The Case of the Killer Pizzas

As usual, Shredder and Baxter Stockman are doing a pretty lousy job of eliminating our titular terrapins, and Krang is giving them a good ol' tongue lashing about it. So, to set up the plot of today's episode, Krang is delivering him a number of "eggs" of Dimension X wildlife, which Baxter is overjoyed to receive; Rocksteady comments further on how these eggs happen to look exactly like meatballs, but anyone who thinks so will be proven wrong when they hatch.

Would you be at all surprised this episode was written by the very same person who gave us the masterpieces that were City of Steel and Aerial Assault?

Douglas Booth, we commend you.

After getting the eggs and the respective instruction manual, the two villains proceed to walk about in broad daylight discussing how on earth they can ensure the Turtles will fall into harms way of what unearthly horrors the eggs will unleash - Shredder claims it is not a case of finding the Turtles themselves, but making the Turtles come to them!

And just in case that made them wonder how they'd do that, there's a leaflet boy advertising a pizza bakeoff today, with free samples and neat-o prizes.
 

After nabbing the samples and scaring the dickens out of the brochure boy, Baxter actually has the nerve to ask "brochures? But why?" Even though the plan is very bloody obvious. While Shredder washes them down into the sewer with a convenient fire hydrant, Donatello sets up a new training machine - a dummy with boxing gloves on top of a washing machine, set to Rinse. And despite Michelangelo claiming the day he can't beat up a washing machine is the day he hangs up his nunchuks, he doesn't fare too well against it.

Raphael saves the day by severing the power cord, with master Splinter complimenting his attack on the line of supply rather than just charging in headfirst. He just says household appliances are an easy target.

Bang on time, the hydrant's water rages through the den, forcing them onto the pipes above... and then it just exits out the other grating, no problem at all. Five second danger. And with it come the brochures, which Michelangelo totally goes kookoo over. However, Splinter looks over it himself and notices that the leaflets contain the distinctive slash mark of Shredder's claws, so they all become very aware that it's a trap. Still, a fight with bucket head should work up an appetite, so they head to it anyway.
 

April O'Neill and her chum Irma are also at the pizza bakeoff, the former conveniently noting that the Turtles would love this, which only prompts Irma to suggest April to start thinking about real life again some time, though considering Irma's last date was with some crazy accordion player with more moustache than brain, April isn't exactly in a hurry. And conveniently enough, said accordion player is at the bakeoff! This just leads into April getting an opportunity to scare him off by finding the Turtles in an alleyway and telling the poor fellow that they're Irma's relatives, prompting the man to flee in terror. To repay them for this favour, April sets off to nab them some pizzas and enter their names in the prize contest.

The prize pizzas are put on display for people to ogle over, and convenient enough, for short, slightly loopy scientists to plant alien life form eggs disguised as meatballs on them. Meatballs that glow. Baxter is subsequently called up to help with the announcing of the winners, which prompts the Turtles to realise Shredder is close by, and just as they think that, the steel-faced villain makes a getaway! As they give chase, a nearby pizza shop receives an order for two deluxe pizzas, but since they haven't any of those left, the delivery boy just snags two of the prize pizzas instead.

Shredder ducks into a pizza bakery, which obviously distracts Michelangelo for a bit before they corner their enemy, who tries to knock a bunch of pots and pans on top of them, but retreating their heads into their shells saves them a series of damaged noggins. Donatello flings a wad of dough at him (pizza dough, not moolah, bling bling, kerching, $$$ or such like), which just gets cut into a net and tossed back at them.

However, they proceed to make a pizza out of Shredder, in the sense that they just throw lots and lots of pizzas and their ingredients at him. Despite getting thrown out a doorway because of this barrage, his dislike of anchovies seems to be what angers him most.

Meanwhile, two new deluxe pizzas are brought in to replace the ones taken while Baxter announces the winners: Leonardo, Donatello, and Michelangelo! (poor Raphael) Of course, that's just blatant lies, but they don't know and don't mind, and hand the prize pizza to April as repayment for entering them in the contest. Even though they actually got none of the prize pizzas. Still, it's the thought that counts!

April takes it over to Irma's apartment for a meal together, but the lights go out temporarily while it microwaves, though they blame that on the building just being old and crappy. In actuality, it's because the meatball placed on it hatching and the monster inside is growing! And upon taking it out, they see that the monster has eaten the whole pizza and is starving for more! Conveniently, Irma faints and thus gives April an opportunity to call the Turtles.
 

Your average hero would scoff at the idea of a monster hatching from a meatball, claiming the caller is just citing a horror movie title, but the Turtles arrive and proceed to bumble very badly. Like, worse than the washing machine dummy. They eventually manage to roll it up in the carpet, where they realise that since April's was the only original prize pizza, that's likely why they didn't get a monster in their order.
 

Of course, during this chat the monster melts its way through the wall and makes a supposed getaway, and this little intermission reminds them that since their pizzas were replacements, the original prize pizzas were used for an order and are likely to also contain monsters, being delivered to some unsuspecting fools! Fun times. As soon as they leave, Irma finally wakes up, but has no chance to ask what happened as April dashes out to get a news report on this monster business.

