Arrivals

« Transformers: Rescue Bots ep 81 »
"Arrivals"
Season	4
No. in season	3
Production company	Hasbro Studios
Airdate	April 30, 2016
Writer	Nicole Dubuc
Director	Frank Squillace
Animation studio	DHX Media Top Draw Animation
Watch this episode on YouTube

As Frankie struggles to adjust to life with her baby sister, the Bots are surprised by a new arrival of their own.

Synopsis

CeCe is busily "learning by exploring her environment", which mostly means playing with and trying to eat Frankie's stuff, as far as Frankie is concerned. She calls Cody to commiserate, but notices that the camera seems to be bouncing around a lot. It turns out he's riding inside Blades, who's having a footrace with Heatwave after betting he could run faster. Unfortunately, as they close in on their goal, Heatwave smashes into Mr. Cullen's rocket, which bounces down the street dripping rocket fuel, which quickly ignites. Kade attempts to instruct Heatwave to use his foam sprayers to stop the fire, but Heatwave assumed this was going to be a simple trip and didn't load up. Blades removes the rocket as Dani calls for help.

Meanwhile, Chase is giving a Career Day presentation to a bunch of children and Boulder is attending Ms. Lima's book club at the library. When called, they quickly depart to bring fire extinguishers to the emergency. The fire is readily extinguished, but it leaves a smoking hole where there was originally a street. Chief Burns is very disappointed in the rescue team, although Cody reassures the bots that it's normal to have trouble balancing work and social life. Doc Greene comes over to check on the GroundBridge, following its recent malfunction. He's not sure what's wrong with it; everything checks out. He instructs Dither to go through a few times, and every trip arrives at the mainland training center. The team concludes that the malfunction was a one-off incident and decides to try again. Cody calls Frankie to ask if she wants to come over to try it out, but she's busy babysitting CeCe. The bots head through on their own, and arrive in the middle of a bridge. Their desperate maneuvers to avoid hitting anyone send a minivan off the bridge; it hangs precariously from a bit of the guard rail.

The Rescue Bots move in to save the minivan, but a mysterious mud-splattered sports car intervenes before they can do anything. The GroundBridge reappears moments later, and they quickly retreat back to the firehouse. The mysterious car returns with them. When Chief tries to talk to the driver, they don't respond, and when he opens the door, there's no one inside. The team decides that they'll run the plates to see if they can find the owner later, and nobody will be using the GroundBridge until they have some idea what's wrong with it. Heatwave is fine with that; after the earlier incident, he feels it would be good for everyone to spend a while doing drills at the firehouse and patrols.

Later that night, the mysterious car vanishes into one of the underground tunnels out of the firehouse.

The next morning, Blades is completing his twentieth patrol of the island. Heatwave refuses to let anyone go back to the firehouse until they've found an emergency, which is a problem, because Griffin Rock is being much more peaceful than usual. Don isn't even speeding. Frankie and Cody are taking an opportunity to go for a walk with CeCe in her self-propelled floating stroller. Suddenly, across the street, a man trips and drops his glasses just as Don comes speeding by. The mysterious car rushes to get between them, deflecting Don; nobody gets hurt. Cody, recognizing the car, calls Graham to check if the mysterious car from the night before is still in the garage. Graham quickly confirms that it isn't. Meanwhile, CeCe has figured out how to control her stroller and wandered off down the block. Chase spots a double-parked car, which everyone is willing to call an emergency so they can get home, until the mysterious car appears to relocate it. Chase attempts to pull the mysterious car over, but it peels out of there, cutting off a poultry truck to get rid of Chase trailing it. There's no evidence of its driver on the security cameras, so nobody's sure how it could have gotten away. Blades briefly suspects Dr. Morocco, but they're cut off in their theorizing by Cody calling in. CeCe has vanished, and is heading into the bank; as Frankie and Cody arrive, she manages to reprogram the code to the high-security vault and lock herself inside.

Mr. Harrison futilely attempts to unlock the vault, which they recently had rebuilt by Doc. Frankie frantically calls her father, who assures her that it's not her fault and wonders out loud how CeCe managed to open the vault. Turns out he made a very similar device as a toy for her, including the code. The Rescue Bots break down the door to the vault, only to discover that she's no longer inside. Instead, her stroller is abandoned, a hole has been cut in the floor of the vault, and a tunnel has been dug leading from the bank to a nearby parking garage. Blades and Heatwave are immediately sent to guard the outside of the garage while Boulder and Chase go through the tunnel. The mysterious car is the only one in the garage; Chief opens the door to reveal an unharmed CeCe, who Frankie hugs. Graham hits on an unusual possible solution for the question of who's been driving the car: what if the car is a Cybertronian? Blades points out that they all have fairly obvious insignia, which the car is lacking. Heatwave hoses the mud splattering the car's front away to reveal a Rescue Bot insignia.

Cover blown, the car transforms into Quickshadow, who introduces herself and comments that she'd expected Heatwave to be taller. She then advises the other bots to shut their mouths for fear of flying lobsters. Chief greets her and asks why she didn't introduce herself sooner; she apologizes for interfering in their rescues and explains that she's working under cover, but had to intervene when she saw CeCe get trapped in the bank vault. Optimus sent her, and she's not surprised that he didn't warn the Rescue Bots; "you know how Primes are". She's also the reason for the GroundBridge malfunctions. The bridge itself works perfectly well, but she's been hijacking the signal so she could try to get to Griffin Rock using it. She's also been briefed on the members of the rescue team, although she can't tell them what her mission is yet. Chief suggests they move to the firehouse for further conversation.

Frankie and Cody discuss CeCe briefly, and they conclude that while change is constant, family will always love each other.

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"Ugh, CeCe tried to eat my equipment again. And ruined breakfast. It's so frustrating! I love her, but sometimes... she's really hard to like."
"Ugh, I totally understand. I grew up with Kade, remember?"

—Frankie and Cody compare sibling problems.

"It was the best of timing, it was the worst of timing. Be right there, Heatwave."

—Boulder

Notes

Continuity notes

• Mr. Cullen previously had an incident with his rocket in "One for the Ages".
• The incident with the GroundBridge sending Heatwave and Chase to the desert occurred in the previous episode.

Transformers references

• Blades thanks Primus for DVRs. We're hoping this doesn't imply DVRs are all Transformers.
• Heatwave tells the rest of the team to "embrace your inner Wreckers" when they're trying to break down the bank vault door.

Real-world references

• A Tale of Two Cities is, of course, a real novel by Charles Dickens.
• Quickshadow's appearances on-screen are marked by a musical motif similar to the James Bond theme.

Animation and technical errors

• During the footrace at the beginning of the episode, Cody is shown to be in Dani's pilot seat, while she's in the passenger seat on his right. Technically, they're not flying, nor does Blades need to pretend he needs a pilot any more. However, in a later shot as Blades returns from moving the rocket, Cody and Dani have switched places, as well as donning helmets.

Trivia

• (tbd)

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "Une invitée intattendue" ("An unexpected guest")
• Original airdate: ?

Italian

• Title: "Arrivi" ("Arrivals")
• Original airdate: 12 September 2017