Dark Awakening - Evil Optimus Prime! When Mark explained his reasoning for picking this episode as a sort of distant setup for the season finale, I figured fair enough. Basically it’s just to show where Optimus Prime’s body ended up. Rodimus/Hot Rod was naturally eager to give the mantle of leadership (or in this case, literally Matrix of Leadership) back to the person who he felt it belonged to by rights, only to find soon after that it was a mistake. I sympathise entirely.
The Return Of Optimus Prime 1-2 was part of my introduction to Transformers in 2002, along with the movie. I was actually surprised at how much more I remembered about it than I thought. The “hate virus” concept is surprisingly good. The prejudices felt by the scientists at the beginning only serves to create the problem, and it makes me think of a quote by (I think) Maya Angelou - I may not have it word perfect but the gist of it is thus:
“Hate has caused many problems in this world, but as far as I know, it hasn’t solved one yet.”
By getting the Transformers to all turn on each other, they only succeed in unleashing a plague of aggression on the whole planet. Anyone touching someone infected becomes infected themselves, and the whole thing spirals out of control, like the zombie apocalypse that is typically portrayed in horror movies, only with more violence.
Because friends become enemies, it follows naturally that to save the day, enemies must, however temporarily, become friends. The assistance of the Quintesson works very well here. Prime is given new life, and has to forge a brief truce with Galvatron to get the protective alloy to immunise himself from the virus. I’m not entirely sure about the pacing of the second part, it did seem like some characters fell victim to the plague a little too soon, compared to the first part, where Rodimus managed to do everything necessary before he succumbed.
I liked the bit where Wreck-Gar started talking Star Trek. “I’m a doctor, not a forklift!” “His engines canna take the strain!” “He’s dead Jim!”
What I liked less was the Matrix being the solution. It was a little too Sword-of-Omens-y for my liking, but at least it came with a cost. By opening the Matrix to cure the plague, all its magical wisdom was emptied, thus ensuring that it couldn’t be used as a fix-all again. And I liked Prime’s line of “maybe we’re all a little bit wiser now”. It’s like “this thing just magically saved the day but it will never do so again.”
