Within the Woods

"Within The Woods" is the 53rd episode of the 2012 Series.

Synopsis
Narrowly escaping from the Shredder and the Kraang, the turtles, April, and Casey take shelter at April's family farmhouse upstate to recover and figure out how to stop the Kraang. The turtles deal with not having Splinter around and the possibility of Leo not making a full recovery, and a mysterious creature stalks the group.

Major Characters

 * April O'Neil (Mae Whitman)
 * Creep
 * Casey Jones (Josh Peck)
 * Donatello (Rob Paulsen)
 * Leonardo (Seth Green)
 * Michelangelo (Greg Cipes)
 * Raphael (Sean Astin)

Minor Characters

 * Crognard The Barbarian
 * Announcer (Nolan North)
 * Crognard (Brian Bloom)
 * Graah (Nolan North)
 * Slug People
 * Slug Person (Nolan North)
 * Spooch (Scott Menville)
 * Wizardess (Mae Whitman)
 * Flashback Cameos
 * Foot-Bots
 * Kraang
 * Kraang Prime
 * Shredder
 * Splinter

Plot
The episode opens with April recounting what happened at the end of season 2, with how they lost to the Kraang, they lost Master Splinter, and Leo wound up badly injured. Now they are forced to leave the city and take refuge at April's old family home in the country at a farmhouse. When they arrive, they take an unconscious Leo, divest him of his gear and mask, and place him in the bathtub filled with water for him to stay hydrated and recover. Raph watches over him constantly, Mikey goofs around and does chores around the house, Donnie sets up a lab in the old barn and works on making a medicine to help Leo get better, Casey gets to work repairing an old truck, and April spends most of her time training with the turtles and trying to keep everyone together, though she misses New York, her dad, and Master Splinter.

During one of their daily training sessions outside, the turtles admit that they're frustrated with the fact that they're meant for the sewers and not for a farmhouse and country life, not to mention that Leo may never wake up and that Master Splinter is gone. While Raph keeps vigil over Leo again, the rest of the gang chill downstairs and watch Mikey's new favorite show: Crognard the Barbarian, which features the protagonists battling creepy alien slugs. While they're watching TV, Raph suddenly calls out for them to come upstairs, where they find Leo conscious again. When they get Leo back downstairs, Donnie examines him as the others fill Leo in on what's happened since New York. Donnie reveals that the reason Leo's voice sounds different is because he has sustained damage to his throat and that he has overall received many injuries. Donnie then gives Leo some of the medicine he's created using mutagen, which Leo discovers tastes really bad. Raph reassures Leo that he'll be back on his feet in no time with training.

The next day, Raph and Leo go out together to work up Leo's weakened muscles. Even walking with a crutch proves difficult for Leo and he says that he thinks he'll never be the same again. Raph won't hear of it and encourages him to cross a creek over the rocks. Leo struggles back to his feet and takes another swig of Donnie's mutagen medicine from a glass flask, but within moments he becomes dizzy and nauseous, and he drops the flask onto the ground and vomits onto the dirt. Raph comes to find out what's wrong, and Leo says that the mutagen medicine might be the cause and that he doesn't feel well. Raph helps him back to the farm house to rest, but the mutagen from Leo's vomit trickles down into the ground where a pair of glowing green eyes appears.

Later that evening while Leo recovers at the farm house, he brings up Master Splinter and everyone debates as to whether or not he's actually gone or not. While Mikey prepares to watch TV, the power suddenly goes out. Donnie goes to fix what he supposes is a blown fuse, but the fireplace dies out too as does a flashlight. Raph goes out into the forest to chop up some more wood for the fireplace, but while he's out he hears something creeping about the trees. He tries to tell himself that he's just working himself up, but suddenly a huge, swampy, tree-like creature with glowing green eyes comes up behind him and engulfs him with its tendrils.

The others begin calling out for Raph who hasn't returned. Leo delegates that they should split up, with Mikey and Donnie going in one direction, and April and Casey in another, much to Donnie's disappointment. Leo opts to wait at the farm house since he doesn't think he'll be of any use out there. While they're out on their search, April gets the sense that they're being watched. Donnie and Mikey come across an old shack where they discover the glass flask of mutagen medicine surrounded by candles...and a large leafy, plant-like creature with a red bandana who they figure out is Raph. Donnie suspects that he's been infected by something. Suddenly Mikey gets caught by a vine-like trap as does Donnie. April hears Donnie's screams but suddenly finds that Casey has disappeared. She sees the swampy creature, carrying a pitchfork, attacking Casey and she attacks it. It then attacks her and Casey fights it too. The creature gives Casey a solid blow, smacking his mask off. It turns on April and chases her through the forest.

