#shreeka

Deliberating over what to get April as a birthday gift, the Turtles watch a home shopping show on TV where a man who appears to be the Walter Cronkite-type news announcer (last seen as April’s rival in “Raphael Versus the Volcano”) does a sales pitch for “ninja” kitchen knives. Leonardo thinks this would be ideal, but the others disagree, with Michaelangelo suggesting they buy April a portable pizza maker instead, and Donatello proposing they opt for a home science kit. When Raphael makes his usual quips, Leonardo becomes oddly hostile, suggesting he provide a solution to their dilemma. Raph’s proposal is an exercise video called “Chuckle Away Your Chubbiness”, which must be the worst of the suggested gifts for a multitude of reasons.

At Channel 6, Vernon is seen complaining about the size of his office in the station’s new building relative to April. Irma points out that hers will be the size of a broom closet, and frankly I’m surprised she’s getting her own office at all given that the show seems to have given up on keeping track of exactly what it is that she does at this point. After Irma leaves to pick up a cake for April’s surprise party, Vernon uses an eraser to remove his rival’s name from the new building’s blueprints, inserting his own.

In the mysterious spaceship, Bebop and Rocksteady find themselves face to face with a floating woman with long black hair and a gravelly voice. This is Shreeka, who soon reveals that she has a history with Krang and has spent eons searching for “that two-faced double-crosser". She presses the mutants to provide Krang’s “video-com access code” - effectively, his phone number – and zaps the duo with a bolt of energy when they refuse to comply, sending them flying across the room.

After getting her way, Shreeka contacts Krang, revealing that the alien brain abandoned her in the Andromeda galaxy, stealing her power pack energy ring in the process. Thinking on the spot, Krang concocts a story about giving the ring to April O’Neil, faxing Shreeka a photograph of the reporter. When Shredder enquires about Rocksteady and Bebop, Shreeka reveals she intends to hold them hostage until her ring has been recovered. Once the call is over, we get what must be the funniest exchange of the entire season thus far:

KRANG: How dare that woman accuse me, the mighty Krang, ruler of Dimension X, of stealing her dopey ring?

SHREDDER: So, you didn’t do it?

KRANG: Of course I did, I just don’t like her accusing me of it!

Opening a small door in the chest section of his android body, Krang produces the ring and hands it to Shredder. Images of each of the Turtles appear on a series of monitors, which are destroyed with bolts of energy from the trinket. Krang explains that the ring is running out of power, hence he intends to give it away, setting up a confrontation between Shreeka and the Turtles by getting April involved. With that in mind, Shredder’s mission for today is to ensure that April receives the ring as a gift. Shreds is thrilled by this, noting that they’ll be “rid of” Rocksteady and Bebop too, the implication being that both would get killed in the ensuing battle alongside Shreeka and the Turtles. (Not only does this feel wildly out of character for Shredder, but if he wants rid of Rocksteady and Bebop that badly he could simply undo their mutations and let them go back to living normal lives?)

Shreeka arrives in the city with Rocksteady and Bebop, using her “Dimension X fax tracker” - a hand-held fax machine – to receive the picture sent over by Krang of April. As she begins her search for the reporter, Shredder also arrives in a transport module, writing a note on behalf of the Turtles and placing it in a gift box with the ring. Shreds re-caps the plan before revealing that he intends to take the ring for himself when it’s all over as part of his own scheme for world domination.

The Turtles head to luxury jewellery store Spiffany’s in search of a gift for April. Irma happens to be across the street picking up the cake for the birthday party, and is surprised to see the green teens potentially buying a present for the reporter from such a fancy establishment.

In a confusing sequence, Shreeka wanders past Spiffany’s, forcing Bebop and Rocksteady to wait around outside until she re-emerges with an array of stolen items. The Turtles – who we never saw leave the store – then rush down the street to confront this new enemy. Given that no alarms were heard, how could the Turtles even know the store had been robbed if they were already some distance away? None of this winds up amounting to much anyway, as the Turtles are levitated by Shreeka and hurled into a passing garbage truck, transporting them away.

At Channel 6, Irma sneaks into Burne’s office, stowing the cake in the closet. While there, she runs into Vernon, who has a gift of his own: the amended blueprints that will result in him being allocated what would have been April’s new office. While attempting to stow them away in the closet, Vernon trips, landing face-first in the cake and destroying it.

