I did enjoy this episode and I thought that in terms of plot that it did better than the previous episode. I enjoyed the first tribunal guy about stealth, and how he was trying to explain the the three pillars of ninjitsu disipline.
I think this episode really emphasised the terrible resentment Splinter has against the tribunal. With just cause. I liked how the writers gave Splinter Splinter's dream with him running in terror with his sons as the Shredder chases them them down and kills his sons and then the vision of Master yoshi appearing before Splinter and them dying in front of him sent a very clear message on why he feels as bitter as he doesw toward the tribunal. Because of the Tribunal and their lack of regard for him, he lost Yoshi, so of course he is bitter about it. Now because the tribunal need fighters to champion their cause, the tribunal want to send the turtles potencialy to their deaths just to save their artifact, with out a care to the turtles safety. The Tribunal are trying to take another thing from Splinter that he loves and he is peed off about it.
The tribunal are a cold ends-justify-the-means lot of gackfaces who really have little care for any one but there own gain. Yes, in this instance of the tengue Shredder being an evil menace that is a threat to the world makes their desire to get the last artifact a noble one justifying their calculating at-all-costs attitudes toward the acolytes. However if the worlds safety wheren't in danger the Tribunals calus high handed manner toward the acolytes for the protection of their artifact, they would still have little concern for their safety. And Splinter knows this, which is why he is so distraut over the turtles involvment in this whole ore deal. For the first time in the series you really see Splinter react scared with what the turtles are involved in due to how mercinary the Tribunal is. Up until this point no matter how over their heads the turtles have gotten into Splinter has always had some measure of control of the situation. I really felt Splinter's fatherly grief when he woke up from his dream and looked around at his blissfully sleeping sons and lowered his head and said a bit helplessly "oh, what have you gotten your selves into".
A good Splinter moment here.
But enough about Splinter, I also really enjoyed other things about this episode as well. I enjoyed seeing my turtles acting more like them selves again. I felt really bad for leo in this episode with all the pushing around he endured, it must have been a bit humilating for him to be the only one not to get a weapon when every one else--even slacker Mikey who was taken to task
twice in this episode, got a weapon from the fire forge. Speaking of the forge I loved seeing Raphael step up and act like his old kick shell self again. This is the good ol' Raphael that I remember
back again with his "oh, I know your not talking smack about master Splinter" self and going up to that fire and showing that cocky weapons dude what Splinter's students are all about. Man I love it when Raphael gets like that, and he has the most perfect "f*ck off, buddy" way of doing it LOL!
I also liked the bit in the beginning where Mikey is making fun of the Tribunal, LOL I don't normally find Mikey's antics laugh out loud funny, but for reason he had me giggling with his poking fun of the tribunal, as well as his out spoken "oh crap" expression when that huge stealth guy showed up behind him. Incidently I noticed that Mikey was getting picked on a bit in this episode too. Not only was he picked to do the bridge thing (even though it was
both Raph and Mikey making fun of Leo, The Ancient One seems to have taken a page from the turtles book and goes up side Mikey's head at every given chance **sigh** I think he smacked him at least four times in ten minutes, even when Mikey was trying to talk his way through the whole focusing thing and trying to seriously attempt it (and it was cool to see him succeed at it), and then agian when he asked to do a do over (with the bridge incident) when I think Mikey was actually genuanly asking to try again since he messed up. One thing that sort of suprised me though was Mikey sort of talking back to Leo when they went up against the kappa demons, when Leo said to keep their fighting in reality, and Mikey says "reality
this" and focuses his chi to zap himself over to the chest. It supriced me because I notice that Mikey less likely to talk back to Leo than even Don is when it comes to battle situations, and Mikey's remark I took as a mild form "screw you" to Leo.
