Crisscross (episode)

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"Crisscross"
Season	1
No. in season	17
Production company	Hasbro Studios
Airdate	June 25, 2011
Written by	Joseph Kuhr
Directed by	Vinton Heuck
Animation studio	Polygon Pictures
Watch this episode on YouTube

Airachnid teams up with MECH to get revenge on Arcee and Jack.

Synopsis

Silas and three MECH soldiers are searching through a wooded area for a Decepticon. They jump into a web-shrouded ravine, but the three soldiers are snatched from the ground and stuck on one of the webs by Airachnid. Silas takes a shot at her, but is promptly thrown against a rock wall and webbed there. The Decepticon threatens to eviscerate him for what MECH did to Breakdown, but wants his help in finding Jack Darby and will give them Arcee.

Jack arrives home with Arcee, to find his mother mad that he's been breaking curfew and neglecting his job and schoolwork. She believes he may have been racing his motorcycle and grounds him for the next few weeks—with no motorcycle use. Arcee says she'll miss Jack during that time, but he points out that if she doesn't stay in the garage, his mom will think he's breaking her rules. Arcee promises she'll try to be back in the garage before his mom gets home each night.

This must be some form of abuse, surely.

The next day, as Jack's leaving KO Burger, he gets a call from his mother, who is on her way home early to make dinner for him. He frantically contacts Arcee, who's with Bumblebee in the middle of a fight with some Vehicons. Arcee leaves Bumblebee to it and bridges out. June arrives home to find the garage empty, and she blows up at Jack as he arrives on his bicycle. Arcee bridges into the garage behind her, but this merely results in June thinking one of Jack's friends snuck the motorcycle in. Jack spills all about the Autobots, but when Arcee refuses to transform, Jack's mom asks if he's been hanging out with a science fiction club. She leaves to return to work, the conversation unfinished.

"Jehovah's Witnesses, ma'am. Take a leaflet!"

Silas uses images from the black box from Airachnid's ship to track down information on Jack, including the identity of his mother. A MECH vehicle soon arrives to abduct June as she leaves the hospital.

Jack arrives home on his cycle to find Arcee, but no mom. There's a package waiting for him, which turns out to be a MECH communicator. Silas tells the pair that MECH has June, and there are GPS coordinates that will lead them to the temporary MECH facility. Arcee attempts to contact base and gets an instant headache. Silas explains the communicator will scramble her brain as well as Autobot communications. Jack and Arcee follow the communicator's map to a disused factory, where they're met by Silas and a bunch of MECH goons. They race past the MECH guys to look for Jack's mom and instead find Airachnid. Airachnid webs Arcee, who is then zapped by a MECH soldier. The 'Con tells Jack he has until midnight to rescue his mother. Jack tries to plead with Silas for help, but the MECH leader pushes him back. Jack then races off to find his mom, followed by Airachnid. Silas tells his men to start working on Arcee, as he suspects Airachnid will double-cross them.

Jack runs through the factory, but is unable to find June until Airachnid points her out, dangling in a web cocoon from a building. At this point, June awakens both to discover her predicament and to spy Airachnid. Jack tells Airachnid he's found his mom, but she points out the task was to rescue June. Webbing Jack's hand to the ground, she prepares to destroy his family.

The MECH surgeons finish cutting through the web holding Arcee, and Silas instructs them go for the heart, as they only have time to take one part. Arcee has recovered consciousness by this point, and she tosses the MECH personnel aside before leaving to help Jack.

"Thanks a lot, Mixmaster."

As Jack continues to try to free his hand, Airachnid moves in on June. Before she can lay a hand on mom, however, Arcee comes barreling up a nearby roof and tackles her. Jack gets free and goes to help June, while Arcee and Airachnid battle on the factory superstructure. They eventually reach the ground, but Airachnid's laser fire damages the platform June is dangling from, and Jack has to scramble to avoid falling. Jack accidentally knocks against a lever, pouring concrete into a concrete truck on the ground. Arcee manages to kick Airachnid into a container nearby, and with Jack's help, pours concrete in on top of her. Airachnid starts climbing out, but is frozen by the quick-drying substance. Arcee goes to help June, but the concrete isn't enough, and Airachnid webs her back to the ground. Luckily, the cavalry arrives in the form of Agent Fowler with three helicopters armed with chain guns.

Silas wonders how Fowler was alerted, and then realizes Jack stole his radio earlier.

