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akinoameGwen is desperately trying to hurry the boys to the beach, but her plans have to be dropped when the Luotans arrive, asking for Ben’s help for an important diplomatic mission: to deliver their Crown Prince, a baby called the Tiffen, to their enemies, the Pantophage, as a gesture of goodwill to maintain a peace treaty. Unfortunately, the Tiffen has a strange effect on the Omnitrix—each time Ben goes near it, the Omnitrix starts to short circuit, and finally it leaves him trapped in a new alien form, Rath. The trip becomes quite painful for everybody with Rath aboard; he forces them to make a pit stop that lands them in the middle of a bar brawl while trying to protect the Tiffen, he pisses off the Incursians and Kevin’s escape attempts damage their engine, and he gets in a fight with Vulkanis when they manage to find the taedenite to repair the engine.
When they finally make it to the planet of the Pantophage, the Tiffen’s mother, Cicily, appears over a hologram begging them not to deliver her son to them. Rath insists that the mission goes as planned, but they’re all horrified when the Panophage emperor, Jarret, places the Tiffen on a place of honor…and then eats him whole. While Kevin faints in shock, Rath gets incredibly pissed off and revisits Echo Echo’s plan from “Fool’s Gold”—diving into Jarret’s digestive tract and retrieving the Tiffen. He then hands the baby over to a recovered Kevin before leaping onto Jarret’s face and threatening him if he tries to go to war with the Luotans.
The Luotan Ambassador and Cicily arrive as the new treaty is forged, and Cicily is delighted to see her son alive and well. Realizing that the Ambassador suspected what was going to happen to the Tiffen, Rath threatens him with a claw that looks like a very well-placed middle finger and tells him never to contact him again. The Luotans head off, taking a grateful Tiffen with them, and suddenly Ben returns to himself. Ben and Gwen realize that the Tiffen was emitting some kind of energy signature that interfered with the watch, and Kevin reveals that he suspected this was the case the whole time. Pissed that Kevin let him go through all of that without telling him why, Ben says that Rath would like to have a word with him…
Rath is Ben’s newest alien form, a tough guy who eventually shows he does have a heart. As an Apoplexian, Rath is very quick to anger, enjoys fighting, and isn’t all that bright. The first thing he does upon transforming is pick a fight with Kevin and Gwen and then promptly realize that Gwen’s energy bubble is cutting off his air, and then he passes out. He’s difficult for the others to control, and it honestly looks like the time Lobo tried to join the Justice League—he doesn’t know the meaning of the words “self control” and he is constantly getting himself into a mess. At the very least, he has the power to get himself out of it. The Tiffen eventually grows on him, and he becomes very protective of the baby, to the point that he jumps down Jarret’s throat to rescue him and then threatens to knit a sweater out of Jarret’s intestines if he tries to go to war with the Luotans—thereby neatly avoiding another case like “Simple.”
The episode plays with continuity a bit. At the bar, Kevin runs into Argit again, and Gwen points out that every time Argit shows up, he stabs Kevin in the back so Kevin should stop trusting him. Quite naturally, it happens once again, when Argit calls in…the Vreedle Brothers, who Gwen points out got killed off last episode. The Vreedles reveal that they’re all clones of each other; their parents bought some expired cloning kits cheap….which explains a lot about them, honestly. An Incursian general attacks them when they escape, explaining that his race are warmongers (again, explaining a lot) and that they’ll do whatever it takes to prevent a peace treaty between the Luotans and the Pantophage. Rath roughs them up a bit before Kevin plays chicken with a black hole, which gets rid of the Incursian ship but damages their engine. And the only thing they can repair it with is…taedenite, which pisses Rath off from the memory of “Kevin’s Big Score.” Sure enough, the mine they reach is Vulkanis’s, and they all have to fight, but Rath humiliates Vulkanis into accepting their deal for his taedenite, and they take the last decent piece to fix their engine.
This episode also leaves us with an important moral: Eating babies is not cool. Kids, if someone asks you to eat a baby, just say no thanks. That’s cool.
