Inside Job
From Transformers Wiki
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 "This isn't flying! It's falling, with sty-HOLY SCRAP HEEEELLLP!!!" | ||||||
| "Inside Job" | ||||||
| Season | 2 | |||||
| No. in season | 23 | |||||
| Production company | Hasbro Studios | |||||
| Airdate | October 12, 2012 | |||||
| Written by | Robert N. Skir | |||||
| Directed by | Scooter Tidwell | |||||
| Animation studio | Polygon Pictures | |||||
 Watch this episode on YouTube
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When Smokescreen is captured, he learns the location of the Omega Key and attempts to retrieve all the other stolen keys.
Contents |
Synopsis
Smokescreen recovers consciousness to find himself on a slab in the Decepticon warship with Knock Out standing over him. Megatron demands the final relic, pointing out Soundwave's work decrypting the Iacon database has revealed an image of Smokescreen, but Smokescreen is merely confused as to what it means. Knock Out scans the Autobot, and finds the last relic is hidden inside.
The other Autobots, meanwhile, realize that the Decepticons must have decoded the last coordinates and speculate that Smokescreen holds the Omega Key inside him, largely due to being installed within him while unconscious by Alpha Trion.
Knock Out advances on the alarmed Smokescreen with a rotary saw, only to reveal he's actually going to use the phase shifter to do the operation. He reaches inside Smokescreen and soon has the Omega Key in hand. Smokescreen refuses to tell the Decepticons what the Omega Keys are, but Megatron has ways of finding out.
Starscream ruminates on the one Omega Key he possesses, while talking to his dead clone. Imagining himself in charge of a reborn Cybertron, he quickly realizes that he doesn't have the resources he would need to rule it.
Megatron listens in on Prime's briefing about the Omega Keys, thanks to a cortical psychic patch hooked up to Smokescreen. Once they've learned all they need, Knock Out unplugs the pair and Megatron orders Knock Out to use the patch to find the location of the Autobot base so they can retrieve the other Omega Keys. After Megatron leaves to put their new key in a safe place, Knock Out moves in, only for Smokescreen to grab the phase shifter attached to his wrist and uses it to free himself. The pair grapple until Smokescreen manages to pull the device from his opponent's wrist, leaving Knock Out embedded in a bulkhead. Though Knock Out points out Smokescreen has no means of escape from the ship, Smokescreen has plans of his own. Through use of the phase shifter, he manages to catch up with Megatron near the storage area, where he snatches back the Omega Key and takes the one in storage as well. The Decepticons attempt to stop him, but their firepower passes straight through him. He eventually reaches the outer hull, only to be confronted by Megatron. With no other choice, the Autobot bails the ship.
At the Autobot base, Ratchet picks up Smokescreen's signal, but has trouble locking on due to the fact that Smokescreen is plummeting through the air. Harried by Vehicons, Smokescreen drops towards the GroundBridge Ratchet opens, only to be knocked off-course by Megatron. He uses the phase shifter to pass through the ground. Moments later, Megatron lands and demands his subordinates search the wreckage. Smokescreen bridges back to base, where the Autobots congratulate him, but wonder where the fourth key is. Their query is answered a moment later when they get a message from Starscream offering the key in return for the replacement of his T-Cog. Having considered it, Optimus Prime decides it's too important to not take Starscream up on his offer.
Optimus, Ratchet and Bulkhead bridge to a forested location and approach Starscream, only to find him apparently dead. It is, of course, just the dead clone, as the real Starscream uses his Red Energon to nip through the GroundBridge into the Autobot base. Moving too fast to be seen, he is tempted at first to finish off the slow-moving Autobots, but goes back to finding the Omega Keys first. The Autobots in the field realize they've been deceived just as Starscream blows open the vault holding the keys. Though Optimus orders Arcee to close the GroundBridge, it is too slow to prevent Starscream from escaping the base. He stops to mock Optimus, Ratchet and Bulkhead, only for the Red Energon to wear off right at the worst possible moment. After firing a missile at the Autobots, he frantically opens his own GroundBridge and escapes back to the Harbinger, much to Optimus's despair. Though Bulkhead and Ratchet believe they can get the keys back Optimus grimly announces the fate of Cybertron is now in Starscream's hands.
Despite Knock Out's pleas, Megatron refuses to release him from the wall. Megatron and Dreadwing return to the bridge, where they find Starscream - who has come with a peace offering of all four Omega Keys.
Featured characters
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)
| Autobots | Decepticons | Others |
|---|---|---|
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Quotes
"Tell me the function of these relics."
"Door stop? Shavers? Bling? Beats me."
- —Megatron asks a question and Smokescreen gives a vague answer.
"Autobots, maintain positions!"
"I'm sorry, what was that? Mblemblemble!"
- —Optimus Prime is taunted by a Starscream who's hopped up on Red Energon.
"We will locate the Autobot base, invade it, and retrieve the Omega Keys!"
"Been there, done that."
- —Megatron's thunder is stolen by Starscream.
Notes
Continuity notes
- This episode continues from the previous one, starting not long after Smokescreen's capture and subsequent restraint.
- The cortical psychic patch is used to extract information from Smokescreen, having been used previously in "Sick Mind" and "Out of the Past".