Our heroes find the delivery boy via the Turtle Blimp, who delivers them at an apartment penthouse to a couple of bratty kids who are probably deliberately making sure the villains' plan goes successfully, as their first words after celebrating their pizza receiving are "they're probably cold, let's heat them in the microwave!" Oh, kids. You silly, silly kids.

Conveniently, there's an open window for Donatello and Michelangelo to jump through, who try and persuade the kids to not warm the pizzas, but instead of reacting in sheer horror that DUDE GIANT TURTLES IN MY HOME, they see turtles as creatures lesser than babysitters, so why should they listen to their guidance? Not to mention that those are their pizzas, and kids don't share.

Stupid, stupid kids.

While April's film crew arrive and head up the elevator to attempt and film the action, all four Turtles attack the creatures and mess it up big time, allowing them to dash up a staircase, down the outside of the building and onto the streets, with the film crew and Turtles following after, though the film crew trip up and the monsters escape into the sewers.

Irma happens to be watching this botched report in her apartment, when the monster returns to harass her once more, though she has the guts to at least give chase, following it down to the laundry room and through the washing machine, which now leads to the sewer system thanks to the wall being melted through. The monster leaps down into the water...

And begins to grow even larger!

Similarly, the Turtles and the film crew arrive in the sewers too, the former by the sewer grating and the latter through Irma's washer, coming to the same conclusion of the beasties hopping into the drink. Irma reunites with April and the group venture further to look for the critter, which unbeknownst to them is right on their tail!

While the Turtles are snooping about, they happen across Baxter and Shredder, who are finally making use of their electronic gizmo to summon their meatball-grown beasties, but the Turtles aim to put a stop to that scheme. Raphael, ever the confident one, mocks the idea of those tiny little powder puffs being of any threat at all; which, of course, is said just as two of them are looming over his shoulder and interested in the idea of munching his face off.

He avoids mild death, as is expected, and as the Turtles begin fighting, Baxter contacts Krang to get a peep at this monster action, who's all too chuffed to see them at their full size. Donatello and Michelangelo use crazy acrobatics to obscure the monsters' vision and result in them punching each other, but this doesn't really do a whole lot. Meanwhile, Irma finally spies the monster behind them, which is conveniently going down a different path than them when she notices, and falls unconscious once more.

In a moment of idiocy, Baxter stands right behind the Turtles as the monsters advance upon them, giving Donatello the opportunity to knock the control out of his head and send it into the stream... which doesn't exactly solve anything, as now it just means the monsters are out of control and chasing Baxter and Shredder as well as themselves. Way to go, knuckle-head. Looking at the instructions, they do discover that a large dose of energy zapped into them will revert the beasts back into eggs again, so hey, convenient solution! The Turtles choose to not listen and think outrunning the creatures is a good idea...

But it's best suggesting that when you're definitely sure there aren't any dead ends in the area. Which is precisely what they run into. Conveniently, an imposing shadow turns out to be April, whose film crew have deserted her and taken Irma with them, but the monster she was after is still on her trail! Raphael decides to be a dick by noting that wouldn't be in this very specific situation if it weren't for Donatello thinking screwing up the creature controller was a wise idea, but Michelangelo aims to sort it out by diving into the stream to search for it.

While he busies himself with that, the three Turtles are left fending off two of the beasts, and decide that in a situation like this, it might be a wise idea to team up with Shredder and Baxter (well, Leonardo thinks it's good and Donatello and Raphael just tag along). Shredder isn't too happy about it either, especially having his ass saved by the very mutants whose asses he tries to fry in every evil scheme, but things otherwise go swimmingly until all the monsters team up on the Turtles and threaten to end their lives with a few apt swipes.

Michelangelo to the rescue! Time to lay the egg-reverting laser smackdown on those beasts and--

Oh. The batteries have gotten wet.

There's only two minutes left of the show, and Leonardo was intelligent enough to actually listen to the villains by noting there are electrical power lines nearby. In the sewer. Right. Severing the wires, the power from them dangles onto puddles on the walkway, which ever-so-nicely skips across them neatly and straight into the monsters' bodies, reverting them to eggs once again. Of course, since he learnt this by overhearing the villains, that reminds them: Where are they?

Escaping up a ladder, that's where! Shredder reminds him that they may have won this round, but they'll be back again sooner or later, so wait in fear, please.

With the day saved, Splinter hopes his ninjas have learnt their lesson, and they have: There's no such thing as a free lunch. Michelangelo proceeds to enter with a homemade pizza and special toppings: Meatballs! April fears that these'll just turn into monsters again, but that's no problem, as he's got the alien meatballs in his hand, see.

Or maybe not.

Oh, Michelangelo, you silly goose!

There's a dirty, stinking, shifting hair on the top left corner of the screen when Irma takes the pizza from the microwave.

This is totally worth noting.

Your typical trivia site would state that the meatball monsters are visually based off the Xenomorphs of the Alien franchise, but we at Random Action Hour merely hope our viewers are media-savvy enough to figure that out without needing to be told.

Neat-o prizes = more pizza.

Not a very interesting contest, is it?