Perfect Storm

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"Perfect Storm"
Season	2
No. in season	17
Production company	Allspark Animation
Airdate	September 17, 2019 (Australia/NZ) December 20, 2019 (CN app/website) December 28, 2019 (USA)
Writer	Zac Atkinson
Director	Jean Texier
Animation studio	Boulder Media Studio
Watch this episode on YouTube

While looking for adventure, Grimlock and Arcee must protect the Ark from a series of catastrophes.

Synopsis

The Ark quietly and peacefully continues on its journey to Cybertron. So quietly and peacefully, in fact, that many of the Autobots are being driven mad with boredom. So bored and desperate are they that when Optimus Prime demands a status report from Teletraan-X, they eagerly turn to their commander hoping for action. When Teletraan-X reports nothing new and Optimus relaxes, Grimlock and Arcee decide to do something about it. Taking a shuttle, the duo fly off into a nearby nebula.

They return shortly, the nebula having done nothing to stave off their boredom. Returning to a now-dark bridge, they quickly realise something is amiss when the entire ship seems without power and all their fellow Autobots are frozen in standby mode. As they scan their comrades and hypothesize about what happened (Grimlock bets on space pirates), they realise that the Ark was hit by a high speed electromagnetic storm with the nebula having shielded them from its effects.

Grimlock is then distracted by something approaching the ship, annoying Arcee when he seemingly ignores her. She quickly realises what has caught the Dinobot's attention: a flock of Air Hammers, soaring through space. They gush over the magnificent, once-in-a-millennia sight until they both come to the horrified realisation that with the Ark devoid of power there are no shields, and without the shields the Air Hammers will tear the ship to shreds. With no shields and no propulsion, they hit on an idea based on a previous adventure when they were menaced by Bantors.

Quickly painting their shuttle with a pattern resembling an Air Hammer, Grimlock remotely pilots the shuttle while Arcee broadcasts the call of an Air Hammer, leading the flock to follow the shuttle and harmlessly pass over the Ark. The pair congratulate each other until Grimlock mentions that Air Hammers are usually seen before a comet storm. Once again, horrified realisation dawns on both bots as the first comet slams into the ship.

After a quick discussion over possible courses of action, they are reminded of the collapse of an ice moon and how they escaped: wielding massive repeating blasters they simply fire at the comets in order to shatter as many as they can. Successfully weathering the storm, the pair sit down on the Ark's hull to catch their breath. Grimlock observes the comet storm seemed to come out of nowhere, which causes Arcee to comment that sometimes comet storms are caused by the energy wave from a supernova. At that moment, they both come to another horrified realisation and see the supernova directly ahead.

Out of options, they come to the conclusion that they need the AllSpark to repower the Ark and its life-saving shields. However, only Cheetor has been able to demonstrate any sort of control over the AllSpark and he remains as unresponsive as the others. In desperation, Arcee orders Grimlock to simply grab the guardian and carry him to the AllSpark's chamber, a desperate plan in mind.

Said plan involves tapping Cheetor against the AllSpark, as in previous occasions his touch was seemingly all that was needed to bring the AllSpark to life. Tossing Cheetor aside in frustration, they quickly brainstorm ideas. After ideas are offered and then shot down, Arcee is struck by inspiration and leads Grimlock down to the shield generators. Reasoning that the shields only need to last for a single astrocycle until the supernova passes, Arcee decides to fuel the shields using her own spark. Grimlock protests, arguing she won't survive, but she retorts that if she doesn't, no one will survive. Grimlock agrees with her assessment and pulls the generator cable away from her, intending to use his Spark instead.

The two get into a brief tug-of-war Grimlock handily wins, but Arcee, unwilling to let her friend sacrifice himself, tackles him. The two engage in a fist fight, which then escalates into a gunfight and finally a running battle throughout the ship. The battle is interrupted when they overhear something tapping on a nearby window: Teletraan-X.

Back on the bridge, Teletraan-X explains how he was ejected from the ship by the electromagnetic storm, and then had to fight his way through a flock of Air Hammers and then a comet storm, even coming under fire at one point from some unknown assailant. With the supernova fast approaching he states that they need to restore power to the shields. Even as Arcee and Grimlock protest that that was exactly what they were trying to do, Teletraan-X flies over to Optimus' command chair and presses a button on the right armrest, rebooting the Ark and restoring power. The task done, the Ark's shields easily withstand the supernova.

Everything is back to normal, and Arcee and Grimlock share a laugh at how the others have no idea of the adventure they just had. Unnoticed, Bumblebee sighs out of boredom, and Hot Rod suggests they swipe a shuttle and have a little adventure...

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

Notes

Continuity notes

• Arcee's knowledge of the Air Hammer call should be no surprise as "The Visitor" established her as a studier of alien animals.
• The AllSpark is still held in the power distribution apparatus that Wheeljack cobbled together in "Party Down."
• This is the third episode to feature the running gag of Rack'n'Ruin's boxes being knocked down after "The Visitor" and "Spotted".

Transformers references

• Air Hammer makes its first appearance on a TV series following its debut in the Beast Wars toyline. There, however, it was the name of an individual rather than a whole species.
• Grimlock references an encounter with stampeding Bantors, homaging the Beast Wars character of the same name.
• The Autobots once fired at meteors atop the hull of the Ark in some obscure, unimportant comic issue.

Real-world references

Other trivia

• Grimlock mentions that it's been "forty cycles" since anything interesting happened. While "cycles" as a unit of time is nothing new to the franchise, this show has seemed to imply that cycles are the Cybertronian equivalent of years, which in turn implies that decades have passed since the Autobots left Earth. Intentional or not, it would be a realistic timeframe for slower-than-lightspeed travel across the galaxy.

Animation and technical errors

• Once again, sound does not travel in space.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "La tempête parfaite" ("The perfect storm")
• Original airdate: October 26, 2019

German

• Title: "Langeweile und Abenteuer"
• Original airdate: December 28, 2019

Japanese

• Title: "Nemureru Ark o Mamore!" (眠れるアークを守れ！, "Protect the Sleeping Ark!")
• Original airdate: January 11, 2020

Portuguese

• Title: "Tempestade Perfeita" ("Perfect Storm")
• Original airdate: January 7, 2020

Home video releases

• TBA