Secret Legacy, Part 1

Transformers: EarthSpark ep 1 »
Eeeeeeelliiiiiooooooott...
"Secret Legacy, Part 1"
Season	1
No. in season	1
Production company	Entertainment One Nickelodeon
Airdate	November 11, 2022
Writers	Nicole Dubuc & Dale Malinowski
Directors	Jordan Rosato
Animation studio	Icon Creative Studio
Watch this episode on Paramount+

A chance encounter leads young Robby and Mo Malto to witness the birth of two new Transformers.

Synopsis

Under the cover of night, a spider-like robot observes as a lone buggy and SUV enter a train yard. The infiltrators, Swindle and Hardtop, transform to robot mode and open a container to reveal an Autobot energon stash. The two are giddy that the tip Swindle received was accurate, but their celebration is interrupted by the arrival of Optimus Prime, followed by Elita-1 bursting from hiding in another container. Optimus orders the two to surrender, noting that the war is long over and offering them a chance at peace. The two Decepticons refuse, however, and open fire before making a quick getaway. Elita pursues and engages them in a two-on-one brawl, dodging their blows and knocking them into the surrounding box cars to arrange them into a makeshift barrier around the two. Revealing that she was the one who gave Swindle the false tip to bait them, she warns them to duck moments before one last container thrown by Optimus lands on top of them. As Optimus approaches, Swindle still refuses to surrender, commenting that there's no way they'll find all the Decepticons left on Earth, but they are interrupted as the spiderbot leaps out and attacks Swindle. Optimus pulls it free, but he quickly finds himself under assault by more of its kind. Swindle takes the opportunity to run while Optimus quickly dispatches the drones. As Hardtop is placed in a prison transport, Elita and Optimus investigate the remains of one of the creatures, curious as to its origins and whether it relates to the recent rumors of Decepticons disappearing. A group of more spiderbots follow the transport and its escorts as they approach the town of Witwicky, Pennsylvania...

That same night elsewhere in Witwicky, teenager Robby Malto has rigged up a makeshift satellite dish from spare parts with help from his sister Mo, attempting to get a cell phone signal. The device begins to work, but the two are interrupted as their father Alex calls them down for dinner. As the family eats, Robby expresses frustration with his parents for moving the family from Philadelphia to the middle of nowhere for his mother Dot's new park ranger job. As the argument comes to a head, Robby storms off to his room. Mo offers to try and talk to him, but when she arrives upstairs, she finds Robby absent, having snuck out and taken off on his bike.

Mo pursues Robby, who declares he is heading back to Philly on his own. As she attempts to keep up, the chain dislodges from her bike, leaving her stuck. Seeing this, Robby turns around and agrees to fix the bike before he leaves, but his repairs are interrupted as the massive prison transport begins coming up behind him. The two siblings attempt to run, but find themselves blocked on the opposite side by approaching spiderbots. The drones open fire on the convoy, flipping the transport truck, and the Maltos barely manage to escape as it comes crashing down, the two landing in a gulley below. Robby offers to take Mo back to the house, but when she asks if this means he's staying, Robby continues to refuse. Mo calls out Robby on his change in behavior, and the two get into a screaming match, but their attention is drawn to a nearby cave when it starts glowing with a strange blue light. Curious, they look inside, finding it empty, only for the floor to give way beneath them, and they fall deeper inside.

Ain't got a human heart but I feel it when we spark

As they come to a stop, the two find themselves in front of a glowing pool, with a strange rock sitting in the middle. Investigating closer, Robby accidentally knocks the rock from its plinth. As he and Mo place it back, the rock and surrounding pool begin to glow with green light, as a mysterious voice calls them the "legacy of hope". Strange tendrils emerge from the stone and wrap around the children's arms, preventing them from letting go, before coalescing into strange mechanical gauntlets on their arms. More shocking, however, is when two creatures begin forming from the energy in the water, coalescing into large humanoid machines. As the light fades, Robby and Mo are initially frightened by the newcomers, but to their surprise, it seems the two are just as frightened of them. The kids realize that not only can they somehow sense the robots' feelings through their new "cyber-sleeves", but they now know their names to be Twitch and Thrash, the same way that the bots now know theirs. Realizing they are now connected by the cyber-sleeves, the humans cautiously approach and offer a hand in friendship, which the bots reciprocate. A spiderbot spots the four and attacks, but Twitch suddenly manifests a laser cannon and blasts it before it can do any harm. Robby realizes that the two are Transformers, and the siblings decide to bring them home with them. Unbeknownst to them, footage of the encounter is being observed by the spiderbots' creator, who now has Hardtop in his captivity. As one of the spiderbots removes Hardtop's arm, the scientist teases that he has big plans for Hardtop...

