Aftermath and Rebirth

« Transformers: Titans Return ep 1 »
Ikari! You will take responsibility for betraying SEELE.
"Aftermath and Rebirth"
Production company	Hasbro Studios, Machinima
Airdate	November 14, 2017
Written by	Eric S. Calderon F.J. DeSanto Adam Beechen
Director	Yuzo Sato
Animation studio	Tatsunoko Production

Cybertron begins to rebuild, just in time for something else to go wrong.

Synopsis

Starscream declares the "Age of Starscream" is at hand...until he sees his own destroyed corpse lying on the ground below. Horrified, Starscream protests that he can't yet be dead as his spark begins to fly off.

In the aftermath of the Combiner Wars, the people of Cybertron work together to clear the rubble and rebuild, including the Combiners. Watching their efforts, the Mistress of Flame apologizes to Optimus Prime for her previous distrust, believing she should have seen through Starscream's ruse, and offers him the opportunity to stay as a member of the council. Prime politely declines, saying his time has passed and that he will keep his promise to leave Cybertron's leadership in its existing hands. He recommends Perceptor for the position instead, but the Mistress is taken aback, believing Perceptor's lack of battlefield experience makes him ill-suited. Windblade returns and attempts to dissuade Optimus from leaving as well, but Optimus assures her that she will be fine on her own thanks to her Cityspeaker bond with Metroplex, who transforms to robot mode behind them. Windblade returns to Metroplex's side, and Optimus bids the Mistress farewell before departing, observed from afar by an unseen Megatron.

At the Primal Basilica, Stormclash drops off Rodimus Prime, who seeks the counsel of the Chorus of the Primes. Believing his poor judgment allowed Starscream's plan to nearly succeed, he asks to return the Matrix of Leadership, no longer thinking himself worthy. Though the Primes assure him that he has performed admirably and Matrix holders are not meant to be infallible, Rodimus insists his decision is final and that he wants to go back to who he was. The Primes acquiesce and reformat his body, including restoring his destroyed arm. When the process is completed, Rodimus happily asserts that he is Hot Rod once again, and drives off.

Meanwhile, Starscream's spark continues to drift around Cybertron as he curses the gods for his predicament. He changes his tune when his spark finally comes to a stop over a pile of rubble, believing it is being returned to his body, only for panic to set in as he realizes whose body he is actually about to inhabit. The sudden infusion of Starscream's spark causes a burst of energy as the rubble begins to coalesce into a single form. Elsewhere, Windblade comes across Perceptor, who is studying Starscream's remains, fascinated by the changes the Enigma of Combination made to his molecular structure. An unimpressed Windblade returns to Metroplex's side, but the two are interrupted by a sudden energy storm as the last pieces of rubble move into place and the reformed Titan lets out a mighty roar. Trypticon is reborn.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"I'm only 108 million years old! I'm too young to be dead!"

—Starscream laments his lot in life...or death, rather.

"Farewell, Rodimus who was once Prime."
"The name's Hot Rod."

—The Chorus of the Primes says goodbye to The Artist Formerly Known As Rodimus.

Notes

Continuity notes

• No one acknowledges Windblade's warning that "the Titans have returned" from the end of the previous series, not even Windblade. In fact, when Trypticon is resurrected, she seems completely caught off guard.
• In the opening, the narrator mentions that Starscream's actions were "part of a far more dangerous threat," the full circumstances of which will not be revealed until the last episode of the season.
• Both the Constructicons and Stormclash appear by themselves, suggesting that combiners in this series are indeed capable of splitting themselves apart into their components. No acknowledgement is made, however, that any of these bots form portions of a combiner, and indeed for the duration of this series not a single combiner will form or de-form into their components, as was the case in Combiner Wars.
• Long Haul now speaks normally, instead of Mini-Con-like bleeps in his previous appearance.

Transformers references

• Unannounced as part of the cast prior to the episode's release, the narrator of the "previously on" segment is Victor Caroli, the narrator of the original Generation 1 cartoon.
• The Primal Basilica first appeared in the 2005 IDW continuity; there, it was a simple mausoleum for previous holders of the Matrix of Leadership, while in this series it has been re-imagined into a more explicitly mystical building, seemingly acting as a conduit to the Thirteen via the Chorus of the Primes.
• Upon being reformatted, Hot Rod has changed from his G1 Rodimus Prime design into his Titans Return toy design, minus the Titan Master head. This change also included a battle mask, which he curiously activates immediately for no apparent reason.
• Perceptor also uses his Titans Return toy design, though the Titan Master head serves as inspiration for his own with toy accurate slots and protrusions on the back of the red section. Unlike the toy, his head collapses into his chest cavity.
• Starscream survives as an incorporeal form; long-time Transformers fans shouldn't be too surprised by this twist, as Starscream's ghost has been an important part of the mythos since the original G1 cartoon, with his body-stealing abilities elaborated upon in the Beast Wars episode "Possession." Trypticon himself was previously a victim of this in the original cartoon episode "Ghost in the Machine".
• Metroplex's full bodied appearance is essentially his Titan Class figure in animated form. Trypticon is a similar case, though he is slightly scaled up to go toe-to-toe with Metroplex.

Animation and technical errors

• The poor audio mixing that plagued Combiner Wars returns with a vengeance. The scene inside the Primal Basilica is a particularly bad offender, with the Chorus of the Primes garbled by overzealous distortion effects, and Rodimus' dialogue only just audible over the background music.