Shadow of Evil

**"Shadow of Evil"** is the twenty-eighth episode (Episode 16) of *Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles*. It first aired on April 20th, 2019.

## Characters

* April O'Neil (Kat Graham)
* Baron Draxum (John Cena)
* Donatello (Josh Brener)
* Foot Clan
	+ Foot Brute (Maurice LaMarche)
	+ Foot Lieutenant (Rob Paulsen)
	+ Foot Soldiers
	+ Origami Ninja
	+ Shredder
* Leonardo (Ben Schwartz)
* Michelangelo (Brandon Mychal Smith)
* Raphael (Omar Benson Miller)
* Splinter (Eric Bauza)
* Huginn (Tim Simons)
* Hamato Karai
* Krystal Yistal
* Muninn (Sam Richardson)
* Mutant Magpie

## Plot

The Mad Dogs arrive at the Middle Park Zoo, which has been overrun by Baron Draxum's purple tentacles. The Baron himself watches as Huginn and Muninn struggle to free a piece of mystic metal from one of the habitats, and the Turtles are shocked to see him swat away his own Oozesquito, apparently uninterested in mutating any of the animals or humans nearby. When the Turtles confront him, Draxum simply takes the mystic metal and leaves. They decide to find more mystic metal in order to draw him out, and leave as well. As they depart, a magpie pecks at the Oozesquito, and its eyes begin glowing green.

In the lair, Splinter is celebrating the way he lives his life when he sees April's T-shirt, which has the Foot Clan emblem printed on it. This sight causes him to have a brief vision of the Foot Clan, and then of an armored man with glowing mouth and eyes. April reveals that it's a shirt from her latest job, a shoe store called the Foot Shack, and Splinter decides that he needs to drop by that store. April has no idea why he wants to, but she forbids him from coming to where she works because he is a mutant rat.

Undeterred, Splinter shaves off his fur, dresses like a teenager and heads for the surface. He bumps into the Turtles as they are returning, and all of them pretend that they are going about normal business.

The Turtles set out once again, with Donatello riding atop the Turtle Tank and looking for glowing metal. However, the now-mutant magpie swoops down and carries him away, and his brothers pursue it.

Splinter arrives at the Foot Shack and begins looking around. April is horrified to see him despite his claims to be an average teenager named "Randall", though his disguise is sufficient to fool people who do not know him. He warns April that he is there because he believes the store is being run by an evil organization. Just then, the Foot Lieutenant and Foot Brute arrive, and head into the back room through a large vault door in the back of the store. Splinter's interest is piqued, and he manages to infiltrate the back room by sneaking (and falling) through a skylight, with a protesting April following him.

Once they are the room, April notices a small assembly of ninjas. To Splinter's surprise, the Foot Clan merely appears to be unveiling its new Spring line of pump sandals, causing him to laugh mockingly. However, Splinter's laughter is quickly replaced by a feeling of dread when the Foot Lieutenant unfurls a scroll that depicts a suit of armor. He has another vision, this time of a massive explosion that destroys an entire city, a burning medieval Japanese building, energy streaming from people's eyes and mouths, and a sinister armored face with glowing eyes. He throws his back out again, declaring that he is much too old and weak to deal with the great evil the Foot Clan is threatening to unleash.

Splinter then tells April of an evil entity banished five hundred years ago: a madman who donned a mystic suit of armor called the Kuroi Yōroi. The "demon" was eventually defeated by Splinter's ancestors, who scattered the pieces of armor and made sure none of them ended up in the hands of the Foot Clan. Splinter himself, however, did not believe the legend, and so parlayed his martial-arts skills into a movie career as the famous Lou Jitsu. Now, if the Foot reassemble the armor, their master will be free once again. After accidentally knocking out a pair of Foot ninja and taking a uniform from one of them, he vows that the "Shredder will never walk the earth again".

Outside, a disguised Splinter goes undercover within the Foot Clan. April sends a message to the Turtles, who are all clinging to the mutated magpie. At Donatello's urging, they start plucking feathers until the magpie falls out of the sky. When they land in front of the Foot Shack, Donatello reveals that he saw some mystic metal a few blocks away, and the Turtles set out to recover it.

At a nearby train station, the Foot begin searching for the mystic metal, and Splinter spots it. He instructs April, who has followed him there, to distract the Foot while he makes off with the armor piece. Just as he manages to sneak it away, the Turtles crash through a nearby window and leave the station in ruins. As the Foot ninja attack the Turtles, Splinter gives April the metal and tells her to escape with it.

April gets on the next train, lamenting that she can't fight alongside Splinter and the Turtles. The lights flicker, and giant purple tentacles burst into the subway car.

The Turtles are easily able to fight off the Foot Clan ninja, so the Foot Lieutenant commands "Randall" to fight them. The Turtles mock him, not realizing his true identity, but are shocked when he easily and expertly defeats each one of them, dodging their blows and fighting off multiple attacks at once.

Just as he finishes, the ground splits open and Draxum emerges from the subway car, with a captive April tied up in tentacles. Splinter is shocked to realize that the Turtles know Draxum, and quickly sets out to kill Draxum with a large sword. Unfortunately, he throws out his back again, and his method of fixing it causes the Turtles to recognize him as their father, blowing his cover. As Draxum scoffs at the idea that Splinter is Lou Jitsu, the mutant rat shouts “Hot Soup!” and breaks free from the tendrils, causing Draxum to proclaim in astonishment that Splinter is, in fact, Lou Jitsu, much to the Turtles’ shock.