“The Con of Rath” was written by Len Uhley. Rath was voiced by John DiMaggio.
When they finally make it to the planet of the Pantophage, the Tiffen’s mother, Cicily, appears over a hologram begging them not to deliver her son to them. Rath insists that the mission goes as planned, but they’re all horrified when the Panophage emperor, Jarret, places the Tiffen on a place of honor…and then eats him whole. While Kevin faints in shock, Rath gets incredibly pissed off and revisits Echo Echo’s plan from “Fool’s Gold”—diving into Jarret’s digestive tract and retrieving the Tiffen. He then hands the baby over to a recovered Kevin before leaping onto Jarret’s face and threatening him if he tries to go to war with the Luotans.
The Luotan Ambassador and Cicily arrive as the new treaty is forged, and Cicily is delighted to see her son alive and well. Realizing that the Ambassador suspected what was going to happen to the Tiffen, Rath threatens him with a claw that looks like a very well-placed middle finger and tells him never to contact him again. The Luotans head off, taking a grateful Tiffen with them, and suddenly Ben returns to himself. Ben and Gwen realize that the Tiffen was emitting some kind of energy signature that interfered with the watch, and Kevin reveals that he suspected this was the case the whole time. Pissed that Kevin let him go through all of that without telling him why, Ben says that Rath would like to have a word with him…
Rath is Ben’s newest alien form, a tough guy who eventually shows he does have a heart. As an Apoplexian, Rath is very quick to anger, enjoys fighting, and isn’t all that bright. The first thing he does upon transforming is pick a fight with Kevin and Gwen and then promptly realize that Gwen’s energy bubble is cutting off his air, and then he passes out. He’s difficult for the others to control, and it honestly looks like the time Lobo tried to join the Justice League—he doesn’t know the meaning of the words “self control” and he is constantly getting himself into a mess. At the very least, he has the power to get himself out of it. The Tiffen eventually grows on him, and he becomes very protective of the baby, to the point that he jumps down Jarret’s throat to rescue him and then threatens to knit a sweater out of Jarret’s intestines if he tries to go to war with the Luotans—thereby neatly avoiding another case like “Simple.”
The episode plays with continuity a bit. At the bar, Kevin runs into Argit again, and Gwen points out that every time Argit shows up, he stabs Kevin in the back so Kevin should stop trusting him. Quite naturally, it happens once again, when Argit calls in…the Vreedle Brothers, who Gwen points out got killed off last episode. The Vreedles reveal that they’re all clones of each other; their parents bought some expired cloning kits cheap….which explains a lot about them, honestly. An Incursian general attacks them when they escape, explaining that his race are warmongers (again, explaining a lot) and that they’ll do whatever it takes to prevent a peace treaty between the Luotans and the Pantophage. Rath roughs them up a bit before Kevin plays chicken with a black hole, which gets rid of the Incursian ship but damages their engine. And the only thing they can repair it with is…taedenite, which pisses Rath off from the memory of “Kevin’s Big Score.” Sure enough, the mine they reach is Vulkanis’s, and they all have to fight, but Rath humiliates Vulkanis into accepting their deal for his taedenite, and they take the last decent piece to fix their engine.
This episode also leaves us with an important moral: Eating babies is not cool. Kids, if someone asks you to eat a baby, just say no thanks. That’s cool.
“The Con of Rath” was written by Len Uhley. Rath was voiced by John DiMaggio.
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Date: 2010-01-11 05:51 pm (UTC)If Gwen was hoping for some major downtime at the beach, I'd say after an event like this one she'll be demanding it-and rightfully so. To her they've just been shuttled from one dangerous situation into another, without much time-if any-for relaxation or time for themselves. I especially loved how Ben talked about himself in the third person. (He should keep that up Element-wise.)
What wasn't all that surprising since he was featured in the preview was how Jarret of Pantophage resembled Raven's father, Trigon. Their methods however are so different from one another they could almost be considered brothers. Or distant cousins. Rath solving their problem by jumping down his throat was hilarious, and then threatening to do it again?! Gold.