The Immobilizers

« Transformers: Cyberverse ep 63 »
"All right, everybody freeze! Literally!"
"The Immobilizers"
Season	4
No. in season	1
Production company	eOne
Airdate	November 6, 2021 (YouTube) November 7, 2021 (Canada) November 22, 2021 (Netflix)
Writer	Zac Atkinson Dan Salgarolo
Director	Ehud Landsberg
Animation studio	Boulder Media Studio
Watch this episode on YouTube

When a gang of Mercenaries time-locks all of Cybertron, Grimlock and a group of new friends must combine their efforts to save the planet.

Synopsis

In the Tomb of Nexus Prime, Arcee and Grimlock happily dart towards the exit with ancient relics in hand, pursued by the gigantic invisible bird that has made the tomb its home. Narrowly dodging booby traps and projectile eggs, the two manage to escape in their shuttle, blasting off towards Cybertron. As they fly, they review the contents of their haul, including the mysterious Enigma of Combination. Grimlock remarks offhandedly how nice the Enigma will look at the centerpiece for the party he'll be holding after the signing of the peace treaty happening that day—which the two realize in a moment of panic that they are now very late for.

Indeed, shouts of joy can be heard all across Cybertron over the treaty's impending ratification, with nearly the entire population having gathered along the border wall dividing the planet to celebrate. Parades march through the streets and vendors hock their wares as Cybertronians anticipate the reunification of their people. A delegation of Autobots and Decepticons, led by Optimus Prime and Soundwave respectively, take the stage above the wall as Optimus happily announces the end of the war and the beginning of a new era of peace for for their world. Indeed, it seems everything is going perfectly—until a stream of green energy waves descend from above. Without anyone ever even noticing, all of Cybertron and everyone on it are frozen in place as the waves cover the surface of the planet. The source of the waves is revealed to be an enormous black ship, the captain of which orders the crew to approach the surface.

Arcee and Grimlock arrive back on Cybertron, immediately noticing something is wrong. Confused as to why their friends are all unmoving, they hear the other ship land and arm themselves before splitting up to investigate. As Arcee explores, she notices a Cybertronian bird flying by and moves to follow it, radioing Grimlock to follow. The hatch of the black ship opens, and its occupants emerge: the Mercenaries Nightbird, Bug Bite, Afterburner, Doublecrosser, and their leader Soundblaster. As his companion Buzzsaw returns to his chest, Soundblaster gives the order to start ransacking the planet, only to be interrupted by fire from Arcee's gatling blaster. Arcee demands to know what they've done to her friends, only for Soundblaster to demonstrate firsthand by using his time blaster to freeze Arcee mid-fire like the others, and Bug Bite snatches her blaster for himself. As Soundblaster boards their hovercraft, the Mercenaries grab Arcee and take off towards the celebration.

Grimlock gets worried when Arcee doesn't respond to his calls, only for his fears to be confirmed when he finds her in a pile of frozen bodies. Grimlock swears vengeance, but pauses when he notices voices coming from nearby. Investigating, Grimlock comes across a group of four bots bickering over their next course of action. Assuming them to be the culprits, Grimlock orders them to restore the planet to normal. Caught by surprise, the intruders transform and attack Grimlock, but he quickly overpowers them with his dinosaur mode and a cry of "Me Grimlock!" This shocks the flying robot, who claims that they know who he is. As everyone calms down, the four confirm they too are trying to stop the Mercenaries, calling him "King Grimlock" and sharing a rallying cry that Grimlock recognizes as his own words. The four introduce themselves as Sludge, Snarl, Slug and Swoop, explaining that their people intercepted one of Grimlock's video logs from his time on prehistoric Earth and were inspired by his message, taking on forms resembling his dinosaur friends in homage to him. However, the Mercenaries similarly time-locked their planet before looting and destroying it, with the four of them as the only survivors, and they now seek vengeance for their planet and their fallen friend, Tiny Arms. Now determined, Grimlock demands they take him to the Mercenaries.

