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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Review – Season 3, Episode 10: Serpent Hunt

By Nick Tylwalk

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Last week, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles gave us a new take on a classic comics storyline. This week, it’s going to be drawing on the 1987 animated series, as we’ll see the 21st Century birth of two very famous mutant villains.

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But there’s also business to attend to, as the Turtles hunt through the Kraang-occupied streets of New York for Karai, Splinter’s now-mutated daughter. Can they find her before any of the other forces also searching for her? That’s what “Serpent Hunt” will tell us.

Turtle-Powered Recap: Steranko and Zeck want out of NYC. The problem is, there’s no safe way out, and they’re down to moldy ketchup and cockroaches to eat. Steranko has a plan, though: find Karai and trade her to Shredder for safe passage out of the city.

Michelangelo, April and Splinter clean and tidy up their new home in the pizza shop. Mikey notices that Splinter is obviously preoccupied, though he simply says that his thoughts are elsewhere. Donatello is busy working on a retro-mutagen to transform April’s dad and other affected people back into humans, but it’s not ready yet.

Leonardo, Raphael and Casey return from a stealth mission with chemicals for Donnie’s experiments, a TV for Mikey and Splinter’s family picture, which he abandoned in their old lair. As he looks at it, the Turtles’ sensai remarks that his family can’t be complete without his daughter with him. Everyone resolves to find her, and when Raph mentions that she might have been captured by the Foot or the Kraang, Splinter says he saw her on the streets recently, but he was not in his right mind at the time and couldn’t help her. The Turtles are ready to start the search now, though Leo tells April and Casey they need to stay behind — ninjas only and all.

Karai’s surrogate father is also looking for her, and he’s not happy that Fishface and Rahzar have been unable to bring Karai in. He threatens to turn the mutants over to the debatable mercies of Tiger Claw if they can’t get the job done.

Aided by a DNA tracker that Donnie has whipped up, the Turtles are able to find some snake scales (which Mikey unfortunately mistakes for potato chips). Their old buddies Zeck and Steranko find Karai first, but the Turtles show up in the nick of time, and we’ve got ourselves a fight. During the battle, Steranko lines up a shot at Karai with a tranquilizer gun, but Raph knocks him off-balance and he misses. The shot spooks Karai enough to make her flee the scene, and the Turtles have to sneak past a host of Kraang forces before they track her to a warehouse.

Kraang droids make it inside the building, too, but Karai makes short work of them. The boys try talking to Karai, and when she sees Leo, she’s able to focus long enough to transform back from snake creature to something close to human. Leo asks her to return with them, but she says it’s too dangerous. Right on cue, Fishface and Rahzar arrive, stunning Karai with a taser and keeping the Turtles at bay with a poisonous smoke bomb. The mutants get Karai out to a motorcycle outside the warehouse, but they bicker over who should get to turn her over to Shredder, and Zeck sneaks up and steals the bike with Karai still on it.

Steranko calls Shredder to arrange a meeting at the docks, oblivious to a cyborg roach on his shoulder. That’s Donnie’s work (he remarks it’s the only one left after Steranko ate his other roaches), allowing the Turtles to eavesdrop and hear the plan. The meeting goes down as scheduled, with Steranko proposing safe passage in exchange for Karai. Shredder, who arrives with Fishface and Rahzar as backup, says he doesn’t make deals, but might make an exception in this case. Of course the Turtles are waiting nearby, and Leo offers that if they let Karai go, he’ll let all of them leave alive. That’s, uh, pretty dark, don’t you think Leo?

Now we’ve got a big brawl, with the Turtles battling Shredder and Steranko and Zeck tag-teaming against Fishface and Rahzar. Shredder’s concern for his “daughter” allow the guys to get in some shots, and amidst the chaos, Leo is able to free Karai (now back in snake form) from her restraints, telling her to leave. She says the word “comet” before escaping into the water.

A furious Shredder turns to take his anger out on the Turtles, but they’re already gone, using a ninja smoke bomb to cover their retreat. Steranko and Zeck aren’t so lucky, and Shredder orders them taken to Baxter Stockman’s lab.

Fishface taunts their prisoners, remarking that there’s some pretty interesting DNA about to be spliced with their own, and Rahzar remarks that he’s glad he’s not a warthog. Both Zeck and Steranko plead not to be mutated, but they both get shoved into the vat. Ladies and gents, I present to you, Bebop and Rocksteady, 2015!

Favorite Moment: Naturally, getting Bebop and Rocksteady into this series. Very cool that they figured out a way to do it using existing characters instead of having to create them from whole cloth this season.

Final Thought: I’m very curious to see how the whole retro-mutagen thing plays out. The guess is that some people, like April’s dad and Karai end up regaining their humanity, while the mutants in the service of Shredder do not. Hopefully we’re in for a twist or two before we get to that point.

Next: TMNT Review - Season 3, Ep. 9: Return to New York

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