Con of Rath

Con of Rath is the thirteenth episode of the second season of Ben 10: Alien Force, and the thirty-ninth episode overall.
==Synopsis==
Ben is on a special mission when the Omnitrix malfunctions and turns him into an Appoplexian named Rath who wants to fight anything that breathes.
==Plot==
The episode begins with Gwen waiting for Ben and Kevin so they can go to the beach. She is anxious because their previous plans to go to the beach fell through. Just then, two aliens beam in; Gwen mutters "of course (this happens)" under her breath. They introduce themselves as Ambassador Zaw-Veenull and Cicely from the planet Lewoda. They ask Ben to deliver a peace offering to their enemy, the Pantophage. The offering is Cicily's baby son and their crown prince, the Tiffin.
Energy crackles on the Omnitrix when the Tiffin comes near him, but Ben denies anything being wrong. Zaw-Veenull gives them a gold credit cube, which has no spending limit, and a powerful ship, impressing Kevin. Ben assures Zaw-Veenull that they will deliver the Tiffin and the Omnitrix continues crackling. In the ship, Gwen feels uneasy about using a baby as a peace offering and feels that Zaw-Veenull is hiding something. The Omnitrix malfunctions and transforms Ben into a new alien named Rath. Rath immediately starts throwing things around and screaming at the Tiffin. Kevin leaps onto Rath and Rath viciously attacks him. Gwen puts a Mana bubble on Rath's head. Rath screams and quickly uses up all of his air before passing out.
When Rath awakens, he is bound by mana and immediately picks a fight with Kevin. Gwen tells Rath that he is an Appoplexian, an aggressive, battle-hungry, unintelligent species. Gwen releases Rath and he tries to transform back into Ben but fails. Rath then tries to tear off the Omnitrix, but he fails at that as well. Rath is hungry, so they go to a cafe inside a space station in space. Argit is there and he goes to talk to Kevin. Kevin speaks to him about the Tiffin, much to Gwen's displeasure due to not trusting Argit. Argit slinks off and calls someone when The Vreedle Brothers arrive, much to Gwen and Kevin's shock. The Vreedles reveal that they are clones made by their parents with an expired kit and then ask for the Tiffin, intending to hold him for ransom.
Kevin wants to give the Tiffin to the Vreedles, but Rath objects. When the Vreedles see Rath, they get scared and offer 1000 credits to anyone that helps them. The patrons produce guns. Rath attacks the Vreedles and fights the aliens. The aliens try to take the Tiffin, and Gwen and Kevin fight them. Octagon shoots Rath, but he is unharmed, and gets angry because Octagon destroyed his food. Rath quickly defeats Octagon and Rhomboid, blasting them into space.
The team leaves, with Kevin dragging Rath back to the ship. Kevin and Gwen are worried that Rath will never be able to transform back into Ben. Suddenly, they are attacked by Incursean Commander Sangfroid, who is against their mission. He tells them to prepare to be boarded and killed, but Rath yells at him and jumps into the Incursean ship. He defeats the soldiers and attacks Sangfroid. Rath returns to his ship after having negotiated with Sangfroid. The Incurseans still attack them, angering Rath. Kevin pushes the ship's engines to their full power and heads towards a black hole. He is able to maneuver away, but the Incurseans are sucked in.
Later, Rath develops a soft spot for the Tiffin and Kevin says that the engine is damaged, but he has found what he needs to fix it: Taydenite, on the planet Sylex VII. This angers Rath, as he says that every time Taydenite comes up, Vulkanus tries to kill them. Kevin doesn't believe him, but Vulkanus shows up and orders his minions to kill the team. Vulkanus makes fun of Rath, which makes Rath furious. Kevin tries to negotiate with Vulkanus for some Taydenite. He offers 10 times the going rate for Taydenite, but Vulkanus declines. Rath yells at him, calling him a baby man and saying that Kevin's deal was a great deal. Vulkanus tells his minions to kill the team. They engage in a fight and Rath pulls Vulkanus out of his suit and takes Taydenite for the ship after destroying Vulkanus's supply. They finally arrive at the Pantophage home planet. Cicily contacts them and tells the Tiffin that she is proud of him. She begs Rath not to give the Tiffin to the Pantophage, but he refuses.
After the team land, they go to the Pantophage's king, Jarett. Rath gives him the Tiffin, and Jarett puts the Tiffin on a pie and eats it, shocking the team. Rath tells Jarett he thought the Tiffin was going to be kept as a peace offering; Jarett tells him that he is all that plus a rare delicacy and that's what a peace offering is on Pantophage, making Rath furious. He jumps down Jarett's throat and rescues the Tiffin. Then, he tells Jarett that he will do much worse if he dares declare war on the Lewodans.
They go outside and Zaw-Veenull and Cicily arrive. Cicily is overjoyed to see the Tiffin alive. Rath tells Zaw-Veenull to never speak to him again. They leave with the Tiffin and Rath transforms back into Ben, who assumes that interference from the Tiffin kept him as Rath, to which Kevin states that he is right. Ben, angry at Kevin for not telling him sooner, transforms into Rath again and yells at him, which prompts Kevin to silently cry for help.
==Noteworthy Events==
===Major Events===
*Ben unlocks Rath.
====Character Debuts====
*Zaw-Veenull
*Cicely
*Prince of Lewoda
*Sangfroid
*Jarett
====Omnitrix Alien Debut====
*Rath
===Minor Events===
*Ben ends up stuck as Rath for the most of the episode due to a malfunction in the Omnitrix.
*Rath's species is revealed.
*Space Station Kubrick is featured for the first time.
