EPISODE EIGHTY THREE
“I, Monster”
Written by Brandon Sawyer
Original Air Date: October 15, 2005
Supervising Producer: Lloyd Goldfine
Producers: Gary Richardson, Frederick U. Fierst, Al Kahn, Norman Grossfeld, Thomas Kenney
Supervising Director: Roy Burdine
Story Editor: Lloyd Goldfine
MAJOR CHARACTERS:
Donatello (Sam Regal)
Leonardo (Michael Sinterniklaas)
Michelangelo (Wayne Grayson)
Raphael (John Campbell)
Casey Jones
SECONDARY CHARACTERS:
The Rat King
MAIN LOCATIONS, VEHICLES AND ACCESSORIES:
Abandoned industrial park
Synopsis:
Intro: Rat King voice-over as we open with him emerging from a mucky pool of river water. He doesn’t know how he got there, what happened, or even who he is. He approaches an old, abandoned building and goes inside… rats come out of cover and follow him.
Act 1: Open at an abandoned industrial park where the Turtles and Casey Jones have come to practice their skills in a game of ninjitsu “hide ‘n’ seek”. The group leaps the fence and begins to investigate the premises. Little do they know that they aren’t alone in the facility.
As they explore, Leo gets an eerie feeling as the Rat King watches them from above. Mikey explains the rules of the drill and that the record for holding the yellow marker bandana is 15 minutes – he then takes off and sets his timer, hoping to set a new best-time. While Don, Leo, Raph and Casey search for Mike, the Rat King lurks in the shadows, watching and planning. Casey eventually enters a room that Michelangelo is hiding in, but the Turtle gives Jones the slip.
Outside, Leonardo spots a shadowy figure spying on his brothers and leaps into action. Leo crashes through a second story window – but there’s no one in the room. Don arrives and tells his brother he’s seeing ghosts – but Leonardo remains on edge.
Mikey finds a new room to hide in, but he’s not alone here either. A speedy, dark form darts circles around the affable ninja. Mike thinks that his brothers are playing tricks on him and thus is caught by surprise as the Rat King hits him from behind with a board, knocking the Turtle cold.
Act 2: Open in a boiler room. Mike is strapped down to an unhinged door, looming over him is the Rat King. Mikey bewilderedly asks what’s going on, but the Rat King merely laughs maniacally and departs as a group of angry rats enters the room.
Outside, Casey and the Turtles have found a pile of bricks that’s convulsing. Jones and Raph assume that it’s Mikey and chastise him for having the worst hiding spot ever – but when Raphael knocks over the mound, hundreds of rats pour out and run off. Suddenly, the Rat King leaps down into the courtyard and faces our heroes. The mysterious man then runs off, the Turtles and Jones in hot pursuit.
Cut back to Mikey as the rats swarm him. With adrenalin-enforced might, Mikey breaks the bindings on his legs and uses the door to knock the rats away. The Turtle dashes across the room with the door on his back as rodents leap and attack. Mike dives backwards into a wall and shatters the wooden door, completely freeing himself. The rats continue their assault.
Back on the surface, Rat King proves to be a skilled foe, performing stunts that a normal human being couldn’t possibly do. Rat King flees into a large brick silo. Just then, Mike crashes through a pair of basement doors and emerges from the darkness right next to his team. Raph turns to tell Leonardo that their brother has returned, only to see Leo running headlong into the silo.
The guys make haste to catch up with their fearless leader. The group arrives in the center of silo and hear their quarry laughing. The guys look up and see the Rat King standing on the precipice of the chimney. The bedraggled figure pulls a rope that seals off the entrance. Our heroes look around and see no means of escape – the only thing visible are hundreds of pairs of angry red eyes peering out from the cracks in the walls.
Act 3: Rats pour out of the walls and attack. The Turtles and Casey fight back, fending off the angry critters. Leonardo stresses that they won’t have to defeat every rodent – they just have to put up enough of a fight to teach them a lesson. Soon enough, the rats do realize that this is one meal that’s not worth the fight and they retreat. This outcome angers the Rat King and he jumps down and attacks in a flurry of blows. With the fast moving Rat King to help, the rats come back for a second try. Rat King has incredible fighting skills – a style that’s very familiar to Leonardo. Rat King tosses Mike into a wall, dazing the Turtle and creating fault lines in the structure. Raph spots the weakness and plows through the stonework, making an escape route. The guys bail out of the rat-infested silo.
Our heroes escape the rats, but the Rat King is on the move. The enigmatic villain jumps on top of a nearby building. Leonardo throws shuriken at his foe, which he evades. However, one of the throwing stars hits the bricks beneath the Rat King’s feet, weakening them and causing them to crumble. The rodent liege falls backwards, crashing through the decaying building in a cloud of debris. Leo states that it’s finished and begins to walk away, but the Rat King explodes out of the bottom floor of the structure. With the others still blinded and lost in dust, Leo turns to face the Rat King.
Act 4: As Leo and the Rat King do battle, the smoke clears so the others can watch on. Leonardo insists that this is his fight alone – Don wants to help since they have no idea how powerful their enemy is, but Raph intervenes and suggests that Leonardo has more monsters to work out of his system than just the one he’s currently facing. The battle moves inside as Rat King retreats from the determined ninja.
As the fight ensues, the partially destroyed silo collapses into a gigantic chimney which then falls domino-like onto the building where the skirmish is taking place. Leo actually saves Rat King from being crushed by the falling tower. The two enemies are briefly standing together on a piece of the floor left balancing on girders. Beneath the mostly collapsed floor, we see an enormous army of rats on the ground below. The Turtles cry out for Leonardo to leap off of the swaying platform, and he does so – but he doesn’t quite make the jump and Raph has to grab his arm to keep him fro falling into the rodent pit. Rat King then leaps at Leo and grabs onto his back. Raph and the others struggle to pull up their brother as Rat King tries to strangle him from behind. Leonardo is pulled up, and once safe, he elbows his enemy, sending him flying towards the hordes of rodents waiting below. As the guys watch from above, Rat King is swallowed by the mass of rats.
The Turtles and Casey leave the abandoned grounds. Outside the fence, Mikey notices that he’s still wearing the yellow bandana and thus has had it on for about 45 minutes – a new record! Raphael unties the bandana from his gloating brother’s arms and snaps him with it – Mikey yelps with pain. The guys then head for home.
Inside the collapsed building we see that Rat King wasn’t consumed by the rodents – he is alive and well. Rat King crouches and muses about how everything that he sees loathes and fears him – everything, that is, save for the rats.
