“"The Curse of Savanti Romero"” | |||||||
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012 TV series) episode | |||||||
Season Code: | 506 | ||||||
Episode: | 118 | ||||||
Original airdate | September 27, 2017 | ||||||
Written by | Peter DiCicco | ||||||
Supervising Producer | Patrick Krebs | ||||||
Producers: | Brandon Auman | ||||||
Directed by | Rie Koga | ||||||
Voice Direction | Andrea Romano | ||||||
Supervising Director | Ben Jones & Ciro Nieli | ||||||
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"The Curse of Savanti Romero" is the fourteenth episode of the fifth and final season of the 2012 TV series, and is the one-hundred and eighteenth episode overall in the series.
Production-wise, it is the sixth episode of Season 5, as well as the one-hundred and tenth episode overall. It first aired on September 27th, 2017 on Nicktoons.
Synopsis[]
The Turtles' plans to enjoy Halloween are put on hold when strange monsters threaten to transform New York City.
Characters[]
Major Characters[]
- Donatello (Rob Paulsen)
- Leonardo (Seth Green)
- Michelangelo (Greg Cipes)
- Pharaoh (Grant Moninger) (debut)
- Raphael (Sean Astin)
- Renet (Ashley Johnson)
- Savanti Romero (Graham McTavish)
Minor Characters[]
- April O'Neil (Mae Whitman)
- Cat Owner
- Casey Jones (Josh Peck)
- Count Vlad Dracula (cameo) (debut)
- Frankenstein's Monster (debut)
- Little Girl
- Mummies (debut)
- Space Heroes: The Next Generation
- Captain Ryan (Brian Bloom)
- Crankshaw Jr. (Scott Menville)
- Mr. Gigabyte (Scott Menville)
- Werewolves (debut)
Plot[]
It's Halloween, and the streets are teeming with disguised, candy-seeking children. Also, April and Casey walk disguised through the city to meet up with the Turtles and to spend the evening together with them. But suddenly large, aggressive wolves emerge in the streets, chasing the people; and then the two meet a man, whose canines have grown unnaturally pointedly grown. And before they can overcome their surprise, a little girl suddenly falls over Casey and sinks her teeth into his neck!
Meanwhile, The Turtles are preparing themselves for their Halloween excursion in their home when they receive an urgent emergency call from April, who tells them that Casey had become a vampire and is now after her blood. They come to help April, before Casey catches her, and take their friend, who has become a monster, in custody with a piece of garlic pizza; while April tells them that the city is just being overrun by horror monsters another vampire emerges and bites her in the throat. Surrounded by a horde of blood suckers and wolves, followed by none other than Frankenstein's monster, the Turtles instantly retreat, but April too quickly falls victim to the curse of vampirism in her veins and turns against the Turtles. But just as everything seems lost, suddenly a bright portal opens in the air, and their extra-dimensional friend Renet enters. When she realizes the danger, she levitates the Turtles out of reach of the monster horde and places them on a nearby roof.
After this short-lived adventure Renet, finally comes up with some important explanations. Behind this sudden monster plague is none other than their common old enemy Savanti Romero; he had managed to surprise Renet when, on behalf of Lord Simultaneous, he was to look after him during the Cretaceous period, after which he was banished after his last defeat, and to remove her emergency time travel device with whom he could return to the future. On the way, he had also somehow visited some monsters and recruited them for his revenge plot to conquer the Earth with their help; to reverse this misdeed, Renet has taken the plan to return to the past and prevent Savanti's encounter with the monsters. Just at this moment, however, Savanti personally arrives on the spot and goes over attack the Turtles. With scarce distress, Renet can open a time portal and get herself and the Turtles to safety by the stream of time before Savanti.
At the end of their fall, the quintet finds itself in ancient Egypt, at the place and time where Savanti has hired the first of his monstrous allies: The mummy of a previous pharaoh. They enter the tomb of the ruler and find themselves in an antechamber described with the text of an ancient curse which prophesies the awakening of the dead of the tomb, should robbers disturb the peace of the tomb. As the friends enter deeper into the vault, they have to deal with a series of obstacles, in the form of deadly traps and the mummified co-buried ones, which all awaken to the undead life and want to kill them.
The friends escape with difficulty the death traps and the undead guardians, and so arrive in the main chamber, the resting place of the pharaoh. There, however, they realize that by entering the tomb they have triggered exactly what they wanted to prevent: The pharaoh also awakens as an undead man, and then also Savanti Romero emerges and can convince the mummy to join him and to take revenge on his returnees. The Turtles try to defend themselves, but the magic of the Pharaoh and his inhospitable resistance make him an almost insuperable adversary, and Renet can not help out, as the energy charge of her Time Scepter has reached a level too low to allow other actions than a another time jump.
To defeat Pharaoh, Donatello hastily translates, the sarcophagus, and based on the information gained, the turtles try to recapture the mummy. They succeed in this undertaking, The Pharaoh, however, effortlessly liberates himself from his prison, and along with him, Savanti escapes through a time portal created by his emergency device. Dejected, Renet blames herself for everything that happened, but the Turtles refuse to give up and speak to their new courage. With a part of the last reserves of the scepter, Renet opens a time door with which they follow Savanti and the mummy to the next stop in time: Medieval Europe.
Trivia[]
- Renet's narrative of Savanti Romero escape from the Cretaceous period contains some visual elements from the original Mirage Studios story "The Return of Savanti Romero".
- April's Halloween costume is Travis Bickle from the 1976 Martin Scorsese film Taxi Driver.
- The cardboard tombstone hiding place of the Turtles bear the names of directors of well known horror films: John Howard Carpenter (Halloween, 1978, and The Fog, 1980), Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead I and II, 1981 and 1987), David Cronenberg (Scanners, 1981, and The Fly, 1986) and Joe Dante (Piranha, 1978, and The Howling, 1981).
- While deciding on what to be for Halloween, Donnie refers to himself as “Smooth Donatello”, referencing Andre Meadows of the YouTube channel Black Nerd Comedy.
- The background where Donatello says “Smooth Donatello” with all the ladies, is a reference to a promotional poster/cover for the 1970 movie called The Mack.
- Renet says "Jinkies!" Reference to Velma Dinkley in Scooby-Doo.
- Casey's quote "your mind tricks don't work on me, April!" comes from the Star Wars' film Return of the Jedi.
- Mikey references the game "Trick or Treat Tussle" when he mentions that Raph once dressed as a princess for Halloween.
- Renet's exclamation "Excelsior" (literally "always higher") is known as the catchword of the State of New York, among others. It was also the catchphrase of the late Stan Lee.
- The pyramid trap with the ceiling lowering with spikes is a reference to a similar trap in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.