| “The Impossible Desert” | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012 TV series) episode | |||||||
| Season Code: | 519 | ||||||
| Episode: | 116 | ||||||
| Original airdate | September 22, 2017 | ||||||
| Written by | Peter DiCicco | ||||||
| Supervising Producer | Patrick Krebs | ||||||
| Producers: | Brandon Auman | ||||||
| Directed by | Sebastian Montes | ||||||
| Voice Direction | Andrea Romano | ||||||
| Supervising Director | Ben Jones & Ciro Nieli | ||||||
| |||||||
"The Impossible Desert"[1] is the twelfth episode of the fifth and final season of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012 TV series), and is the one-hundred and sixteenth episode overall in the series.
Production-wise, it is the nineteenth episode of Season 5, as well as the one-hundred and twenty-third episode overall. It first aired on September 22nd, 2017.
Synopsis
An older and weathered Raphael battles road gangs in a postapocalyptic mutant wasteland.
Appearing in The Impossible Desert
Major Characters
- Chompy Picasso (Dee Bradley Baker)
- Donbot (Rob Paulsen)
- Honey Badger Ravagers
- Verminator Rex (Nyambi Nyambi)
- Grill Ravager (Kevin Michael Richardson)
- Leather Ravager (Kevin Michael Richardson)
- Michelangelo/Holy Chalupa (Greg Cipes)
- Mira (Jessica DiCicco)
- Raphael (Sean Astin)
- Scale Tail Clan (debut)
- Imperius Reptilicus (Keith Morris) (debut)
- Scale Tail scribe (Kevin Michael Richardson) (debut)
- Scale Tail member #1 (Dee Bradley Baker) (debut)
- Scale Tail member #2 (Dee Bradley Baker) (debut)
- Scale Tail member #3 (Brian Bloom) (debut)
- Scale Tale Clan members (Scott Menville and Kevin Michael Richardson) (debut)
Minor Characters
- Ice Cream Kitty
- Space Heroes: The Next Generation
- Captain Ryan (Brian Bloom) (death)
- Crankshaw Jr. (Scott Menville) (death)
- Dr. Mindstrong (Ben Cross) (death)
- Cybergs
- Cyberg Leader (Scott Menville)
Plot
In the hope that the hermit "Holy Chalupa" could actually be their long lost brother Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello and Mira continue their journey towards the impossible desert. Mira is mainly interested in finding the legendary Oasis, to which she can lead the map, which is tattooed on her arm; and only the Holy Chalupa is able to identify the drawing.
However, in order to find there way, the three friends must take an extremely dangerous path, because the impossible desert consists of a huge drifting sand surface, which is only interrupted by some rocky platforms and ruins of the fallen human civilization. Raphael dares to drive through, but the drift sands is far more treacherous than expected, as the rock slabs that he drives over, begin to sink in the sand due to the weight of the Shellraiser. Only by escaping to the front and to the remains of a highway can the friends just escape danger. Only a little later, however, the car is caught by an phenomenon that moves through the sand at unimaginable speed and is brought to a standstill.
Raphael, Donatello and Mira evacuate the Shellraiser and try to get to safety, but the unknown creature picks up the the pursuit and catches up with Raphael. Before it can devour the turtle, the monster is whipped back by a strange figure. This person turns out to be Michelangelo, and the monster, which had almost eaten Raphael, is none other than his old (and now very grown up) lap animal Chompy. The three Turtle brothers celebrate their reunion, and after that, Michelangelo brings them to his home-a still standing restaurant of a Mexican version of Antonio's Pizza-Rama-where there is also a reunion with ice cream kitty. There Michelangelo immediately throws a reunion party, but when the language comes to the last of their brothers, Leonardo, he can only tell Raphael and Donatello that Leonardo was in the midst of the epicenter of the mutagenic explosion and must therefore have perished with it. Then Mira shows him the map on her arm, and Michelangelo immediately recognizes it as a map to the Oasis, which he himself made, but subsequently lost in a tattoo shop.
However, Verminator Rex has not remained idle; to get Mira and the map into his hands, he has entered into an alliance with the leader of the Scale Tail Clan , Imperius Reptilicus. With the reptilian mutants as reinforcements, he picks up again the trail of his fugitive enemies and pursues them to the restaurant, in which he breaks with his allies and demands Mira's surrender. There is a fight in the restaurant, and the four friends defend themselves to the best of their ability; but in the end they can not prevent Mira from being caught and carried away by the ravagers. Raphael snatches a motorbike from a straggler and pursues the escaping looters. Verminator Rex sends some of the Scale Tails against him, but Raphael hijacks their cars. One of the Scale Tails then fires a rocket at him; Raphael dodges the projectile, but the rocket hits the restaurant and blows the building to pieces. Full of rage about the recent loss of his family, Raphael now goes into full attack mode, but his mobile base is destroyed by Reptilicus.
The Ravager retreat to the fortress of the Scale Tails, where Mira is thrown into a cell; but the Ravagers cannot decipher the map, and Mira refuses to cooperate with them. Later in the night Raphael, who has survived his accident, sneaks into the complex and takes Mira out of her cell. Unfortunately, however, one of the guards he has done on the way regains consciousness and triggers the general alarm; the two are quickly overwhelmed by the growing predominance of their enemies and are brought to a battle arena in the fortress, where as punishment for his invasion, Raphael must serve as an involuntary participant in a cruel gladiatorial game...
Trivia
- The episode, along with "The Wasteland Warrior" and "Carmageddon!", takes place 50 years into the future, in a possible/alternative timeline.
- The three episodes of the Mutant Apocalypse plot are in the production line-up of the series the finale, but their broadcast dates have been moved to the middle of the fifth season in favor of "Wanted: Bebop & Rocksteady", "The Foot Walks Again!" And "The Big Blowout".
- The first airing of the episode trilogy took place instead of via Nickelodeon on its sister channel Nicktoons.
- This is the second episode of the series without all four turtles, in which Leo is absent.