The helicopters stop firing, but this just allows Airachnid to scan Fowler's chopper and make her escape in her new altmode. Her scanning process is also observed by Silas.

Fowler introduces himself to June and attempts to weave a cover story, but June doesn't buy it. Jack introduces her to Arcee, and the next day, they go to the Autobot base so she can meet the rest of the Autobots.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Tell me you haven't fallen in with a bad crowd."
"W-what? N-no no no no, my friends are the good crowd, seriously good."

—Jack's not wrong.

"Ah, the mother lode."
"Government database?"
"Social networking page."

—Silas teaches Airachnid the fastest way to track down a teenager.

"Now, I know we promised the spider-bot that she would have first crack at you, but something tells me she's going to turn our mutual crisscross... into a double-cross."

—Silas shows he is alarmingly genre-savvy.

"Jack, your motorcycle?"
"I can explain, Mom. Wait, I already did."

—Even with June Darby in mortal peril, Jack can still crack wise.

"Oh, not again!"

—Agent Fowler is exasperated at Decepticons copying his vehicles.

"So that's how it's done. Genius."

—Silas on seeing how Airachnid scans a vehicle mode.

"It's time you knew the truth. For the past several months, Jack has been... interning for me at the agency."
"Agent Fowler, Mom's not gonna buy that."
"He's got that right."

—Agent Fowler's first meeting with June hits a rocky start.

"Motorcycle, Guardian, Autobot, friend."

—Jack lists Arcee's status to his mom.

"Mom, meet my science fiction club!"

—Jack introducing June to the Autobots

Notes

Continuity notes

• Airachnid wants revenge on Arcee and Jack for the events in "Predatory".
• The rumors June heard about Jack racing his motorcycle may have been referencing the events of "Speed Metal".
• Airachnid has heard of Breakdown's treatment by MECH, which happened in the previous episode.
• Messages on Jack's social networking page refer back to "Speed Metal" (Sierra refers to a race) and "Con Job" (Miko's message about a monster truck rally references a line of dialog from that episode).
• Agent Fowler previously had a vehicle of his scanned for an alternate mode by Skyquake back in "Masters & Students".
• The soldier who reports to Fowler at the end is the same one who was on the train in "Convoy".

Transformers references

• The final sequence of Arcee and Jack taking June to the Autobot base is an almost shot-for-shot replica of the first time Jack, Miko and Raf were taken there back in the pilot. Even the same musical piece, "We Have Returned", is used.

Real-world references

• The title of this episode is a reference to Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train, which famously originated the use of the word "crisscross" for a team-up murder plot in which each participant takes out the enemy of the other. Silas even uses the term to describe MECH's alliance with Airachnid. Until he suspects it will instead become a double-cross, where one side betrays the other.
• Super Guitar Band, which Miko posts on Jack's social networking page, is an amalgam of Guitar Hero, Rock Band and the plethora of video games with "Super" as a prefix.

Animation and technical errors

• June takes an early break from work to cook Jack a dinner, but then as soon as she gets home, she returns to work. (Maybe she needed a coffee.)
• The amount of cement shown pouring onto Airachnid isn't actually enough to cover her entire body.
• When Airachnid addresses that Jack is facing a time limit, the first time the clock is seen, it is just after 11:53 PM. Within the span of about thirty seconds real-time in the episode, it is seen again, but has jumped to 11:54. It could just be that we are not being shown what happened in the full span of that minute in-universe onscreen, or we're playing by dramatic tension and it's a Hollywood-style "magic" countdown, or Airachnid and/or MECH is playing unfair and speeding the countdown up. Whatever in the case, it's just a show and we really should just relax.
• Airachnid scans Agent Fowler's helicopter, which resembles a UH-1 "Huey", but the alt-mode she adopts is of a completely different design, resembling a futuristic RAH-66 Comanche. However, this isn't the first time in a Transformers continuity that robots have reconfigured their alt modes into something more advanced once they've obtained one, suggesting they can sometimes update/upgrade machines.

Trivia

• The name of this episode was rendered "Criss-Cross" on the Hub's website.^[1]
• MECH has a really funny concept of "suppression fire".
• The name of the social networking page is partially obscured, but begins with "Some Social".
• Fowler got someone else to pilot his helicopter for him this time.
• Silas calls June Darby "Miss Darby", but Fowler calls her "Mrs. Darby". The following episode would reveal the former to be accurate.
• Optimus Prime, Ratchet, Bulkhead, Raf, and Miko all cameo at the end, but have no lines.
• The way Airachnid says "'Transformer', was it", implies that Cybertronians don't use that term themselves and that it's an invention of humans. This is different from most (if not all) other continuities, where "Transformers" is a term that they themselves seem to have come up with.
• This is the first time anyone from the Autobots' team meets Silas face to face.
• The photo in the Darby household is the opening shot from "Darkness Rising, Part 1", only flipped.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "La Vengeance d'Airachnid" ("Airachnid's Revenge")
• Original airdate: ?