The Maltos lead Twitch and Thrash to their barn, where they intend to hide the pair until they can figure out how to explain the situation to their parents. Promising to help them learn more about being Transformers in the morning, Robby and Mo give the bots some Transformers comic books to read as a head-start. The next morning, Robby wakes up to find Mo struggling to keep the eager bots under control. As Dot leaves for work, she narrowly avoids spotting the bots in an impromptu game of hide-and-seek. Realizing the comics might not have been the best approach to teaching, Robby and Mo decide to instead use their father's extensive Transformer knowledge to assist them. Hiding the bots in the barn again, they lure Alex outside with a picnic and ask him to retell the story of how the Transformers came to Earth. Alex explains that the Transformers hail from the planet Cybertron, where the Autobots and Decepticons battled for millions of years before eventually arriving on Earth via spacebridge in 1984. There, the Autobots were aided by brave human allies, including Dot, against the Decepticons. For the sake of the universe, Optimus Prime ultimately decided to destroy the spacebridge, cutting them all off from Cybertron in the hopes that the humans and Cybertronians could coexist peacefully, ending the war, though Alex's idol Bumblebee hasn't been seen since. Though they listen to the story, Twitch and Thrash still feel disconnected from the other Transformers and their history, and instead want to learn more about Earth.

On her way to work, Dot comes across the wreckage of the prison transport and begins to block off the area, only for Optimus and Elita to arrive shortly thereafter, much to her displeasure. Optimus warns the former lieutenant that Witwicky may be in danger, but Dot reminds him that their association ended after the war. However, Optimus and Elita reveal that her park ranger position was arranged by G.H.O.S.T., a secret military organization they work with to ensure peaceful human-Cybertronian relations, so Dot would be closer to their headquarters. Before Dot can properly process the circumstances, their attention is drawn to the sound of an approaching military helicopter. Touching down in front of them, the tiltrotor transforms into a massive robot.

Megatron has arrived.

Featured characters

Italicized characters appear only in Alex's story. (Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

*Voice-only appearance

Quotes

"What did the petrified boy say about my cooking? It rocks!"

—Alex, master of the dad joke.

"That's how scary movies start. It could be a mutant lightning bug egg. Or turn your hand into goo! Or maybe, it's the cursed eyeball of a dinosaur god!"

—Mo is as genre savvy as they get.

"We read your history books! These Transformers guys are bananas!"
"Strange, they were vehicles in the issues I read."

—Thrash and Twitch are eager to learn.

"Did I change into vehicle mode? I feel so...minivan!"

—We give Twitch points for effort.

"Handheld food and history is the way to my heart."

—Alex knows what he likes.

"Like I always say: Bee an Optimist Prime, not a Negatron."

—We're genuinely shocked Alex is the first person in the franchise to make this joke.

Dot: "You messed up my cones."
Elita-1: "Sorry, Dot. OP's having...a day."
Optimus Prime: "Which continues..."

Notes

Continuity notes

• While the animation style of Alex's story seems to imply that EarthSpark is a sequel to the original cartoon, there's simply too many incongruities both big and small for that to be possible, such as Grimlock being around on Cybertron as opposed to built on Earth, or the Autobots coming to Earth via spacebridge in the 80s rather than via the Ark millions of years ago. Elements of it also contradict the show itself: younger versions of Robby and Mo are shown despite them being born after the war, and the actual final battle for the spacebridge is later shown in "Warzone", depicted very differently than what's shown here. Like the use of original cartoon footage in the premiere episode of Transformers Animated, it's best not to take it literally or as an indicator of continuity placement and just enjoy it for the awesome tribute that it is, an exaggerated retelling told by a middle-aged fanboy through the lens of 80's nostalgia.

