Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Season 4, Episode 3 Recap And Review: The Weird World Of Wyrm

By Nick Tylwalk | Nov 8, 2015

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have made some enemies and a few potential allies during their brief time in space with Fugitoid, but it seems they’re going to have a close encounter of the weird kind this week.

This new episode is titled “The Weird World of Wyrm,” and it appears we’re getting a brand new take on a character from the early 90s cartoon and comics. Let’s see exactly how he torments the Turtles.

Turtle-Powered Recap: I almost thought Nickelodeon ran an old episode of TMNT by mistake because the Turtles are fighting Chris Bradford and Dogpound. Turns out it was just a holographic simulation hooked up by Fugitoid.

Raphael thinks the training program was too soft, so Fugitoid helpfully says he can crank it up so the holograms actually break bones next time. While Michaelangelo and Casy Jones use a machine that can produce any food they think of (only partially, in Mikey’s case), Leonardo gets Fugitoid to admit that he’s lost track of the Triceraton fleet.

There’s no time to follow up on that, as there’s a distress call coming in. The Turtles, Casey and April head over to find a giant derelict ship that has been torn in half. Nothing living appears to be on-board; April is creeped out while Casey just wishes something exciting would happen.

He finds a strange glowing cube just as a space suit floats up behind them. It’s not empty, but occupied by a zombie: an astro zombie. The ship is full of them, but the Turtles and friends manage to escape. Back at the ship, Fugitoid mentions that there hasn’t been an astro zombie plague in thousands of years. The android also calls the cube Casey found a hypercube and takes it away to stash it somewhere safe.

The Turtles chuckle watching Chris Bradford’s 2 Ruff Krew, Bradford’s 1980s cartoon that appears to be a send-up of Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos. You’ll have to Google it, kids. Mikey calls it so lame it’s awesome.

Meanwhile, Fugitoid does indeed put the cube away, but Casey follows and soon gets his hands on it. He feels compelled to open it, and something emerges …

More from Animation

Fugitoid is dismayed to find the hypercube open, because it’s very dangerous. It’s some kind of space genie, introducing himself as Wyrm. He’s willing to grant the group three wishes, though Casey already used one on the derelict ship (hence the astro zombies). The only rules are not wishing for more wishes and no wishes that can hurt Wyrm.

An argument quickly ensues over how to use the last two wishes, with Leo and April throwing out sensible things like stopping the Triceratons and universal peace. Angered by a foolish suggestion by Casey, Donatello accidentally wishes that he wasn’t such a big dummy. Poof! Casey is now the smartest being in the universe. Cool glowing eyes, too.

Alas, he discovers that Fugitoid’s ship is trapped both inside and outside the hypercube. That’s because it’s a fifth-dimensional prison, where Wyrm and two others of his kind, cosmic bringers of chaos, were imprisoned long ago. If Wyrm grants three wishes, he’s going to be free forever.

The Turtles try fighting their way out of this predicament, but Wyrm simply commits some humorous acts of cartoon violence on them, and it’s clear that’s not going to work. During the melee, Raph wishes he had an anti-Wyrm laser cannon. It appears to work, but the cannon doesn’t fire due to the rule about no wishes that can hurt Wyrm. Still, the incredibly powerful being is now free, and he begins destroying planets and stars just for laughs.

April appeals to Casey to use his new smarts to help, but he says the only smart move is to join Wyrm, and he uses his new partner’s reality-warping powers to torment the Turtles in a bizarre hockey game and back on the streets of NYC. To truly finish them off, Casey asks Wyrm for a bonus wish, and the space genie agrees.

The Turtles cower as Casey wishes … that he never found the hypercube! Wyrm has no choice but to grant that wish, meaning time rewinds and the group is back aboard the ship that made the distress call. Casey is about to wish for something non-boring to happen again, but April stops him, saying she has a feeling that it would turn out badly. Psychic powers, FTW.

Finding nothing alive, the group departs the derelict, though Leo has a feeling of deja vu and thinks he heard a voice. The final scene shows the hypercube aboard the abandoned ship, with Wyrm yelling for someone to come back and make a wish.

Favorite Moment: Since I already mentioned Chris Bradford’s mock show, which I hope becomes an ongoing thing in Season 4, I’ll have to go with the fight scene with Wyrm aboard Fugitoid’s ship. Think of classic Roadrunner-Wiley Coyote and other exaggerated cartoon battles and you’ve got the idea. Creative and funny.

Next: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 402 Recap: The Moons of Thalos 3

Final Thought: Kind of a detour from the main storyline, but this series has always had some of those. It’s tough not to think of a sinister version of Robin Williams’ genie from Aladdin or Superman’s fith-dimensional pest Mister Mxyzptlk in the portrayal of Wyrm. If you like those ideas, you’ll enjoy this episode, but if not, you’ll be looking forward to getting the Triceraton hunt back on track.