This week, Raphael’s icy heart melts for Mona Lisa.
Warning: Full spoilers for the episode follow.
Picking right up where the premiere left off, this week’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles quickly sidelined the Triceratons for a new alien threat — specifically the Salamandrians, which is the proper name for the Newtralizer’s species, turns out. Anyway, this gave us one new character and one familiar one: Commander Sal, voiced by Keith David (or as I like to call him, Captain Anderson), and an updated version of Raphael’s main squeeze Mona Lisa, voiced by The Legend of Korra’s Zelda Williams.
Once again, these character designs were on point, especially Commander Sal, whose half-ravaged body left him with a cybernetic eyepiece, scarred jowl and a wicked organ-display bubble on one side. I also thought Mona Lisa’s new alien origin was smart way to incorporate her into Season 4, rather than just doing another mutation storyline. (Honestly, Karai’s kind of got that covered right now anyway.)
That’s what you get for trying to shake hands!
It’s also worth noting that most of this episode took place on an entirely different planet with brand new Hoth-like sets. I especially appreciated Fugitoid’s explanation for the Turtles’ lack of protection, noting their invisible, temperature-controlled “second skins.” I was actually curious about that when they first ventured out into space in the last episode, but at the time I chalked it up to TV magic. So it’s cool that they addressed it here.
That’s not to mention the Ice Dragons, which were a good, Star Trek-like foil for the Turtles and Salamandrians to fight — that is, when they weren’t fighting amongst themselves. I also couldn’t help but think of Galaxy Quest as the group started lugging their sphere-shaped fuel source back to the ship, while simultaneously running away from monsters. However, the best bit for me was seeing Casey and Donnie team up to create their own makeshift avalanche using Casey’s photon pucks.
We want to hear it.
Of course, the main draw of this episode was Mona Lisa’s budding romance with Raphael, which added a humorous, quippy dynamic to their first few encounters. I loved how the thing Raphael was attracted to the most about her was the fact that she could beat him up. (“I’ve never been hit like that before. It was kinda… nice.”) While the main “emergency refuel” storyline felt a little cliche, it was still fun to see it play out in the TMNT-verse. Overall, this was another enjoyable episode and a solid second entry for Season 4.
“The Moons of Thalos 3” offered another rousing adventure for the Turtles, as they met and eventually befriended two Salamandrians. Both Keith David and Zelda Williams did a great job voicing Commander Sal and Mona Lisa, respectively, and it was especially entertaining watching the latter hit it off with Raphael. While not quite as dense as the premiere, this week’s TMNT was a great episode.