The five Dinobots find four of the Mercenaries in the process of vandalizing a wall, and Grimlock orders the others to wait while he handles things. Grimlock charges into battle and seems to be pinned down at first, prompting the others to disobey orders and charge in. Grimlock quickly manages to turn the tide of battle, but before he can finish them off, the other Dinobots make their entrance, only to get hit by Bug Bite's grenades and thrown into Grimlock. Soundblaster arrives on the scene, arming his time blaster, and Grimlock orders the group to retreat, convering their escape as they grab the frozen Arcee and take off in Grimlock's shuttle. Grimlock berates the team for not following his orders, but is interrupted as Snarl picks up the Enigma of Combination. Moving to stop him, Grimlock accidentally bumps the steering mechanism, sending the ship into a spiral. As the group collides with each other, the Enigma of Combination activates and a giant Autobot bursts forth from the spacecraft, crashing to the ground. The five Dinobots emerge from the subsequent dust cloud, realizing that for a moment, they all shared one consciousness.

The Mercenaries arrive at the treaty signing and, with the blessings of their "boss", begin to rob the crowd of their belongings and throw them in their hovercraft's trailer, messing with various bots in the process. As Nightbird claims Windblade's Stormfall Sword for herself, Soundblaster mocks the frozen delegates before his attention falls on Soundwave. Elsewhere, Grimlock posits that it was the Enigma of Combination that caused the five of them to form that enormous warrior, which Swoop confirms through a quick Witwiki search. The five take hold of the Enigma and are once again combined into the mighty Volcanicus! Unfortunately, the combiner's elation is short-lived, as they immediately trip and fall, splitting back into the Dinobots. Grimlock believes that Volcanicus's power could be enough to defeat the Mercenaries, but they will need to learn how to use their new form first, and he constructs a training course to help them practice. Things go poorly at first, with Volcanicus failing to clear any of the obstacles. Grimlock worries if they will ever be ready, but the rallying cheers of the others reinvigorates him and encourages him to try again. This time, Volcanicus easily clears the course, discovering they possess a sword as well. Grimlock is pleased with their success, but that still begs the question of how to defend against being frozen by the time blaster. Swoop claims she can build a quantum field to protect against the time blaster's rays, and the team construct the device using the wreckage from Grimlock's ship. As it proves too large for one bot to carry, Volcanicus instead wields it as a shield.

Soundblaster unfreezes Soundwave's head, leaving him conscious but immobile, and gloats to him about the Mercenaries' many successes. Soundwave is unimpressed and continues to mock his doppelgänger, but Soundblaster refuses to be denied his revenge and yanks Laserbeak from Soundwave's chest compartment, forcibly inserting the creature into his own. As they drag Soundwave away, Nightbird explains the origin of their grudge to the others: millions of years ago, Soundwave handily defeated Soundblaster in a beatboxing battle at Maccadam's, bruising his pride and causing him to abandon the Decepticons and Cybertron. As his final revenge for that night, Soundblaster traps Soundwave in an infinite resonator, which will endlessly echo and amplify every sound the Decepticon makes until the sound causes his body to fall apart.

Soundblaster's gloating is interrupted by the sudden arrival of Volcanicus. When the time blaster fails to stop the combiner, Soundblaster orders his team to fire on them from all sides. Despite some initial struggles, Volcanicus holds their own against the Mercenaries, inadvertently destroying the resonator in the process. Now freed, Soundwave attacks, only to be frozen again by Soundblaster. However, this angers Laserbeak, who escapes Soundblaster's chest with Buzzsaw in pursuit. Soundblaster tries to shoot the bird, only to hit Buzzsaw by mistake, and Laserbeak grabs the time blaster and flies off with it, only to lose hold of it in a dogfight with Afterburner. With the time blaster lost, Soundblaster orders the Mercenaries to throw everything they have at Volcanicus, but the combiner takes them all out with a missile barrage and traps them under their own hovercraft trailer.

Gotta brush my pearly whites
So they don't lose their bite-

The Dinobots split back apart and celebrate their victory, and Grimlock orders the Mercenaries to restore all of Cybertron. Soundblaster, however, tells them that the only one who can make that call is "the boss" as he and the other Mercenaries laugh. The Dinobots are confused until a massive figure emerges from the Mercenaries' ship and stomps towards them: the Mercenaries' leader, Trypticon! The titanic Transformer scolds Soundblaster and fires him and his crew for their failure, instead offering to make the Dinobots his new crew and plunder the galaxy after he destroys Cybertron. Grimlock refuses the offer and the Dinobots reform Volcanicus. Trypticon manages to destroy their shield, but the combiner redirects his flames back at him with their sword. Unfortunately, the sword isn't enough to damage him, and Trypticon manages to split them apart again with a swipe of his tail. The tail swipe topples over the trailer, freeing the Mercenaries but destroying Soundblaster's legs. Taking advantage of the opening, the Mercenaries make a full retreat.