Meanwhile, Leo is struggling to walk without his crutch, using his swords to aid him in some way. He hears April and attempts to run toward her when a vine comes out and grabs her by the heel, dragging her off into the dark. Leo stumbles and falls, realizing that he must go into the woods and rescue them himself.

Back in the shack, where everyone is tied up, the creature, who Mikey has named "the Creep" goes to Raph and begins absorbing all of the mutagen from his body, and it drops his bandana, much to the turtles' horror. The Creep then goes for Mikey, who's shouting angrily at it for turning Raph into a plant, but is distracted when it hears cries for help outside. Donnie recognizes the cries as Leo's. The Creep searching around outside finding nothing until a ninja star is thrown at the back of its head. Leo demands that it give back his family and nervously takes his swords out. He attempts to battle the Creep with what little energy he has, only scoring a slice at it, but it grabs him and throws him a ways from his sword. He struggles to crawl slowly toward his sword as the Creep approaches with his other sword, but Leo manages to stab it just in time and hurries toward the shack where he frees everyone with excruciating effort. The Creep returns and a short battle ensues. It is then that Leo realizes that the Creep is after the flask of mutagen medicine. He tosses it to his brothers who try to keep it away from the Creep but it manages to get a hold of it, but before it can do anything, with a little help from Donnie, Leo comes down with a pitchfork and stabs the Creep into a tree, where April and Casey tie it up with chains. Before they can take him back to the lab, Leo asks Donnie if he'll be able to save Raph, to which Donnie is honestly not sure.

Later in Donnie's lab, Raph wakes up and finds out what happened, and Donnie tells him that he returned all the mutagen back into his body without any infection. Raph finds out that the Creep has been turned into goop, that Donnie worked all night to save him, and that Leo never left his side. Leo tells Raph that he can heal up and that they have New York to save.

But even after all that, the jar containing the glowing goop of the Creep cracks...

Quotes
"Leonardo: Give me back my family, freak!"

"Michelangelo: Oh yeah! Gotta be quick if you wanna be hanging with the ninjas dog!"

"Michelangelo: Raph! Raph! I dunno D. Maybe he got eaten by a giant squirrel. Donatello: I do not think that. No, I'm just freakin because Casey and April went off on their own. Alone. Michelangelo: Why? Because they forgot to bring a compass? Donatello: No genius. What happens when two teenagers who like each other go out into the woods alone? Michelangelo: AHHH! They get eaten by squirrels. Donatello: You know what? Forget I said anything."

Trivia

 * An 8 minute preview of the episode was shown on September 27, 2014 at participating Wal-Mart stores.
 * The beginning of the episode is based on Mirage's as well as in the 1990 film as:
 * April opens the episode by drawing the turtles, writing about how they arrived to North Hampton and describing the situation.
 * Leo is put in ice inside the tub as Raph watches him.
 * Donatello and Jones appear working inside the barn, but this time only Casey is working on the old truck as Donnie is doing some experiments.
 * The next scene shows the turtles training.
 * The Creep is a reference to Jason Voorhess, from Friday the 13th.
 * The episode's title is the same as a 1978 horror film by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell, which is considered the precursor to The Evil Dead.
 * 's plot in this episode is similar to the Mirage volume 1 story arc, and , where  had some of his  sucked out of him by a river leech (later named Bloodsucker), which caused the leech to mutate and Raph's mutation to become undone. Bloodsucker succeeded in finding Raph and sucking out the rest of his mutagen, changing Raph into an ordinary turtle and Bloodsucker into a sentient creature. Eventually, the creature's mutagen is transferred back into Raph, who changes back to normal. The primary differences between that story and this episode are:
 * The creature, Creep, is river scum, not a leech like Bloodsucker. Creep was initially mutated by the mutagen-based medicine gave to  to help him heal. The medicine nauseated Leo and he vomited it onto the river bank and dropped the rest of the bottle. Bloodsucker's initial mutation was caused by drinking from Raph directly.
 * When Raph had his mutagen sucked out of him, he turned into a plant, not an ordinary turtle.
 * Donnie transferred the mutagen from the captive Creep back into plant-Raph to turn him back into normal. In the Mirage story, unmutated turtle Raph sucked the mutagen out of Bloodsucker directly to change both of them back to normal.
 * Leonardo's new voice - due to him having a new voice actor - is explained in-show as being the result of damage to his larynx during the final battle against the Foot forces in The Invasion.
 * When Leo says he'll never be the same again, Raph tells him "Don't talk like that, that's not the Leo I know." as a joke to the voice cast changes.

Gallery
Within the Woods/Gallery