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Ooh nice to see adult drama techniques employed on a kids cartoon to wind us back to how Bulkhead ended up all dinged up. Good use of snatches of Fowler's interaction with the other 'questers' to show how it all links in. After a couple of so-so episodes, this one I found really engaging - mainly due to the nice character interplay between Agent Fowler and Bulkhead. Hardshell wasn't anything to write home about, just the usual hard as nails bad guy. Still, it was nice to have a bad guy whom wasn't a total joke.

After the first, the suburban NY episode, the other relic hunt episodes were actually pretty decent.

The only thing I disliked about this episode is the eventual outcome. They set up Bulkhead to die [all those flashbacks, all that hard guy finishes last yet gets the job done] only to end the episode with the exact same cliffhanger as the previous.

I thoroughly enjoyed Bulkhead's interaction with Fowler. It's been hinted so far that Bulkhead dislikes Fowler and he outright says so in this episode, yet he warms up to him. There's few TF series I can think of where an Autobot in the main cast dislikes a single individual [Fanzone was way too generalized in Animated].

Hardshell was indeed the generic tough guy. Hints of Animated Lugnut and BW Megatron did emerge from Kaye. I'm not fond of how the Insecticons are almost dragged down to vehicon power status as the series goes on. In the first few episodes, Vehicons were tough guys that presented bots with an actual fight, and now they are cannon fodder. Same thing happens with the insects now. First one totalled Arcee, second one nearly killed Megatron, then they fell to gunshots from Prime and Bumblebee, and now Bulkhead can, with effort, dispatch 1-4 of them.

Great episode, second season did pick up after all.

Enjoyed that - I also loved the narrative tricks, really itching to sit down and watch them all with all the gaps filled in now, great approach to what could have been a very boring quest storyline. I actually loved the way it had exactly the same cliffhanger as last episode, very cheeky.

Not mad about Hardshell either - I wish they'd make their minds up just how tough the Insecticons are, though I do like the fan-theory that Airachnid was just rubbish at controlling them (I guess they follow Megatron by choice rather than being directly influenced so they fight harder for him than her?). Singling one of them out was a bit iffy, though. There's no real reason not to send the whole swarm after the relic other than budgetary/dramatic reasons.

Also felt it the Tox-En stuff was a little muddy. Was there a reason why Bulkhead didn't grenade the lot at the start? I can think of a couple of workarounds, but there didn't seem to be an actual explanation. How come Bulkhead carried it around for however long without melting his hand and yet as soon as an Insecticon got it shoved in their face they were in pain?

But Bulkhead's interaction with Fowler was great, yes. Nice character development between two guys who didn't really get along before. It also showed up just how much Ratchet has chilled out since the start of Season 1 - he's the one getting all celebratory with Raf (I'm also loving that they've sort-of split up the Guardian/Human combos in Season 2 without actually splitting them up) while Fowler's providing the bucket of cold water.

And more great fight scenes. They're so reliably great you tend to find yourself taking them for granted; in this aspect it's so far ahead of every other Transformers series it's amazing.