- The scene which Megatron watches in Smokescreen's mind is from "Alpha/Omega".
- Starscream lists off numerous items he's acquired or stolen in previous episodes; the Omega Key from "Hard Knocks", the processed Red Energon (which he acquired in "New Recruit" and refined in "Hard Knocks"), his GroundBridge remote first seen in "Triangulation", his murdered clone from "Armada", and the T-cog he scavenged from said clone in "Triangulation".
- Starscream previously referred to himself as an "Emperor of Destruction" in "Masters & Students".
- Ratchet recalls Starscream's lack of a T-cog, which he learned about in "Crossfire". Starscream lost his in "Operation Bumblebee, Part 2".
- Once again, Starscream sends an embedded message to the Autobots, asking Ratchet to bring a medical kit. This time around, it didn't work out very well for the Autobots.
- Starscream still seems to be holding a grudge against Arcee from the events of "Partners", given his comments about gutting the Autobots start with her.
- While Starscream is looking for the Omega Keys in the Autobots' Vault, he comes across Airachnid in stasis, which occurred back in "Armada". The last time they interacted was in "Crossfire".
- Even though the Star Saber was destroyed in "Alpha/Omega", Optimus still wears the hilt Ratchet made him.
Transformers references
- One of Starscream's self-proclaimed titles as the new ruler of Cybertron is "Emperor of Destruction". He also refers to himself as Cybertron's Overlord, which originated in the Marvel UK story "State Games" as the pre-war rulers of Cybertron.
Real-world references
- A brain pan is real. Scientists use it to study brains of corpses without the confines of a skull.
Errors
- Megatron's vehicle mode still has his fusion cannon, despite the arm it was attached to being removed. Furthermore, if one watches Megatron's transformation scene, it's blocked off by smoke, making it impossible to see what exactly happens with his fusion cannon and his different arm.
- An early external shot of the Nemesis has its "eyes" and running lights illuminated in Dark Energon purple; later in the episode they are their normal red.
- The bots in Smokescreen's memory are in different places than in "Alpha/Omega". In that episode, Smokescreen and Ratchet are on Optimus's right side, and Arcee, Bulkhead and Bumblebee are on his left. In this episode, Bulkhead and Ratchet are on his right, Bee is in the middle, and Arcee and Smokescreen are on his left.
- Say, how’d Starscream get aboard the Nemesis?
Trivia
- This episode explains why the phase shifter doesn't phase the user through everything, neatly tying up the issues of how it can be used with such versatility. (Well, neatly in the sense that the narrative says, "It just does, okay?" Smokescreen then proceeds to phase through the very thing Knock Out just stated couldn't be phased through, so...)
- While in Smokescreen's mind, Megatron's avatar has his own arm rather than the Prime's arm that he's since attached.
- Looks like Bulkhead finally gets to see Optimus "lose his cool."
- It would seem Megatron cannot tell which of his own soldiers are fliers or ground troopers. Then again, there's not much difference in appearance at first glance.
- When Knock Out removes the Omega Key from within Smokescreen, the Autobot's chest appears to be rising and falling rapidly much like a human's would when breathing harshly.
- How exactly was Smokescreen able to transform into his vehicle mode with an Omega Key in his chest? Sure seems as though it would have either been damaged by the transforming sequence, or disrupted said sequence entirely.
- Apparently it takes a long time to put the Omega Key in a pod and launch it off planet. It's shorter to knock a bot out, put the Omega Key inside him, and modify the Iacon Database entry to point back to said bot... Yeah, that makes no sense. Perhaps Alpha Trion was desperate.
Foreign localization
French
- Title: "La Dernière Clé" ("The Last Key")
- Original airdate: ?
German
- Title: "Innere Angelegenheiten" ("Internal Affairs")
- Original airdate: 22 February 2013
Japanese
Brazilian Portuguese
Italian
- Title: "Chiave persa, Chiave presa" ("Lost key, Taken key"), "Missione Interna" (2017 airing, "Inside Mission")
- Original airdate: 15 February 2013
Home video releases
- DVD
2012 — Transformers Prime — Season Two (Shout! Factory)
2013 — Transformers Prime — Vol. 25 (Avex Trax) — Japanese audio only.
2014 — Transformers Prime — Volume 5: Advance on Cybertron (Madman Entertainment)
2014 — Transformers Prime — Folge 12: Die Entscheidung (EDEL:kids) — English and German audio.
2014 — Transformers Prime — Season Two Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2014 — Transformers Prime — Saison 2 Vol. 4: Bataille épiques (Primal Screen)
2015 — Transformers Prime — Season 2 Vol. 4: Darkest Hour (Primal Screen)
2015 — Transformers Prime — Intégrale Saison 2 (Primal Screen)
2015 — Transformers Prime — Stagione 2 Vol. 4: L'ora più buia (Primal Screen) — English, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian audio.
2015 — Transformers Prime — The Complete Season 2 (Primal Screen)
2015 — Transformers Prime — La Seconda Stagione Completa (Primal Screen) — English, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Danish and Norwegian audio.
- Blu-ray
2012 — Transformers Prime — Season Two (Shout! Factory)
2015 — Transformers Prime — Season Two Collection (Madman Entertainment)
