*is a big barrel of WHUT*
So. TFA season three. Yeah. What the fuck, man.
First up, the one everyone seems to be focusing on and already writing fanfic about--Blurr. What the fuck was that? They've never killed anyone onscreen before, not without some ominous Nightbird-esque sign that they might just come back (see: Soundwave and Meltdown), but getting crushed into a cube and then having said cube show up later? Kinda hard to retcon your way out of.
What really got me was the heart-wrenching way it was done. Blurr defies the laws of physics to run to Cybertron with information that could effectively turn the tide of the war, is betrayed and killed in a horrific fashion in a matter of moments, and his corpse is just handed over casually to an unsuspecting Cliffjumper and tossed out like garbage. Unless Shockwave goes on another gloating streak, nobody's even going to know what happened to him or what lengths he went to for the Autobot cause. I'm actually rather curious to know how someone in the target age demographic reacted to it, because it depressed the fuck out of me.
Now, is this a bad move? Aside from the fact that they knocked off Blurr just when I was starting to think he was kinda cool rather than someone I wouldn't have missed, I'm not sure. It's certainly a huge sign that they're taking the series in a much darker direction rather than just being inadvertently creepy like the Swindle thing.
Speaking of darker directions, Ratchet. If you'd given me a set of character bios as the beginning of the show I'd have guessed that Bumblebee, Sari and Optimus would have been the ones with the most character development. If Ratchet was even on the list, it would have been as the cranky medic who comes out of his shell and learned to love his teammates", not the cranky medic is cranky medic because of emotional scars gained during the great war who has occasional flashbacks to horrific activities perpetuated by both Decepticons and his own faction and self-esteem issues because he feels unloved and obsolete. I utterly, utterly adored that Ratchet actually called them on their shit and went at the end "no, this is wrong. I let one person be turned into a living weapon and sent to their deaths and I'm not letting it happen to another". I used to just kinda like him. Now I adore him. After this episode he's probably one of the most complex characters on the team.
Another thing I liked about the episode was the fact that the Elite Guard and their collaborators are actually blatantly shown as being unethical with Omega Supreme and showing a near-shocking lack of regard for their own people. In "Mission Accomplished" they came across as jackasses with Magnus just not being able to deal with it right now (yeah, yeah, cheap shot). In "Transwarped" it was flat-out disturbing. No one but Ratchet seems to completely get it, but there's something deeply and obviously wrong with the Autobots and I'm hoping it'll lead to a dramatic scene with Optimus and his crew giving Ultra Magnus a proper "fuck off" because if they do you'll be hearing the squee in Albuquerque.
And then there was the other thing. We've all been waiting to see what the deal with Sari was going to be, but I honestly didn't see this particular one coming. If someone had used in a fanfic I'd probably have hit the back button in two seconds unless it was a writer I knew was decent. However,I'm reserving judgment until I see where they're going with this. The whole Sari-Isaac reconciliation thing, I think, was handled reasonably well. Given that this is "why didn't you tell me I was adopted on a far grander scale I think Sari acted rather age-appropriately. When they finally got back together it made me go all melty inside because it was so clear how much Sumdac loved her despite the fact that he's not the most sensible of people.
The key thing was...weird. My Mary Sue alarms started blaring the moment the magical girl transformation kicked in and didn't really shut up until Sari's systems started going nuts. This could either go bad by making Sari far too powerful or go good by having her slowly having to deal with a new body and new personal identity. The teenager thing is a bit weird (although I do like the design), but I'm thinking it's a symptom of Cybertronian-esque protoform development. We'll see.
First up, the one everyone seems to be focusing on and already writing fanfic about--Blurr. What the fuck was that? They've never killed anyone onscreen before, not without some ominous Nightbird-esque sign that they might just come back (see: Soundwave and Meltdown), but getting crushed into a cube and then having said cube show up later? Kinda hard to retcon your way out of.
What really got me was the heart-wrenching way it was done. Blurr defies the laws of physics to run to Cybertron with information that could effectively turn the tide of the war, is betrayed and killed in a horrific fashion in a matter of moments, and his corpse is just handed over casually to an unsuspecting Cliffjumper and tossed out like garbage. Unless Shockwave goes on another gloating streak, nobody's even going to know what happened to him or what lengths he went to for the Autobot cause. I'm actually rather curious to know how someone in the target age demographic reacted to it, because it depressed the fuck out of me.
Now, is this a bad move? Aside from the fact that they knocked off Blurr just when I was starting to think he was kinda cool rather than someone I wouldn't have missed, I'm not sure. It's certainly a huge sign that they're taking the series in a much darker direction rather than just being inadvertently creepy like the Swindle thing.
Speaking of darker directions, Ratchet. If you'd given me a set of character bios as the beginning of the show I'd have guessed that Bumblebee, Sari and Optimus would have been the ones with the most character development. If Ratchet was even on the list, it would have been as the cranky medic who comes out of his shell and learned to love his teammates", not the cranky medic is cranky medic because of emotional scars gained during the great war who has occasional flashbacks to horrific activities perpetuated by both Decepticons and his own faction and self-esteem issues because he feels unloved and obsolete. I utterly, utterly adored that Ratchet actually called them on their shit and went at the end "no, this is wrong. I let one person be turned into a living weapon and sent to their deaths and I'm not letting it happen to another". I used to just kinda like him. Now I adore him. After this episode he's probably one of the most complex characters on the team.
Another thing I liked about the episode was the fact that the Elite Guard and their collaborators are actually blatantly shown as being unethical with Omega Supreme and showing a near-shocking lack of regard for their own people. In "Mission Accomplished" they came across as jackasses with Magnus just not being able to deal with it right now (yeah, yeah, cheap shot). In "Transwarped" it was flat-out disturbing. No one but Ratchet seems to completely get it, but there's something deeply and obviously wrong with the Autobots and I'm hoping it'll lead to a dramatic scene with Optimus and his crew giving Ultra Magnus a proper "fuck off" because if they do you'll be hearing the squee in Albuquerque.
And then there was the other thing. We've all been waiting to see what the deal with Sari was going to be, but I honestly didn't see this particular one coming. If someone had used in a fanfic I'd probably have hit the back button in two seconds unless it was a writer I knew was decent. However,I'm reserving judgment until I see where they're going with this. The whole Sari-Isaac reconciliation thing, I think, was handled reasonably well. Given that this is "why didn't you tell me I was adopted on a far grander scale I think Sari acted rather age-appropriately. When they finally got back together it made me go all melty inside because it was so clear how much Sumdac loved her despite the fact that he's not the most sensible of people.
The key thing was...weird. My Mary Sue alarms started blaring the moment the magical girl transformation kicked in and didn't really shut up until Sari's systems started going nuts. This could either go bad by making Sari far too powerful or go good by having her slowly having to deal with a new body and new personal identity. The teenager thing is a bit weird (although I do like the design), but I'm thinking it's a symptom of Cybertronian-esque protoform development. We'll see.