Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28492939-20170222023345/@comment-33336503-20171109164209

This is a very misleading title as Requiem was certainly not a bad episode at all. It may not be in my top 10 mind you but it’s certainly a contender for BOTR. It’s certainly better than Owari I can tell you that.

This is another episode that plays out like a Shakespearean tragedy (Annihilation Earth and Vengeance is Mine most prominently come to mind) although it’s admittedly not one of the strongest. It starts out with the most interesting takeaway from the story, that being Shredder taking the stabilizing mutagen shot. It plays out as both a shock and a relief. By taking this shot, Shredder is able to let go of his last bit of humanity in the hopes of crushing those, including Karai, who stand against him. It’s none more evident when he insults Tang Shen in front of Karai. Obviously we know that under normal circumstances, Saki would never EVER speak ill of Shen-she’s the reason he started this feud with Yoshi in the first place. Now it’s a relief to see him lose that last bit of humanity and embrace what he is (and probably has been from the start): a monster. Now to lose oneself would be a tragedy, but to lose oneself when one is Oroku Saki is an absurdity, largely due to the fact that there wasn’t much there to lose in the first place. The only thing we’re robbed of is seeing Saki’s struggle in deciding to take the shot and thus lose that last thread of humanity and the love he once had for the only person(s) he cared for.

Leo also has his own standout here-for better and worse. It’s been obvious for a long time he likes Karai, so much so that the show practically tries to sell them as a pairing. Yet they’ve done so much to keep them apart. Whether it’d be revelations, a mutation, or a worm in the head, Leo has had ‘knight in shining armor’ moments thrust in his face only to have the creators pull them away. As much as they tried to sell ‘Leorai’ as it’s come to be known, Leo needed one of these moments, and aside from merely the beginning of ‘Vengeance is Mine’, it was always stripped away. And all that, it must be admitted, was a mistake. Here, he finally gets some small compensation when he saves Karai with CPR-it’s not helping her adapt to her mutation or expelling a brain worm from her head, but it’s still compensation. But then the episode bungles that by focusing on Shinigami’s gratitude rather than Splinter’s! It’s not Shini’s gratitude that Leo’s been seeking the last two seasons worth of episodes for, nor is she the one he’s been suffering with during that span.

One last mistake before everything comes full circle is the unceremonious death of Bradford which created quite a problem going forward since Tiger Claw should’ve never been the Crimson Leader-Bradford really would’ve been a more fitting and logical choice. Now for a tragedy to work, it has to be heartfelt, it has to get as many parties involved, and there has to be a fatal flaw that leads to it. The Mutanimals, the current Foot, and the human allies got involved so that’s a check. There’s the mistake of getting split up so that’s a check. They even throw in a little comedy relief at the beginning of the episode, just like Shakespeare would provide in his tragedies. These sort of things also require that they end where they start, so of course it was fitting for the Fred Wolf hotel to provide the stories final stage. The heartfelt moments of Splinters death and what followed were aided immensely by Alan Wan’s usually effective touch as a director and a big step up in the music department from Sebastian Evans.

Terrible? I think not.