up and during the fight Leo slices off his hand. Don tries to defend Timothy, but he says the Turtles aren't his friends, especially after they attacked him. Due to Mutagen spilling from his severed arm, he runs out of Mutagen, powers down, and drops to the ground.

 

 

They take him to the Shell Raiser to bring him back home. Raph asks why and Don explains he might be the key to find a cure for April's father. Timothy finds more Mutagen in the Shell Raiser, drinks it and escapes again. The Turtles give chase, but Don says they all know where he's going, so they should all go together this time.

Casey and April are walking back to her place when she notices that Mutagen Man has returned and the Turtles are fighting him. She keeps Casey from seeing this and sends him on his way. By now Mutagen Man has lost whatever sense he had left and basically wants to force April to be his friend. Don keeps trying to defend him, but Leo tells him there's no other way. Whatever the Pulverizer, or Timothy once was, is now gone. They decide to use stealth and suddenly vanish on him.

Mutagen Man is confused and sees a piece of a Mutagen bottle land near him. He turns and sees Donnie with some Mutagen, and as he's distracted, the Turtles attack him. He's still too powerful for them and manages to get the Mutagen away from Donnie. Donnie warns him not to drink it, and Timothy yells out for him as he's now frozen solid by one of Don's failed attempts at a cure.

Later at home, Don is still sad by recent events and Splinter reminds him he can't make April come back. She will return when she wants to, and if she chooses to. Don sees a scene from the Voltron show as the nerd character saves the princess, and she rewards him with kisses. Don agrees with Splinter that there's always hope.

My Thoughts-

 

There is so much to talk about in this episode. So let me tackle the four main points of interests here or else this article will be three times as long. I do wanna say that our friend Venka totally call most of this episode. Timothy overheard Don complaining about Don seeing some other guy, so he breaks out and tries to get to April. Then he basically wants April for himself. Wow. Anyways, here we go.

 

 

Casey Jones- We finally see the debut of everyone's favorite vigilante that was pushed all the way to season 2....and he's kind of a jerk. Casey might not be perfect but he was never an arrogant asshole. Sure, he was insane in some versions, and kind of a tactless dude that didn't know how to conduct himself in the adult world other than kicking ass, but he was never a creepy jerk that comes on too strong. At his core he was a good guy, fighting the good fight, but with poor people skills. Not an outright jerk. Casey nearly socks April out with a hockey puck, then acts as if he's doing April a favor by having her tutor him, calls their study session a date and is already calling her sweetheart. While he does rescue April from Mutagen Man, it's obvious part of it is also to show off how tough and bad-ass he is. I'm not sure what to think exactly, but I don't like his arrogant 'this girl is already mine' attitude.

And no this isn't an anti-Casey, pro-Don thing either. Casey and April have been involved since the original Mirage comics, and we've seen them either be a couple or start liking each other in the live action movies, 2K3 series, and other media with the exception of the 80's series. They're basically the only male and female human friends the Turtles have, which met due to them having met the Turtles first. Eventually they get to know each other better and fall for each other. This is the first version that starts out with Casey putting the moves on April right from the start and being a jerk about it. It kinda felt like Nick was trying too hard to shove Don out the door and replace him with Casey as 'the new boyfriend' right off the bat.

Either way, it was interesting to see him in action, and it's also worth mentioning that this is the first time we've seen Casey as a normal guy before he decided to become a vigilante. Any other version was a vigilante right off the bat, even the IDW comic made Casey seem normal before he revealed to Raph that he likes to go out at night with the hockey mask and clubs. We'll see how it goes, but since this is an action show let's hope we see more of kick-ass Casey and less of wannabe-playa Casey.

 

 

April- Wow, this girl's anger is seriously misplaced. I get she's sick of mutants and stuff but it's the Kraang's fault all of this is going on, not the Turtles. I hope she snaps out of her funk soon cause it will get annoying. In this ep she's already shown some fighting skills that she learned from Splinter, and the fan given to her as a gift from Splinter... so stop being an ungrateful little bitch. As for her and Casey... well even though she seemed a bit repulsed at first, she did show some signs of liking him or at the very least interested in seeing him again. Yep... they're gonna go with the whole 'she can't stand him at first and will eventually fall for him because only she can see his good side' deal. Maybe Don shoulda treated April more like crap.

