Fungus Humungous (episode)

**Fungus Humungous** is the 10th episode of the second season and the 36th episode of the series and aired on February 16th.

***"Fear will be their enemy."***

## Official Description

Fungus spores spread through the sewers, causing April, Casey, and the Turtles to experience their worst fears; Leonardo must face his greatest fear, which is losing his team.

## Plot

The episode starts off with April and Casey listening to music on a bench in New York City. They soon decide to go down into the sewer to visit the Turtles, but, when they get down there, a very obnoxious smell (not the sewage) immediately catches their attention. Suddenly, the construction worker that was last seen in **Invasion of the Squirrelanoids** appears out of nowhere and runs right past April and Casey, screaming that a squirrel is chasing him. Casey and April see no squirrel, however, and follow the terrified man around a corner, only to find that he's disappeared....Then, April hears something strange and, before she knows it, something blows some type of powder directly into her eyes...She then glances at Casey and glimpses that his face looks like a bat of some kind! Mortified, she runs in the opposite direction and suddenly sees what appears to be her mutated father, WingNut, standing there!! Casey is utterly bewildered by April's strange behavior - and he quickly goes to inform the Turtles of this.

Meanwhile, at the Lair, Master Splinter and Leo are engaging in deep meditation. Splinter has no trouble whatsoever in doing so, but Leo seems to be having alot of trouble, due to the recent nightmares he's been having about his brothers being dragged off into darkness and him being completely helpless to assist them. Splinter tells him that losing one's team is a common fear that every signal leader is prone to face now and then. Casey then enters the lair and tells them of April's very odd attitude. When Casey says that he does not know exactly where her location is, Donnie starts to chastise him, but Leo quickly breaks up the squabble. So, the team heads out into the sewers to look for April. However, Casey hears an awkward sound and peers into a tunnel, only to be stunned by the same thing that stunned April. This same thing provokes his absolute greatest fear as well - Rats. And tons of them appear in the hallucination that follows and begin to engulf Casey...much to his own dismay. This time, the Turtles are the ones who are completely baffled. While Casey becomes increasingly frantic, Donnie rounds a corner and spots a still horrified April, who is still hallucinating that WingNut is in her presence as well. Donnie tries to calm her down, but to no avail whatsoever. The Turtles then realize what has been the perpetrator of all of this turmoil - Mushrooms!! Tons of them!! One then appears and attaches itself onto Mikey's head and, from that point on, the four brothers do the best they can to dispose of these little pests, but one manages to spray Raphael with the very same stuff that caused Casey and April to become terrified, and, thus, Raph does as well...He hallucinates Leo as the Spy-Roach and, vowing to eliminate the disgusting insect, he quickly leaps into the air and is about to harm Leonardo by mistake!

Leo dodges out of the way and Raph lands hard on the ground. Mikey wraps his Nunchucks around his now extremely mortified brother, which is able to contain him for a couple minutes...They keep walking until they come to a tunnel that is swarming with fungal matter. Donnie tells his brothers that fungi reproduces overnight and it could find a way to spread all over the city if they don't stop it. They then come to a place where an army of Mushroom Men attack them and spray Mikey. Coughing, he trips over one of Raph's legs and they both freak out at the sight of one another (Raph sees Mikey as the Spy-Roach and Mikey sees Raph as a Squirrelanoid). Then, Donatello is sprayed by the substance and begins to hallucinate that April (who is hallucinating Donnie as a bat) is calling him a freak over and over again and despises him. Everybody besides Leo then leaves the area, leaving Leo completely abandoned...However, he is the final one to get sprayed. Then, he hallucinates that his favorite television character, Captain Ryan, is scolding him because he let his brothers walk away from him...Leo tries to fight his trance, but it doesn't work. Then, a ton of mushrooms gather up in a single file line and start to slowly and ominously surround Leo. Two of them fly up and squirt the substance into his face at the same time, which causes him to slip and fall off of a nearby ledge.

Leo lands in an unknown place, but, luckily, he's uninjured. He then imagines his own brothers admonishing him about his failure to protect them. Then, he quickly gets himself up and sees that a gigantic figure is right next to him - It's FUNGUS HUMUNGOUS! The giant spore has one huge eye protruding from the center of it's "head" and the creature can seemingly speak....Leo notices a Mutagen canister sticking out of the beast. The monster orders some Mushroom Men to cause more fear inside of Leo and, sure enough, Leo becomes even more fearful and much more guilt-ridden than ever before. However, he is able to snap out of it and slices most of the attacking mushrooms in half. When he becomes fearful yet again, he instinctively envisions what Master Splinter had told him earlier on. Thus, he grabs both of his Katanas, destroys Fungus Humungous by letting a huge amount of light into the room, and snaps out of his trance with relative ease. Meanwhile, the other three turtles, April, and Casey snap out of this as well, but only due to the fact that Fungus Humungous was destroyed, which caused a chain reaction in which all of the other fungi were also destroyed...The others soon find Leo lying on the ground, seemingly unconscious, but he quickly wakes up when Mikey wonders if he needs mouth to mouth. Raph thanks his brother for saving all of their lives - however he pulled it off. They then head back to the Lair and joyously discuss their triumph. Leo tells his Master Splinter about how he faced his fear, which causes his sensei to question if he was truly able to 'master' his fear. Leo solemnly replies that he didn't, but he did face it. Splinter explains that this is what makes him a great leader. Meanwhile, Mikey brings in a 'victory Pizza', with Pepperoni, Sausage, and extra Mushrooms, but, because of the exerience they've had with mushrooms, the others leave the area in disgust. Mikey does not discrimate, however, and he lifts up a slice. He examines it and notices that there is a mushroom that appears to be dancing awkwardly on the Pizza.

## Splinter's Wisdom

*"All leaders must face the fear of losing their team. I face this every time you and your brothers leave the lair."*

## Character Debuts

* Fungus Humungous
* Mushroom Men

## Trivia

* The Mushroom Men around Leo dancing to the tune of "The Nutcracker Suite" is a reference to Walt Disney's 1940 animated film, "Fantasia".
* Mikey makes a Super Mario Brothers reference, as he jumps on the top of the mutant mushrooms and calls it "Super Mikey Brothers".