Struggling to take down Trypticon, the Dinobots recombine and manage to climb up Trypticon's tail and atop his back. With a mighty leap, Volcanicus brings their sword down in to the nape of Trypticon's neck, piercing it and finally bringing the enormous bot down. Seeing their boss fall, the Mercenaries opt to cut their losses, boarding their ship and leaving the planet. As Volcanicus celebrates their victory, Trypticon reactivates in a burst of flame, knocking Volcanicus to the ground and forcing the Dinobots to separate and scatter. As they attempt to avoid Trypticon's barrage, Swoop spots the time blaster in one of the vendor stands. Acting quickly, Grimlock summons the others and they recombine, dodging Trypticon's fire and grabbing the blaster. As Trypticon announces the rescinding of his employment offer and prepares to step on Volcanicus, the combiner manages to fire the blaster at the last moment, immobilizing Trypticon and finally bringing an end to the battle.

With the threat neutralized, Grimlock congraulates his team on a job well done. Acknowledging how long it would take to un-immobilize everybody individually, Grimlock instead opts to unfreeze Wheeljack first, who builds a machine to amplify the time blaster's effects on a global scale. The machine is successful, restoring all of Cybertron back to normal, though the machine is destroyed in the process. Despite the confusion of suddenly seeing a giant saurian Transformer in their midst, the remainder of the ceremony goes off without a hitch. With the signing of the treaty, Optimus declares Cybertron is finally at peace, and the wall is deactivated as both Autobots and Decepticons come together in celebration. Grimlock introduces Arcee to his new friends, Laserbeak reunites with Soundwave, and the Dinobots combine once more in jubilation, much to the surprise of those around them.

Featured characters

Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"All it would take is a subatomically-controlled manipulation of the temporal field!"
"Yeah, what she said! We pound 'em in a field!"

—Swoop's plan is misunderstood by Sludge.

"We stand together in the face of catastrophe with courage and good cheer!"

—The rallying cry of the Dinobots

"Oh yeah! Guess it's right in the name!"
"But we didn't enigma!"

—Snarl and Sludge on the Enigma of Combination's powers.

"Feeling better now?"
"Not yet, but I'm gonna feel real good when I get my revenge".
"Revenge? For what?"
"You know! You remember!"
"I remember you were annoying, inferior, and easily forgotten."

—Soundwave reminds Soundblaster that he's the master of sick burns.

"This is your boss?!"
"Boss isn't really an accurate description. I think of myself more as a firm yet fair employer, who expects nothing less than dedicated employees who will always do their best."

—Grimlock gets Trypticon's sales pitch.

"Soundblaster, as team leader, you bear the primary responsibility for this failure. YOU ARE FIRED! ...And the rest of you are also fired. Or will be when I burn this planet down."

—Trypticon dismisses the Mercenaries.

Notes

Continuity notes

• This episode at last sees an end to both the Great War and the deactivation of the wall dividing Cybertron into Autobot and Decepticon halves, as first seen in "Enemy Line".
• The last time the two sides attempted to negotiate a peace treaty was in "Parley".
• The Singlehorn from "Thunderhowl" puts in an appearance, transforming and rocketing away just as it did in its debut episode.
• The Dinobots intercepted and were inspired by the last of Grimlock's video logs from prehistoric Earth, originally seen way back in "King of the Dinosaurs".
• Perceptor seems to have partially fixed his optics after he blew them out when he and Chromia were escaping the Decepticons in "Battle For Cybertron I". While the lenses themselves are repaired, the optics are not illuminated, suggesting he has still not regained his sight.
• The flashback to Soundblaster and Soundwave's battle seems to take place sometime around the second flashback in "Maccadam's", as all of the patrons are Decepticons. The two-headed Seeker present also suggests it is after the third flashback in "Megatron Is My Hero", which showed Shockwave repairing/assembling the bot.
• Megatron does not appear outside of the flashback sequence, as he was killed by Megatron X in the previous episode.