Transformers references

• Hardtop, and his status as Swindle's brother, is a reference to the Cybertron character.
• We get our first look at energon, which is notably pink (a color usually kept for Generation 1 media), instead of the blue color used during the 2010s in cartoons like Prime and Cyberverse.
• Optimus drops the series' first "more [...] than meets the eye" while observing the Arachnamech.
• The town of Witwicky shares its name with the Witwicky family, several members of which appear as allies of the Autobots in various stories dating back to the start of the franchise.
• The language that appears during the creation of Twitch and Thrash is the now commonly-used Ancient Autobot font. Translating it reveals the same phrase uttered by the mysterious voice, "legacy of hope".
• The comics the kids give to Twitch and Thrash feature art heavily inspired by the original Marvel comic. Notably, it uses the same title and logo as IDW's The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, which character designer Nick Roche worked on. Seaspray also puts in an appearance on one of the covers.
• Alex's history of the Transformers is, of course, one big, geeky, glorious homage to the original cartoon, filled with tons of little nods and references.
  • Alex notes that the Transformers arrived on Earth on September 17, 1984, the original airdate of the premiere episode, "More than Meets the Eye, Part 1".
  • The subsequent flashback sequence is rendered using the same limited 2D animation as the original, with all the characters rendered using their original animation models, and some poses and scenes being directly redrawn from the original series. The aspect ratio even shrinks from widescreen to 4:3!
  • Alex's introduction of Optimus and Megatron sees them quote their lines from their final standoff in The Transformers: The Movie, even perfectly recreating the character animation.
  • Thundercracker's attack pose during the melee scene in space is redrawn from "Divide and Conquer", while Jazz's is from the first season's commercial bumper. The poses for Starscream, Soundwave, and Grimlock all come from "S.O.S. Dinobots", and Bluestreak's comes from "More than Meets the Eye, Part 2".
  • Starscream's dodging Bumblebee's blast comes from "More than Meets the Eye, Part 3".
  • Optimus's pose while standing in the spacebridge to Earth is taken from the end of "S.O.S. Dinobots".
  • The spacebridge animations are closely based on those seen in episodes such as "Divide and Conquer" and "Transport to Oblivion". As Optimus emerges from it, his run towards the camera is based on a sequence from "More than Meets the Eye, Part 3" that also appeared in the credits sequence.
  • Among the Autobots' human allies is Spike Witwicky on Bumblebee's shoulder; the two were close friends in the original cartoon.
  • The sequence of the Decepticons running towards the screen is based on a similar shot in the cartoon's first season intro sequence, albeit without Thundercracker and Skywarp in the background this time.
  • The shot of Optimus staring up at the sky comes from "More Than Meets The Eye, Part 3".
  • The lineup of Autobots shooting down at the spacebridge is pulled from a similar shot in "Transport to Oblivion".
  • The image of post-war rebuilding includes a shot of Optimus bending down to speak to Spike and Sparkplug Witwicky redrawn from "More than Meets the Eye, Part 2". The crane in the shot also uses Grapple's animation model, though it's unclear whether this is actually Grapple himself.

Real-world references

• The photo of Alex and Dot on Robby's phone is of them cosplaying as the eponymous characters of Men in Black, with Dot holding a spoon in place of the series' Neuralyzer devices.
• Robby compares Mo cracking the floor with a rock to John Henry.

Animation and technical errors

• In a shot during the skirmish between Elita-1 against Swindle and Hardtop, after Elita nearly topples a shipping container onto Swindle, Hardtop's visor is erroneously colored white.

Trivia

• As a "sneak peek", the episode was released a few days early via the Nickelodeon UK YouTube channel on November 7th; however, the video was region-locked and only accessible to viewers in the United Kingdom.
• Most online distribution platforms do not list this episode separately from Part 2, instead choosing to combine both parts into a single 44-minute video; the aforementioned Nickelodeon UK YouTube release remains one of the only exceptions.
• The credits feature a dedication to former Hasbro CEO Brian Goldner, who passed away in October 2021.
• This episode, combined with its second part, was adapted into a "sleep story" for the Calm meditation app in April 2023, with Robby narrating it for a recording Mo insists he make as a "historical record".

Foreign localization

Brazilian Portuguese

• Title: "Legado Secreto Parte 1" ("Secret Legacy Part 1")
• Original airdate: November 12, 2022

• There is a significant error in this episode's dub: during Alex's story, the Transformers' arrival on Earth is said to have taken place in 1974 instead of 1984.

French

• Title: "L'héritage secret : Partie 1" ("Secret Legacy : Part 1")
• Original airdate: November 28, 2022

German

• Title: "Das geheime Vermächtnis, Teil 1"
• Original airdate: November 18, 2022

Hungarian

• Title: "Titkos örökség, 1. rész" ("Secret Legacy, Part 1")
• Original airdate: November 28, 2022

Italian

• Title: "Eredita segreta parte 1" ("Secret heritage part 1")
• Original airdate: November 11, 2022

Chinese Simplified

• Title: "隐秘的遗产 上" ("Secret Heritage Part 1")
• Original airdate: July 18, 2023

Home video releases

DVD

2023 — Transformers: EarthSpark - Season 1: Episodes 1-10 (Paramount)