The Purple Game (Episode)

**"The Purple Game"** is the thirty-sixth episode (Episode 20B) of *Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*. It first aired on July 6th, 2019.

## Characters

* Donatello (Josh Brener)
* Giant Mech
* Leonardo (Ben Schwartz)
* Michelangelo (Brandon Mychal Smith)
* Purple Dragons
	+ Jase (Eugene Byrd)
	+ Jeremy (Kyle Massey)
	+ Kendra (Tania Gunadi)
* Raphael (Omar Benson Miller)
* S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. (Greg Cipes)
* April O'Neil (Kat Graham)
* Mayhem
* Mrs. O'Neil

## Plot

In the arcade room, Donnie is watching a trailer for a competitive video game called "The Purple Game", where players battle for the highest rank to unlock an exclusive item. Donnie is intrigued and immediately downloads the game. The next morning Raph, Leo and Mikey are all ready and dressed up in their Jupiter Jim gear to visit a fan convention, but they learn Donnie has been gaming the whole night. The brothers start to get worried about him, as he seems to have no interest in the planned visit to the convention, even when Mikey mentions his childhood crush Atomic Lass will be there. Donnie absentmindedly says he's fine and that he'll meet up with them later, thus the others leave him alone.

Donnie continues to play The Purple Game and reaches rank 750. The game then shows him a pop-up stating that he's been "qualified for an epic upgrade" but he realizes he doesn't have enough points to buy it. He then proceeds to plunder his brothers' piggy banks to pay for it.

Later that day Raph, Leo and Mikey return from the fan convention, excited and emotional over their shared experiences and even brought back a Jupiter Jim toy for Donnie as a gift. However they find Donnie is still gaming, having reached rank 10. They notice the odd lumberjack gear Donnie is wearing, who is pleased to announce it's an upgrade he unlocked. As a panicked Leo begs Donnie to tell him how he was able to buy this, the latter merely glances away, revealing the destroyed piggy banks. Mikey is distraught at the sight of his "Mrs. Porkycoin" being smashed to pieces, as Leo and Raph state their growing concern over Donnie's gaming obsession.

Meanwhile, Donnie meets April's character in the game. They both are rank number 2 and need to defeat one last player to win the game, thus the final rank battle ensues between them. April has the upper hand and almost wins. Donnie, however, doesn't want to lose his chance to reach the highest rank and uses cheat codes to make April's character crash and defeats her, much to her shock. Donnie is overjoyed with his victory, even more when he learns he has unlocked the final exclusive item.

Raph, Leo, and Mikey are all set to help Donnie, as they have read all the articles they could find about "recreational gaming obsessive mania" on the internet (although Leo amused says he only read the comments). Just then they find out through a video that a giant mech is currently attacking the city. They're quite optimistic that a treat like this will get the usual Donnie back. In the arcade room, however they find Donnie with his final exclusive item, a brand new game chair, still playing The Purple Game. Raph tries to persuade him into joining them to fight the giant mech, even stating that they need him. Donnie casually promises he will be there in a moment.

The Turtles leave to find the giant mech on the loose and are ready to fight it. Donnie, however, doesn't show up, instead, he has sent S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. as a replacement, much to Raph's fury. They attack the gigantic robot, and Mikey gets up to its head to see who is driving it. He is shocked to discover that the cabin is empty, but on the dashboard, he notices the name Bootyyyshaker9000. The Turtles thus realize that the mech is actually controlled by Donnie through the game. Cutting back to Donnie, the game shows him this whole situation as though his character is being 'attacked' by three annoying cuddly bears. Leo thinks he can make Donnie aware it's them by excitedly shouting and waving his arms, but in the game, this only translates as a few cute squeaks from the bear. Donnie mockingly says he'd give the game credit for solid writing and starts to attack the bears (or his brothers in reality) more violently, as the game encourages him not to loose his number one rank.

Realizing their brother doesn't respond to anything, Leo suggests that they could use their "recreational gaming obsessive mania training" knowledge. Mikey thinks this means they should have a heart-to-heart talk with Donnie right there and then, but Raph would rather use Donnie's obsession against him. While they dodge the mech's attacks, S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N. hooks up Raph's phone to the mech's system. Raph makes a video call to Donnie through the game, begging him to stop playing as the mech is real. At first Donnie thinks it's all part of the gameplay, but then it dawns on him that he is in fact the one in control over the mech that is standing behind Raph.

Donnie frantically tries to quit the game, but at that moment the game chair activates itself, which restrains Donnie's arms and legs. The screen is then taken over by a video call from the Purple Dragons, who reveal themselves to be the ones behind The Purple Game, as they've wanted their revenge since the events of The Purple Jacket. They then force Donnie to watch his brothers being relentlessly attacked by the now fully self-operated mech.

The other three, however, have no idea of Donnie's encounter with the Purple Dragons, and is still under the impression that their brother is attacking them. They barely dodge a violent blow from the mech through Leo's portal and together they intend to destroy the mech using Raph's mystic power-up. The mech catches them however and almost crushes them in its fist. Donnie, witnessing the whole fight, struggles to free himself from the chair's restrains, but is able to reach the Jupiter Jim toy Leo gave him earlier, which he uses to activate his battle shells through his wrist computer. His jet-pack hooks up to the chair and thus Donnie is able to fly off to his brothers' rescue.

Just as the mech is about to give Raph, Leo and Mikey the last fatal blow, Donnie stops it by using cheat codes again, as he is still able to control the mech with his game controller. He destroys the robot and immediately checks upon his brothers to see if they are okay. Although Mikey is still distraught by the destruction of Mrs. Porkycoin, Donnie is glad to see they are all saved and apologizes for the things he has done. Just as he embraces his brothers his eyes catches a billboard advertisement for The Purple Game 2, which sends him back in his obsessive competitive gaming mode.

## Trivia

* The final rank battle between Donnie and April is a reference to the battles in the *Pokémon* video games.
	+ The text used for "Final Rank Battle" is nearly identical to the one that is used for *Super Smash Bros.*
* The tagline of the video game, "There can be only one", is a reference to the *Highlander* film franchise.
* S.H.E.L.L.D.O.N.'s sound effect when he's connecting to the mech is the AOL Dial-up sound.
* This is the last episode of Rise of the TMNT to premiere on Nickelodeon.
* "The Purple Game" recycles an entire animated sequence from a previous episode, "The Purple Jacket", where Donnie's tech autonomously leaves its mounts and wanders off. Such multi-episode scene recycling was practically nonexistent up to this point in the series.
	+ Ironically, both episodes are titled "The Purple \_\_\_\_\_"
* April's avatar in the game is named Sherlock Corn.
* Donnie has been confirmed as being on the Autistic Spectrum, and his behaviour in this episode is known as 'Hyperfocus', common in Autistics, under which one becomes completely focused on a single goal to the exclusion of all other activities, hobbies and needs, including sleeping or eating.
	+ Donnie had a previous, if more subtle attack of Hyperfocus in "Repo Mantis", where he became willing to do almost anything to get hold of the Jupiter Jim Moon Buggy, cumulating in him and Mikey building the Cuddle Cakes Puppy Rescue for Todd Capybara and then fighting Repo Mantis to get it back to the lair.