German

• Title: "Der Hinterhalt" ("The Ambush")
• Original airdate: 13 January 2012

Hungarian

• Title: "Túszjátszma" ("Hostage Game")
• Original airdate: 31 January 2012

Indonesian

• Title: "Airachnid: Pencarian Jack" ("Airachnid: Search of Jack")
• Original airdate: 24 September 2012

Italian

• Title: "Rivelazioni" ("Revelations"), "A Linee Incrociate" ("Crossed Lines", 2017 airing)
• Original airdate: 20 November 2011

Japanese

• Title: "Bōryaku Henkei! Jaaku na Ito o Dante! " (謀略変形!邪悪な糸を断て!, "Strategy Transformation! Unravel the Sinister Thread!")
• Original airdate: 28 July 2012
• Airachnid's romantic infatuation with Jack is much less exaggerated in this episode than in the dub of "Predatory". While she still refers to him by amorous pet names, her cruel quest for vengeance remains unaltered.

• Despite that, her crush on Jack is not forgotten. When Silas identifies him via the footage from "Predatory", Airachnid swoons with joy as she shouts, "Aha! Yes, yes! That's the one! My Jack!"
• Then, when Silas reads Jack's online profile to Airachnid and mentions that he's 16 years old, Airachnid excitedly shouts, "16!? At last!" Specifically, she says "kitaaaaaa--!", which literally means "It has come!" but has become Japanese internet slang for just being really, really, really excited about something.
• After Arcee arrives and the final fight of the episode begins, Airachnid angrily cries that she's sick and tired of Arcee constantly interrupting her "flirting".

• Airachnid's delusional and vain personality, exclusive to the Japanese dub, is on prominent display in this episode. When the quick-drying cement descends upon her, Airachnid cries that she's the heroine and these sorts of things aren't supposed to happen to her. She then screams that she absolutely hates to get dirty (strange, considering her habit of burrowing in the dirt).
• When Fowler and his reinforcements open fire on her, Airachnid screams, "Hey, wait! Aren't you overdoing it? Isn't this cruel? The heroine... can't die! Scanning!"

Korean

• Title: "Geomi ui Boksu" (거미의 복수, "Spider's Revenge")
• Original airdate: 24 October 2011

Polish

• Title: ?
• Original airdate: 27 December 2011

Portuguese

• Title: "Dupla Atração" ("Double Atraction")
• Original airdate: 27 February 2012

Spanish (Spain)

• Title: "Entrecruzado" ("Crisscross")
• Original airdate: 9 June 2012

Home video releases

DVD

2012 — Transformers Prime — Season One (Shout! Factory)
2012 — Transformers Prime — Season One Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2012 — Transformers Prime — Folge 4: Die vierte Dimension (EDEL:kids) — English and German audio.
2012 — Transformers Prime — Volume 4: Strength in Numbers (Madman Entertainment)
2012 — Transformers Prime — Staffel 1 - Das Bündnis (EDEL:kids) — English and German audio.
2012 — Transformers Prime — Vol. 9 (Avex Trax) — Japanese audio only.
2013 — Transformers Prime — Saison 1 Vol. 4: Une alliance inattendue (Universal Pictures France) — English, French, Italian, Dutch and Spanish audio.
2013 — Transformers Prime — Vol. 4: Improbabili alleanze (Universal Pictures IT) — English, Italian, Dutch, French and Spanish audio.
2013 — Transformers Prime — Season One: Unlikely Alliances (Universal Pictures UK)
2014 — Transformers Prime — Saison 1: L'intégrale (Universal Pictures France) — English, French, Italian, Dutch and Spanish audio.
2015 — Transformers Prime — Season One (Universal Pictures UK)

Blu-ray

2012 — Transformers Prime — Season One (Shout! Factory)
2012 — Transformers Prime — Season One Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2012 — Transformers Prime — Staffel 1 - Das Bündnis (EDEL:kids) — English and German audio.

References

1. ↑ Archive copy of HubWorld's "Criss-Cross" sneak peek clip page