==Characters==
===Main Characters===
*Ben Tennyson
*Gwen Tennyson
*Kevin Levin
**Kevin's Alien Force Mutation
===Supporting Characters===
*Zaw-Veenull (first appearance)
*Cicely (first appearance)
*Prince of Lewoda (first appearance)
===Antagonists===
*Argit
*Vreedle Brothers
**Octagon Vreedle
**Rhomboid Vreedle
*Incurseans
**Sangfroid (first appearance; death)
*Vulkanus
*Pickaxe Aliens
*Jarett (first appearance)
==Aliens Used==
*Rath (first appearance; x2; first time was an unintentional transformation; second time was a cameo)
==Quotes==
==Naming and Translations==
==Cast==
==Continuity==
*Gwen mentions having tried to go to the beach for a month, indicating that this episode takes place at least a month after In Charm's Way, when the team was last seen at the beach.
*When the Vreedle Brothers enter the cafe inside Space Station Kubrick, Gwen mentions that the team saw them go up in an explosion, which occurred in the previous episode.
==Allusions==
*This episode shares similarities with A Small Problem. Both involve:
**The Omnitrix malfunctioning.
**Ben being stuck as an certain alien for the most of the episode (Grey Matter in A Small Problem and Rath in this episode.)
*The title of the episode is a play on the Star Trek movie The Wrath of Khan.
*When Jarett says "Certainly you realize this means war," is similar to Looney Tunes when Bugs Bunny recites Groucho Marx's infamous sentence "Of course you realize this means war" when he is offended.
*Argit comments on Kevin's mutated form by saying, "Kevin! Long time, no see. You look different. Did you get a haircut?", a phrase which is very similar to his comment about Kevin's form in Simple when he said, "Kevin! Long time, no see! You look different. Did you cut your hair?"
==Errors==
*The closed captions on the Ben 10 Alien Force: Volume 8 DVD misspell Zaw-Veenull, Cicely, and Jarett's names as "Zavinom", "Cicily", and "Jerret".
*When Rath tries to pull the Omnitrix off his chest, the bottom of his mouth is black.
*When the Incursean ship fires lasers at the Tachyon 930, the lasers seem to come out of the ship itself instead of any guns.
*When Kevin goes to negotiate with Vulkanus, the fur under Rath's chin is orange instead of white. This error occurs again when Rath plays with the Prince before the team lands on Pantophage.
*Before Rath returns the Prince to Cicely, his black stripes overlap the white part of his body.
*Before Ben transforms into Rath for the second time, his hologram faces away from him.
*The end credits misspell Octagon and Vulkanus' names as "Octogon" and "Vulcanus", respectively.
AF Vol 8 DVD Zaw-Veenull Error.png|Incorrect closed captions on the Ben 10 Alien Force: Volume 8 DVD
AF Vol 8 DVD Cicely Error.png|Incorrect closed captions on the Ben 10 Alien Force: Volume 8 DVD
CoR (146).png|Mouth error
CoR (330).png|Lasers error
CoR (398).png|Neck error
CoR (444).png|Neck error
CoR Jarett Error.png|Incorrect closed captions on the Ben 10 Alien Force: Volume 8 DVD
CoR (518).png|Stripes error
CoR (541).png|Hologram error
Con of Rath Voice Credits.png|Credit errors
==Trivia==
*The episode's title is listed as The Con of Rath on the Ben 10 Alien Force: Volume 8 DVD and iTunes, and Con Of Rath on Amazon Prime Video.
*Despite being confirmed to have died in Busy Box, the Vreedle Brothers reappear in this episode. The Vreedle Brothers go on to explain that they are in fact clones created by their parents via an "expired cloning kit".
*This episode, and by extension, Rath's existence, were hinted at by Dwayne McDuffie on March 29, 2009, when asked if there were any aliens similar to Blitzwolfer, whom Ben had to control to struggle against Loboan savagery.
*The episode's working title was Rath.
*In a script outline dated December 19, 2008:
**The episode begins with Kevin fixing the damage his car suffered during a run-in with a city bus.
**Zaw-Veenull, Cicely and Jarett are named Caput, Projen and Bleb.
**Zaw-Veenull gives Kevin a Credit Fob instead of a Credit Cube.
**Gwen purposely sucks out the air from the mana bubble around Rath's head, instead of Rath using up the air himself.
**Rath is tied to his chair by mana instead of being held in place standing up. He also breaks free of his restraints himself instead of Gwen letting him go.
**Octagon and Rhomboid's clones are named Hexagon and Tesseract.
**Milleous takes Sangfroid's role.
**Rath wears a spacesuit when he goes to confront the Incurseans, and the battle is shown on-screen rather than being implied.
**The team lands on Sylex VII during the daytime. It also has a forest with Taydenite, rather than a badlands-like landscape.
**Jarett's design was originally meant to be all mouth and teeth, a grotesque blob, even more repulsive than Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars.
**Ben theorizes that interference from the Prince of Lewoda messed with the Omnitrix, instead of Gwen.
*This is Len Uhley's favorite episode to reminisce, and Dan Riba's favorite episode to work on.
==Notes==
==References==
===Production Material===
====Script Outlines====
===Crew Statements===
====T.J. Collins====
====Dwayne McDuffie====
====Len Uhley====
====Dan Riba====
===Cartoon Network===
es:Buscando la paz
it:L'Offerta di Pace
pl:Gniew (odcinek)
pt-br:Questão de Ira
ro:Furia lui Rath
Category:Episodes
Category:Ben 10: Alien Force Episodes
Category:Ben 10: Alien Force Season 2 Episodes
Category:Episodes Written by Len Uhley
Category:Episodes Directed by Dan Riba