Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-11469381-20150831022901/@comment-995426-20150920181407

Oh yeah, I keep forgetting to rewatch that stoner scene and maybe make GIFs of it. Did you notice how outrageously dilated Mikey's pupils were?

Anyway, some of you may or may not realize this, but TMNT was originally not known for its perfectly happy endings. Even the best endings were bittersweet with haunted memories. As Kirby King put it best:

Granted, this episode was dark, but it could have been even darker. I mean, this ending was so over-the-top that it managed to be ''less' disturbing, because you know they can't let it stand without finding some plot device to undo it. A genre-savvy viewer can see the giant "reset" button coming a mile away.

The real dark storylines are those that do permanent damage to characters' psyches with lots of consequences to be struggled with. And I'm not just talking about injuries like Leo's long physical therapy in North Hampton. I mean really creepy stuff. In Mirage TMNT's version of City at War, Splinter was stranded and starving to death, and had to eat rats to survive, and the experience left him traumatized. Kevin Eastman's Bodycount (starring Raphael and Casey) is one of the most ultra-violent things I've ever seen. And then there's the high-octane nightmare fuel in Mutant Ninja Turtles Gaiden.

Huh, just realized. In that The Creation of Adam easter egg, Splinter's lifeless corpse is floating in the background, which his murderer is floating even further in the background. All characters shown in that scene are either dead or dying. If you think about it, that's actually pretty startling gallows humor for a TV-Y7 show.