My suspension of disbelief continues to be pushed to its absolute limit today as we re-join the Turtles in the Lair, where Donatello reveals to the rest of the team that he was able to confirm the identity of their attacker from earlier as Shreeka via an “intergalactic scan search”, right down to a wanted poster being put out for her. The villainess, we learn, is “an intergalactic outlaw wanted in thirteen different galaxies, for crimes too unspeakable to speak about – and she’s also a pretty nifty dresser!”

Burne demands that April come to his office immediately, for what turns out to be her surprise party, attended also by Irma and three other un-named employees. With some fanfare, Irma opens the closet expecting to reveal the birthday cake she purchased earlier, and instead finding a dishevelled Vernon on the floor. Irma then hands April a gift delivered to the station, purportedly from the Turtles: Shreeka’s ring.

Leonardo attempts to reach April to warn her about Shreeka, and is confused when she thanks them for sending the ring as a birthday gift. Before any of this can be straightened out, Burne shuts down the party and issues April her next assignment, ordering her to cover a tugboat fire occurring at pier 86.

Shreeka arrives at Channel 6 with the intention of confronting April but manages to just miss her, getting hurled through the revolving doors and back outside into a nearby hedge along the way. She calls Krang with the intent of offloading Rocksteady and Bebop but is told that “a deal is a deal” by the alien brain, who then hangs up. Rocksteady then points out that April has left in the Channel 6 news copter. Later, the villainess arrives at the pier and attempts to fire a blast of energy from her ring at the helicopter only for Rocksteady to unwittingly flip a barrel into the air, blocking the blast of energy and causing Shreeka to get doused in water. The Turtles arrive on the scene moments after Shreeka and The Boys leave, finding that April has also departed, the fire at the pier now dealt with.

Bebop and Rocksteady wander off to a TV store, where they watch cartoons in the window. Shreeka angrily blasts one of the sets, knocking it on its side and causing it to switch to Channel 6, where April is reporting while wearing the power ring from the site of the station’s new headquarters. A showdown soon unfolds between April and Shreeka on the upper floors of the new building, with April refusing to hand over the power ring. Rocksteady and Bebop intervene, clumsily causing April to fall off the side of the unfinished skyscraper. This time she’s saved not by the Turtles, but by Shredder, who takes the ring before Michaelangelo swoops in via rope to rescue the reporter. After Shreeka retrieves the ring again, Shredder makes his exit.

Shreeka demonstrates the ring’s power by firing off energy blasts indiscriminately, creating a series of fires that begin weakening the structure of the building. Leonardo is able to trick the new foe into clutching embers in her hand, with Rocksteady pointing out that while her hand may be impervious to heat, the ring isn’t. It begins melting, leading a defeated Shreeka to moan in a horrifying fashion. The Turtles, April and the captured foreman all escape using the construction elevator, but Shreeka cuts the ropes, forcing our heroes to leap into the air in order to avoid the impact. Moments later, the remnants of the new building collapse entirely.

Back aboard her ship, Shreeka informs Krang that she’ll still have her final revenge, sending Rocksteady and Bebop back to him. Later, in the Lair, April is presented by the Turtles with her real gift: a birthday pizza. Michaelangelo remarks that this is “the gift that keeps on giving”. Irma is also in attendance and gets to provide the last one-liner of the show, adding that “it’s the gift that keeps on giving heartburn.”

"Shreeka's Revenge” is unusual in that often I find episodes of TMNT are better the second time around than on the initial viewing, whereas here the structural flaws of the story became significantly more glaring to me upon re-watching: there are a few moments here and there where things don’t make sense, coupled with some wacky elements like intergalactic fax machines that must have been hard to swallow at the time and which have an added layer of antiquity to them three decades on. Couple all of this with the mistreatment of Bebop and Rocksteady, and there’s plenty for me to dislike here, at least in theory.

With all of that said, there are plenty of positives here that we can focus on too. Shreeka is that rarest of things, a notable female villain for the Turtles to do battle with. Up to now it’s been slim pickings in that regard, besides Tempestra and (for a brief spell) Lotus Blossom. Everything comes together nicely here, with Shreeka having a compelling design, entertaining voice work from a returning Joan Gerber, and an intriguing backstory. I like the idea that Krang has been conning people around the universe since practically forever, and that occasionally his misdeeds come back to haunt him; it’s something that, like Shreeka herself, I’d like to see more of in the series in the future.