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Teenage Mutant Ninja Tutrtles Review – Season 3, Episode 8: Vision Quest

By Nick Tylwalk

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You’ve probably seen images floating around of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles with cool new designs, first revealed at a panel last fall at New York Comic Con. It took a while to get to them, but in today’s new episode, “Vision Quest,” we not only discover why the ninjas felt the need for different weapons and armor, we also join them in learning some important information that gets them back on the road to going home.

Exciting prospects, no? Let’s see what we’ve got.

Not-So-Quick Recap: Leonardo is out hunting in the woods with a bow and arrow (the latter has a pizza painted on the arrowhead, a nice touch). His knee is obviously still bothering him as he dismounts from a tree, and there’s something strange about the deer he’s tracking. It turns out to be an awfully capable deer as it charges at Leo, butts him with its horns and kicks him repeatedly before scampering off. Deer one, turtle zero.

Back at the farm, Raphael declares that it’s time for some ninja training, farmhouse-style. The boys try to get April to be able to split logs with her hands and feet, and when Casey makes a snide comment, she ends up kicking him instead of the log. That looked like it might have been accidentally on purpose.

Leo staggers back and says he had a realization while out in the forest. He and his brothers need have grown too comfortable with junk food and TV and need to become one with nature. Donatello reminds them that Splinter once did something similar. The prospect of roughing it excites April, though Leo informs her that this quest is ninjas only. That depresses Donnie when he realizes it’ll leave April and Casey at the house alone together. A non-sympathetic Leo says they need to leave their worries and fears behind because they need to find spiritual refinement.

Several quick scenes show the Turtles meditating, foraging for food and trying to start a fire to keep warm, tasks they get better at with practice. During one meditation session, Leo’s deer reappears, and Donnie points out that in the Shinto religion, deer are messengers are the divine. The others mistake it for a mutant and try attacking it, which only leads to the brothers clobbering each other by mistake.

That night, the Turtles sit around a campfire and get a shock: Splinter appears out of the fire, looking like the spirit of deceased Jedi in Star Wars. He informs his sons that while his body is still alive, his spirit is currently detached from it. Leo complains about his injury, but Splinter says all of us choose what holds us back. For Raph, it’s his temper, for Michelangelo, his tendency to get distracted (to say the least!). Donnie needs to trust his mind less and his body more, to be strong like a mountain, while Leo needs to be a leader in mind and body and not allow anything to weigh him down.

Splinter tells the boys to sleep, for the next day, they will face challenges on the spiritual plane that will be just as deadly as the ones they have faced in the real world. Then, as suddenly as he appeared, he’s gone. After they wake, we see the Turtles forging their own new weapons and armor for their spirit quest.

(Quick aside: they made all that stuff in one morning? Impressive!)

Raph lectures Mikey for eating pizza as they gather around a banner, ready to start their journey. He chucks his slice into the woods, telling the spirit deer how lucky they are to get it. And they’re off, into the spiritual plane!

Leo is equipped with a bow and arrows as he follows the deer onto a rickety rope bridge, one that is soon crawling with Foot ninjas. Raphael sports hand claws and flamethrowers, exploring a dark cavern that is also full of Foot. Donnie finds himself on a narrow mountain path with his poleaxe, and Mikey is out in the middle of the woods with his kama (like handheld scythes) and spiked shoulder armor. All of the Turtles find themselves able to defeat the Foot soldiers fairly easily — maybe a little too easily. The first sign of trouble comes for Leo, when the rope bridge breaks, and he finds himself falling …

… but he’s able to fire a rope and climb to the mountain at the end of the bridge. Meanwhile, his brothers find themselves up against familiar foes: Mikey vs. Rahzar, Raph vs. Fishface and Donnie vs. Tiger Claw. All of them initially fare poorly, but they begin to remember Splinter’s instructions. Mikey focuses (even brushing aside his thoughts of Ice Cream Kittie) and is able to nail Rahzar. Donnie finds himself on a small rock with nowhere to run, but he stands his ground against Tiger Claw and is able to trip him and send the big cat tumbling off the mountain.

For Raph, he decides to focus and sharpen his temper, using his flamethrowers to set his claws on fire. That’s enough to dissuade Fishface. Leo has the toughest challenge, as he’s up against Shredder, who disarms him of his swords during their battle. Just as the Turtles’ leader is about to despair, he sees the deer again, who motions toward his injured knee. And the lightbulb comes on! Leonardo realizes the pain is all in his mind, looking pretty spry even as Shredder grows to become several stories tall. Though the giant Shredder is able to capture Leo in one hand, that doesn’t stop him from firing an arrow right into the villain’s eye.

Game over. Leo declares that he’s beaten Shredder on the spirit plane, and one day, he’ll do it in the real world.

At the farmhouse, April finally is able to break a log. Casey just gawks in amazement, not at her accomplishment, but because the Turtles are emerging from the forest, each carrying a banner and in their new gear. Leonardo makes a declaration: “It’s time — we’re going back to New York.” Oh yeah!

Favorite Moment: It’d be pretty easy to be cynical about the Turtles with their new weapons and armor, like it was a stunt to sell more toys or something. But it made sense within the context of the story, and you can’t deny how cool it was seeing them all geared up for the first time. Plus, uh, I actually do want figures of them looking like that.

Final Thought: There have been some fun episodes in the early part of Season 3, but this gives the series some momentum again. The Turtles’ retreat from New York probably lasted just the right length of time, and now things should really pick up as they search for Splinter and resolve their unfinished business with the Shredder, echoing a classic storyline from the original Mirage comics and some previous TV and movie adaptations as well.

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