Thunderhowl (episode)

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"'Tis a silly place."
"Thunderhowl"
Season	3
No. in season	19
Production company	Allspark Animation
Airdate	February 21, 2020 (UK) May 17, 2020 (USA)
Writer	Mae Catt
Director	Ehud Landsberg
Animation studio	Boulder Media Studio
Watch this episode on YouTube

Searching for Windblade, Bumblebee and Chromia discover that the legendary Crystal City holds many secrets.

Synopsis

On a moonlit night, an Autobot and a Decepticon rush out of a Cybertronian forest in a maddened panic. At the entrance, the Autobot quickly scribbles a warning onto a rock for future travellers before a howl sends the two racing off. Stalking out of the woods, a crystalline wolf glares at their retreating forms and howls at the moon.

In the present day, Bumblebee and Chromia race through the Cybertronian wilderness, Chromia explaining how a Camien psychic tracker can locate the fragments of Windblade's overextended mind. Despite the ominous warning, Chromia cheerily leads Bumblebee into the overgrowth, the tracker leading them to the mystical Crystal City. Entering, Bumblebee is amazed by the empty city's beauty, though Chromia gripes about how the crystals are messing up the tracker. As they press onwards, neither witness their reflections exiting the walls.

In the city centre, the tracker's glitches forces the two Autobots to split up, both running across the other's crystalline double and herded back to the square. Though the duo attempt to fight back, the doubles are impervious to their energy weapons. When Bumblebee is forced back, the wall sprouts crystals that drag him into it before he channels his multiversal energy, shattering the wall, the doubles and freeing a large wolf-bot from its crystal prison.

As Bumblebee tends to his friend, the wolf stalks towards them, teeth bared... only to pounce on another double of Bumblebee. After transforming to robot mode to take out another Chromia copy, the stranger thanks the two Autobots for freeing him and introduces himself as Thunderhowl. Once a Knight of the Primes, Thunderhowl was dispatched by his Liege Prime to destroy Crystal City only to wind up trapped. Quickly allying, the trio head off for the castle, where Windblade's mind is located, as Bumblebee catches Thunderhowl up on recent events.

When the three enter the castle, they quickly come across the Crystal Maze. While Thunderhowl suggests a back-to-back infiltration, Bumblebee and Chromia opt to simply charge up with multiverse energy and smash through the walls, a bemused Thunderhowl following. Smashing their way past the duplicates, the trio comes upon the Crystalline King, with Chromia detecting Windblade's shard inside it.

Boldly, Thunderhowl prepares to charge the entity only for the King to generate an army of Windblade clones. As she and Thunderhowl fight them off, Chromia instructs Bumblebee to destroy the King. Clambering up the throne, Bumblebee is greeted by more clones before he summons his multiverse energy, shattering the entity and freeing Windblade's psychic shard, which Chromia quickly absorbs. Without the King however, the city begins to collapse, sending the questers fleeing.

Back in Iaconus, Bumblebee and Chromia deliver the shard to Ratchet who quickly gets to work on Windblade while Thunderhowl pledges his loyalty to Optimus Prime. Having, quite literally, a lot of weight on his hands, Optimus quickly inducts the beastformer into the Autobots.

Featured characters

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

Quotes

Notes

Continuity notes

• Chromia reveals that Windblade's mind got shattered in five psychic fragments upon freeing Croaton in "The End Of The Universe IV". By the end of this episode, she and Bumblebee have gathered 20% of Windblade's mind.
• Thunderhowl appears to have been trapped sometime during the Age of Expansion given his questions about Iaconus and the Titan's conquering of other planets, all details that were established in "The Citizen".
• Thunderhowl mentions he was serving a Prime, though he doesn't mention which one. "The Perfect Decepticon" would later confirm his liege to have been Onyx Prime, who traditionally has ancient connections with beast-mode Transformers.

Transformers references

• Crystal City was introduced waaaaaayyyy back in the 1985 The Transformers episode "The Secret of Omega Supreme". It's shown up in plenty other pieces of fiction since then, but this is the first time it's reappeared on television in all that time.

Real-world references

• Fantasy tropes; such as knights, ye old tongue, a mysterious forest, and a quest; abound in this episode. Even the music in the forest is suitably fantasy-esque.

Other trivia

• Interestingly, the opening flashback shows a generic Autobot and Decepticon duo working together. Seeing as they looked desperate to leave Crystal City, it is implied that they teamed up to survive.
• The Cybertronian message the pair leave as a warning reads "Yo man this place ain't cool I would deffo not go in"
• This episode introduces a new breed of mechanimal, a singlehorn, essentially a Cybertronian unicorn.

Animation and technical errors

• TBA

Foreign localization

German

• Title: "Thunderhowl"
• Original airdate: January 30, 2021

Portuguese

• Title: "Thunderhowl"
• Original airdate: October 14, 2021
• Notes: The YouTube upload of this episode is titled "Uivo do Trovão" ("Thunder Howl").

Home video releases

• TBA