When Shredder plans to create an army of mutants, the Turtles must reluctantly rely on the help of the Pulverizer.
This episode provides examples of:
- Aesop Amnesia: The Turtles once again forget to not have an ego about how good they are in the beginning of the episode. Hence why Splinter decided to step in before it could bite the Turtles in the butt.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Pulverizer wanted desperately to become a mutant and as the Turtles explicitly point out in the episode, he got his wish.
- Breaking Old Trends: Whereas all previous mutations result in the victim turning into human-animal/plant hybrids, (or simply animals gaining human-like intelligence) Timothy's results in him mutating into a barely sentient green blob of acidic goo with visible organs that's unable to speak.
- Likely justified due to the fact that he never actually touched any animal or plant life recently and he was wearing a heavy-layer full body ninja outfit in addition to his Turtle outfit. That, and the mutagen is supposed to be unpredictable.
- Also, it should be noted that after pouring ooze on himself, Timothy is constantly trying to grab something. Since the mutagen had nothing to work with, it likely compelled him to find an animal to touch before it just gave up and turned him into B.O.B.'s cousin.
- Bilingual Bonus: The Foot motorcycle sashimono
reveal Shredder's family name is written as 小禄note . - Blob Monster: What happens to Pulverizer when he gets mutated. Also overlaps with Body Horror, as all of his organs are clearly visible inside his goo-body.
- Call-Back:
- Where does the Pulverizer go to continue his ninja training? A Chris Bradford dojo.
- Donnie recalls Splinter's words about how he's responsible for what happens to Pulverizer since he's the one who trained him.
- Cannon Fodder: This is Pulverizer's job in the Foot, they gave him the rank of ashigaru sha.
- Cerebus Syndrome: Done in a single episode no less. It starts out as a rather whacky episode since the Pulverizer is in it... and then he mutates and this episode arguably becomes the DARKEST episode in the series so far.
- Continuity Nod: Donnie hasn't forgotten how Splinter told him that he's responsible for whatever happens to Timothy.
- Cool Bike: Now the entire Foot Clan has them, black chopper-style hogs with an Eastern dragon motif as the front half of the bike. Seeing Fishface driving one is pretty surreal.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: The Turtles doing this to the Foot so often is what drives much of this episode; both Splinter's warning about complacency and Shredder's need for a force able to match the Turtles. See Lowered Recruiting Standards below.
- Didn't Think This Through: While he likely didn't anticipate Timothy being foolish enough to willingly mutate himself, (as pointed out below) Leo really should've known better than to let him continue being their spy in the Foot to gather more info on Shredder's mutation plan.
- Downer Ending: Timothy has become Mutagen Man and the villains get away, with the Shredder and the sole Kraang thinking of a team up.
- Even Evil Has Standards: The Kraang under Shredder's captivity seems slightly disturbed by Shredder's abuse and threats towards Dogpound.
- Foreshadowing: The comic book Michelangelo holds up has 80's Mutagen Man (with the line "Here comes LIVING X-RAY!") on the cover.
- Funny Background Event: When Leonardo is criticizing Raphael and Michelangelo on how life isn't a game, Donatello can be seen and heard in the background saying "Hey, coins!" and ducking to pick them up, with a Mario coin sound effect being heard.
- Gone Horribly Right: Pulverizer wanted to be a mutant. Now he is one.
- Gone Horribly Wrong: Except for Donnie, the Turtles were willing for Pulverizer to stay as their spy in the Foot rather than get him out now. It works out poorly.
- Gory Discretion Shot: Averted. Unlike other characters whose mutations were shadowed or off-screen, Pulverizer's is in full view and enjoys several close-ups.
- His Name Really Is "Barkeep": Pulverizer tries to pull this trope, but it's revealed that his name is Timothy.
- Hollywood Acid: Pulverizer gets this after his transformation into Mutagen Man.
- Hypocritical Humor:Fishface (to the Turtles): I'll deal with you soon enough, freaks!
- Idiot Ball: Splinter has the Turtles swap weapons with each other in order to learn how to adapt and not become complacent. When this goes badly for them during their fight with the Foot they swap back and quickly curb-stomp them. When they get back to the lair though they all loudly boast about how they kicked butt with their usual weapons, alerting Splinter that they disobeyed his orders and leading him to confiscating their weapons entirely until they learn what he is trying to teach them.