Mutagen Man/Timothy/Pulverizer- Wow. One thing this show does is create more of a backstory for their characters before they become mutants. Chris Braford, Xever, Dr. Falco, The Pulverizer. Most of them had at least a full episode or two in their human forms before they became toy-marketable mutant monsters. But wow, it's easy to forget that this guy used to be the Pulverizer.

 

At his core, he just wanted to be a hero. Yeah maybe it was for fame, glory and babes, but deep down he just wanted to fight the good fight and be somebody. He's lost his humanity and whatever was left of his sanity. And now he's gonna be another mindless monster of the week that will most likely never be cured throughout the show's run. I really hope they don't make him downright evil. I mean, even in the original version he was forced by Shredder to commit crimes or else they wouldn't give him the chemicals he needed to stay together.

 

It really is sad when you think about it. True he was a 'doofus' and wanted his powers handed to him, but hey, who'd rather spend half their lives training over just getting bit by a radioactive spider and become a hero right away?

 I just feel he didn't really deserve this fate and the Turtles, save Don, were real jerks to him from day one. I hate how Mike and Raph just attacked him right off the bat instead of trying to talk him down. Dude, he used to be human, just like Splinter. And he lives in Don's lab. Don't treat him like some random monster you don't know or care about. Even when Don explained he might be after April since he talked to him about her, Raph is like 'you talked about your feelings to a vat full of organs?'. Harsh dude.

I do wonder what happens to him now. He froze up but did the Turtles take him home, or did they call it a day and leave? Don mentioned he needed him to find a cure for the mutations, including April's father. But this show is so bad with easily abandoning plot lines, I wouldn't be surprised if we DON'T see a frozen Timothy in Don's lab in future episodes.

Oh... and that voicebox thingie is annoying as hell... I guess they were trying to make him even creepier with a creepy radio voice... but c'mon Don.. you could do better than that. If he returns I kinda hope he gets a modified one, maybe bringing his human voice back or something. Hell, the part of the reason most of this happened to him in this episode was him having problems communicating properly.

 

 

Donatello- What can I say? He acted just like we'd expect upon finding out that April was 'seeing someone else'. He basically voiced what most of the fans were thinking when they first announced the whole 'crush on April' thing, that it wasn't fair that April liked some guy cause he's human and he's not. Don had the whole crush on April against him from the start just because he's a mutant turtle and also because no other versions of the franchise has ever had April be an official girlfriend to any of them. Splinter did a good job showing Don that you can't force someone to love you, in so many words.

However, the episode still ended giving him hope. Hope for what? He's never going to get April. Yes, I know she'll eventually be back with the gang, but she'll never see Donnie as more than just a friend, so why bother? Why drag this crush out for all of season one if you were gonna pair her up with Casey anyways, when an episode or two would have been enough? Venka said eventually April will have to make a choice, and Don will have to learn to accept her choice. Well... why not totally shock everyone and have her actually choose Donnie and leave Casey to 'learn to accept her choice'? If Donnie was human in any other show, this wouldn't be an issue and even though there would have been challenges, ups and downs, other men after her, and maybe even other girls to tempt him elsewhere, eventually the story would have ended with him getting April. Here the mere fact that he's a turtle already has everything from in-universe reasons to real world reasons for it to never happen... so again I ask... why even bother? I guess we'll have to find out.

Oh what's that? This is an action show and not some drama-rama soap opera? Yeah, almost forgot. Let's wrap it up with this sneak peak that Playmates announced a few days back of the upcoming Casey Jones figure. Honestly, I think it's totally awesome and can't wait to get it. Don't get me wrong. I got nothing against the character per say, it's just... let's focus more on him being bad ass and kicking ass left and right as a hardcore vigilante and less on him trying to woo April. Please.