Transformers references

• The title is an obvious reference to the original cartoon episode, "The Immobilizer".
• As usual, all the text in the episode is written in Autobot script, which is used to hide several of the text-based easter eggs listed on this page.
• Primus is listed in Nexus Prime's omnicom contacts.
• Bug Bite repeatedly refers to Afterburner as a "crummy conehead".
• Soundblaster's depiction harkens back to his counterpart in the War for Cybertron Trilogy cartoon, including being a separate individual from Soundwave, being a high-ranking Mercenary, and having Buzzsaw as his minion. Bug Bite also appeared as a Mercenary later in the series, while Nightbird was labeled a Mercenary in the Transformers Trading Card Game.
• The Enigma of Combination, the artifact of Nexus Prime, was a key object in the latter years of the first IDW continuity and played a major role in the concurrent issues of the 2019 ongoing. Visually, this Engima trades its comic counterparts' silver and red for a gold and blue paintjob.
• Swoop consults her "Witwiki" database for information on the Enigma of Combination, a pun based on the Witwicky family featured in many other Transformers incarnations. (Fun fact: many years ago, TFWiki.net was nearly given the exact same name!)
  • According to Randolph Heard, an earlier draft of the script used the name "TiffWiki" instead. We're genuinely flattered.^[1]
• In addition to the main article, which Swoop quotes word-for-word, Witwiki features various status messages and links for assorted wiki functions (such as "Support", "Related" and "Random") and a side bar listing known combiners; Reflector's name appears in that list.
• Another "Soundwave Superior" for the list.
• Upon seeing Volcanicus, Bug Bite exclaims "Great greasy Gigatron!" while Afterburner swears by Megatronus.

Real-world references

• Arcee and Grimlock being chased by the egg in the cold open is more than a bit evocative of the boulder chase from Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• Three of Nexus Prime's contacts are named "Rob", "Ehud", and "Piotr". These are presumably prop designer Robert Brady, episode director Ehud Landsberg, and art director Piotr Bzdura.
• The signatures on the two petitions at the "Save the Singlehorn" stand are actually a message thanking several online content creators for reviewing Cyberverse over the years: "Comodian Cam [sic], UltraPrimal, dragonkeeper19600, Threw Adams [sic], RodimnsPrimal [sic], Heyan Carlile [sic], Jillian Jones, thanks for all the review. We love you guys."
• "Witwiki" is, of course, based on the real-life website Wikipedia, including a similar logo design.
• The list of combiners on Witwiki includes the names "Katiatron" and "Patrick-Prime", in reference to series production manager Katia Fogarty and production coordinator Patrick McDonald respectively.

Other trivia

• Originally scheduled for a November 21st premiere on Netflix, this episode unexpectedly debuted two weeks early on YouTube, something that was only announced literally the day before it happened.
• This episode was split into two 22-minute parts for its iTunes release.
• The Mercenaries' ship uses the same model as the ship Wildwheel rode in on in "Wild Wild Wheel", albeit with a very different design. This ship also has "tentacles" at the nose that part to reveal the exit hatch, rather than it being built into the side like Wildwheel's.
• The Dinobots adopted their dinosaur modes based off of Grimlock's dinosaur friends that appeared in the video. And yet, there are no Velociraptors or Spinosaurs among them.
  • Furthermore, Snarl's dinosaur mode is based on a Stegosaurus which didn't, and couldn't, appear among Grimlock's Cretaceous comrades.
• Beginning with this episode, Clobber is voiced by Deanna McGovern in place of her usual actress, Saskia Marx
• Multiple actors who were credited under pseudonyms in previous seasons are credited under their real names beginning with this episode, as was the case in Transformers: Battlegrounds.

Animation and technical errors

• Much like in "The Scientist", the Laserbeak-type birds all have Decepticon insignia, despite being typical wildlife.
• When Afterburner and Bug Bite begin shooting at Grimlock, Afterburner uses his fellow Conehead Dirge's model.
• When the Mercenaries first arrive at the treaty signing, Bug Bite's feet are clipping through the ground.
• When the Dinobots transform to Volcanicus for the second time, the screen cuts to black for a few seconds. Perhaps this would have been where the credits would appear if the episode was split into four parts?
• When Cosmos is frozen and later unfrozen with Meteorfire, she lacks the Autobot insignia.
• When Clobber hugs Lockdown, she has a Decepticon insignia instead of Autobot.
• Trypticon's name is incorrectly misspelled "Tripticon" in the credits.
• Teletraan-X and Kup are listed in the voice credits, despite not appearing in the episode. The former's name is also misspelled "Teletran X".

Foreign localization

Portuguese

• Title: "Os Imobilizadores" ("The Immobilizers")
• Original airdate: November 6, 2021

German

• Title: "Der Time Blaster"
• Original airdate: December 15, 2021

Home video releases

• TBA

References