- Idiot Houdini: Not Timothy (whose self-inflicted mutation could be considered karma for constantly hindering the Turtles), but rather, Leo, who never gets called out by neither his brothers nor the narrative for letting Timothy find out more about the mutation plan which lead to the aforementioned mutation.
- Improvised Weapon: Splinter tries to teach the Turtles this. It doesn't work until he forces them to battle without their signature gear.
- It's Easy, So It Sucks!: In-universe. The Foot's quality has gotten so bad, the Turtles can overpower them without even trying. It's even lampshaded several times.
- Lowered Recruiting Standards: Dogpound has started doing this to bolster the numbers of the Foot. The Turtles are disappointed in the recent decline of enemy competence.Michelangelo: (disappointed) Dude, it's like we just cleared a video game on "easy".Leonardo: The Foot Soldiers haven't been much of a challenge lately. Wonder why.
- Even Shredder is disappointed:
Shredder: The ones left are hardly worthy of wearing the emblem of the Foot.- Later confirmed to the Turtles when the Pulverizer explains how he joined the Foot Clan:
Michelangelo: Wow, they must really be hurtin' for dudes. - Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Leo overruling Donnie's order for Timothy to quit the Foot and go home so he can find out more about Shredder's mutation plan results in Timothy mutating himself.
- To be fair, though, even if Leo didn't overrule Donnie, Timothy likely would've disobeyed them to find out more and volunteer for the mutation plan anyways. And it's doubtful that Leo anticipated Timothy (or anyone, for that matter) being foolish enough to willingly mutate himself.
- Never My Fault: Doesn't actually come up verbally, but there are shades of this when Pulverizer starts attacking the Turtles after his mutation. Or whether he's just feral now is unknown.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The promo just said the Turtles were taking on their biggest enemies with no mention of Pulverizer or his subsequent mutation.
- Oh, Crap!: The Kraang pulled this when he realized what Shredder was going to use the mutagen for and quickly warns Shredder of how the mutagen is unpredictable.
- Painful Transformation:"It burns!"
- Shout-Out: Timothy's mutated form without the tank bares a striking resemblance to B.O.B. (Benzoate Ostylezene Bicarbonate) from Monsters vs. Aliens.
- Sink or Swim Mentor: Seeing the Turtles have ignored his "weapons swap" order, Splinter confiscates them until they learn to adapt, even though they could soon head into another battle.
- Tempting Fate: Raphael asks Xever "What'cha gonna do now?" after hitting him with the trash cannon. Xever responds by taking out their back wheel. It is then lampshaded with Raphael asking why he asks stuff like that.
- Too Dumb to Live: Pulverizer, big time. Hell, Donnie tries to save him multiple times from dosing himself with the highly dangerous and completely unpredictable mutagen and even mentions how dangerous the gunk is, yet Timothy still wants to take it! Eventually, he succeeds. Unfortunately, nobody is pleased.
- And while it might be understandable that he didn't know what the "ashigaru sha" rank meant, he clearly doesn't understand what "cannon fodder" means.
- To clarify, "ashigaru" actually means "light of foot" and "sha" actually means "person". Basically, Timothy's rank means he was drafted as a "foot soldier person".
- And while it might be understandable that he didn't know what the "ashigaru sha" rank meant, he clearly doesn't understand what "cannon fodder" means.
- A Truce While We Gawk: Timothy douses himself with mutagen while everyone is busy fighting. The second he does, everyone stops what they're doing, and/or backs away as he starts screaming for help and mutating.
- Villain Decay: Invoked and deconstructed. The Turtles have rather effortlessly begun clobbering the average Foot Ninja, and it's proving difficult for Dogpound to find quality recruits. This is what motivates the Shredder to seek to create a mutant army.
- Villain Team-Up: The ending shows that Shredder and the Kraang he kidnapped are considering working together to defeat the Turtles.
- We Have Become Complacent: This is the Turtles' problem. Splinter grimly notes that they've defeated much of the Foot Clan with relative ease. When Raph wonders why it's a bad thing, Splinter snaps that it's because they've grown complacent, elaborating that they've become too dependent on their signature weapons in battle and they need to start working on being adaptive.
- What the Fu Are You Doing?: When the Turtles try to fight with each others' weapons, Hilarity Ensues. And Pulverizer, naturally.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Timothy must've been reading too many comic books if he thought dousing himself with an unstable alien mutagen from another dimension would turn him into a mutant superhero like his idols. His poor grasp on reality proves to his undoing.