Raphael punches Draxum, sending the mystic metal onto the train tracks and causing it to be run over by a passing train. The Foot Lieutenant unleashes dozens of Origami Ninja, forcing Splinter, April and the Turtles to retreat, despite Splinter shouting that they have to get the armor. They hop on the back of the train, and vanish into the tunnels.

Once they are all safe, Splinter thank his sons. He then karate-chops each of them on their foreheads and grounds them for not telling him that they knew Draxum, much to Leo's indignation, and his brothers’ dismay. He promises to tell them everything, further proclaiming that their destiny begins tomorrow, and they are way behind. He then wails at them to carry him, because of his bad back and his bones rattling.

Back in the train station, the Lieutenant, Brute, and Draxum watch as the broken armor piece reforms itself. Back at the Foot Shack, the Lieutenant reveals a hidden staircase leading down into a vast cavern filled with candles. He and Draxum unite two pieces of the armor, and he places them on the partially-assembled Kuroi Yōroi. A gust of wind blasts through the cavern, extinguishing the candles, as the Lieutenant smiles sinisterly. A brief glimpse of the Shredder is seen and he cackles evilly.

## Trivia

* + This is the fourth 30-minute episode of the series, following "Mystic Mayhem", "Bug Busters", and "The Evil League of Mutants".
	+ This episode marks the Shredder's debut in *Rise of the TMNT*. However, he is only seen in brief flashbacks.
	+ The sidewalk where the Turtle Tank splashes water onto Splinter as it drives by is the same sidewalk where Donnie and Mikey in the same vehicle slicked pedestrians with the Gravity Grease 3000 as it was driving by earlier in "Repo Mantis".
	+ As the Turtles spy on Draxum at the zoo, a warthog, a rhinoceros, and two humans are seen caught in Draxum's vines. This is a reference to the classic *TMNT* characters Bebop and Rocksteady.
		- Interestingly, the two humans bear a resemblance to the human forms of the two mutants from both the 1987 TV series and 2012 TV series. Both humans resemble the 1987 Bebop and Rocksteady as humans, but with the same bodily proportions as Bebop and Rocksteady from the 2012 TV series.
	+ The ringtone of April's cellphone is the same one used by the T-Phones in the 2012 TV series.
	+ It was revealed in April 2019 by *Rise of the TMNT* director and story artist JJ Conway in a Tumblr post that, "Being a life long fan of all things TMNT, when I had the opportunity to draw Lou Jitsu fighting whatever I wanted in the Battle Nexus, I naturally drew a Spasmosaur (modeled after the 2012 design)."
	+ During one part of the fight scene between Splinter and the Turtles, a voice (presumably the Foot Brute's) can be heard cheering "Randall" on in the background.
	+ During Splinter's flashback, a clapperboard is seen that has the title "Hot Soup Forever" written on it. This is a possible reference to the *TMNT* movie, *Turtles Forever*.
		- The name "Andy Ward" can also be seen on the clapperboard, a reference to *Rise of the TMNT* co-executive producers Andy Suriano and Ant Ward.
	+ The sixth actress with whom Lou Jitsu is shown in the flashback resembles Megara from the 1997 musical comic fantasy film *Hercules*.
	+ "Shadow of Evil" was originally titled "Undercover Rat".
	+ The Japanese text on the Foot Clan scroll translates to:
		- 龍, "Dragon" (written in kanji).
		- 悪魔の鎧, "Demon armor".
	+ April referring to Splinter as "Rodel" instead of "Randall" may be a reference to *Rise of the TMNT* background layout designer Rodel Gravo.
	+ It was stated in April 2019 by *Rise of the TMNT* director and story artist Conway in a Tumblr post concerning this episode's fight scene between Splinter and the Turtles that, "I loved storyboarding this scene because it’s got a great story; it’s full of discovery between the characters. Up front the Turtles arrogantly underestimate their little foe so he easily mops the floor with them. But once they take the fight seriously, it’s Splinter’s turn to realize that he’s underestimated the skills of his sons (who are far more capable than he expected) and he finds himself on the defensive, desperately trying to stay a step ahead their attacks. But once he gets his footing back, it’s time for them to go all out against each other, with Splinter taking on all 4 at once. The jokes are done; playtime is over. It’s overwhelming, with well trained attacks coming from all sides, but Splinter overcomes and takes them all out. He had to earn his victory, though; he’s so winded that he collapses! I’ve storyboarded a lot of fights in my career, and it’s always so much more exciting to be able to find a story like that in the fight, rather than just drawing a series of punches and kicks. I’d get bored drawing that, and you’d get bored watching it! But showing our heroes learn about each other through combat is thrilling, and makes for a far more memorable scene because it has more than just cool moves driving it forward. So with this scene, not only was I tasked with staging the fight between Splinter and the Turtles, but I also had to figure out how Splinter fights. I had a lot of freedom with this (since this was his first big action scene), so I decided to take inspiration from Jackie Chan and Yoda in my approach to how he fights. I wanted to feel Jackie Chan's resourcefulness for using the environment, but more importantly how he carefully balances comedy in a way that never undermines his skills as a master. He can feel like an underdog without feeling like an amateur. As for Yoda, of course I looked at his nimble speed and agility, but I also took a lot of inspiration from when we first meet the Jedi Master in [*The Empire Strikes Back*]. He seems like a harmless, wacky kook, but is actually the Jedi Master [Luke Skywalker] is searching for. To me, that’s Splinter in a nutshell; he seems like a helpless goofball, but underneath he’s an absolute master of his craft. It might not be an overt influence, but that guided a lot of decisions I made in how I portrayed the character here . . . These weren’t instructions from above; rather they were decisions I made to help guide all the smaller choices I would have to make while putting the scene together . . . ."