Originally aired October 7, 1996
Screenplay by Jesse Winfield
Dinobot accuses Rattrap of being a traitor. Optimus agrees with this suspicion and sends Rattrap on a mission to test his loyalty. – Netflix
Alfred Hitchcock once said something very clever about the difference between surprise and suspense, and bombs, and it’s a little much to get into right now. The main takeaway is that it’s almost always better to inform viewers and let the suspense wring out of a scene than keep them in the dark so you can jump out and yell “Boo!”
I think about that every time I watch a disappointing movie or TV show that rests far too heavily on a surprising twist. I wonder if it could have done differently, and if it would have engaged me more if it wasn’t intentionally holding me back so the writer could feel smart by throwing something unexpected at the screen. The answer is almost always “yes” but because Hitchcock was way out of his league trying to give lessons on suspense, everyone still goes for the trick-the-viewer strategy anyway.
The only thing worse is when a movie or TV show rests on a “surprising” twist. You know, the kind where quotation marks indicate sarcasm. And yes, this is a show that was made for kids, but there is no goddamn way that any kid in America, or Canada, or wherever else this show aired, thought that Rattrap could be a secret Predacon spy. And yet somehow, that’s the shocking plot of “Double Jeopardy.” (The quotation marks here are just a convention to indicate an episode title, not sarcasm.)
All the same, I’m not sure how the title actually relates to the episode at all. The only thing that comes to mind is that it describes the “jeopardy” that results from “doubling” up with two plots that have nothing to do with each other. Because this is also the episode that sees the introduction of Blackarachnia, which should be a very big deal! But isn’t, really. All that really happens with her this episode is that the Predacons steal her from a crashed stasis pod, reprogram her as a Predacon, and leave the beast mode decision up to Tarantulas. Then she immediately slips into the background to make a few quips so that the camera can cut to Tarantulas being blatantly horny about a lady robot spider, which I didn’t need.
I like a lot of things about Blackarachnia, but planting the question of whether these robots need to get off is not one of them.
Anyway, how much more can you clash than by pushing a plot about questioning a robot’s loyalty in the same episode that shows you can just program robots to be loyal to one side? The only real connecting point between the plots is at the very beginning: the initial protoform theft prompts a brainstorm session about how the Predacons are ambushing so well lately, and Cheetor spitballs that it’s as if “a rat” is feeding them information. Dinobot picks up on the phrasing and Optimus runs with it, sending Rattrap on a mission to the Predacon sector as a test of loyalty. There, Rattrap surrenders so he can infiltrate the Predacon base and disable the codebreaker chip that’s been responsible for all the ambushes.
I guess the idea is that Optimus figured out their transmissions were being hacked, and thought up this plan on his feet so that anyone listening in would buy it hook, line, and sinker. But how he communicated this to Rattrap so he knew what to do, and why he couldn’t also communicate it to his team so they weren’t racked with guilt and internal conflict, isn’t clear. On top of everything, nothing in the episode suggests the Predacons were at any point caught up in the subterfuge. So the whole ruse only really caught Dinobot (acting stupidly out of character) and child viewers who are now adults that think climate change is a hoax.
The only reason the scheme actually works, and what almost makes the episode for me, is that Rattrap surrenders to a patrolling Terrorsaur, the only guy who absolutely would go for it. Why this guy this utterly disloyal is even allowed to live is beyond me, but the Predacons seem to operate on a Dothraki principle that challengers to the throne are fair game, and it’s always great to see Terrorsaur go all in with a pair of deuces. He makes a grand Mussolini speech to the Predacons that having secured a tiny robot rat will turn the tides of war in their favor, and proves that he is their best bet for victory.
Nobody really seems to give a shit one way or the other, except Scorponok, whose only personality trait is being loyal to a fault, and who over the course of the series can’t seem to decide if he should speak normally or in dumb third-person Hulk-speak. Actually, I’m prepared to amend my “toss up” from the last post and declare that Scorponok is easily the worst character on this show. He had some good will from blowing open Cheetor’s chest cavity in the third episode but that’s long since dried up.
Anyway, “Equal Measures” already showed that sneaking around the enemy base can be fun even if the reasons for being there make no sense, and that’s twice as true for Rattrap as it was for Cheetor. I have to assume that Winfield knew Dinobot would have been a much easier sell as a Predacon spy than Rattrap, but that it would be more fun to see the tiniest member of the team play the cloak and dagger role. There’s even a fairly literal spider-and-fly thing going on when Rattrap falls into one of Tarantulas’ web traps, and then cuts himself free in what would have been a remarkably redundant move if this episode actually ran directly after “The Web” as planned.
I really enjoyed the part when Tarantulas tracks Rattrap down and starts to shout “terrorize!” to transform into a robot, and Rattrap just pulls a Harrison Ford and shoots him before he can finish. He must have felt so smart to be the first guy to think of that. Maybe that’s why they just start transforming without shouting as the series goes on.
With the codebreaker chip disabled, the Maximals perform what I think is the first attack on the Predacon base to extricate Rattrap. It’s kind of surprising that they don’t launch frontal assaults more often considering how well they pull it off, and even at a disadvantage in numbers. But the scales might be tipped by Megatron’s tactical strategy to let Terrorsaur keep wearing the big boy pants long enough to shit them. “A wise tyrant always allows a fool to take lead in a crisis.” Hmm, I must have missed that chapter in The Art of War.
Blackarachnia briefly tries to reassert herself as the new hotness by pulling a Terminator walk through Cheetor’s gunfire, even as he blasts off all her spider legs. But after she knocks his punk ass down with one well-placed kick she just walks off, and later gets declared missing by Megatron. It’s almost as if the show, briefly stirred by the changing events, forced her out to return to a status quo, sort of like the same bullshit they pulled in not immediately integrating Tigatron into the main cast.
I wonder if these were last-minute changes added to the script to accommodate a rocky airing schedule that would have made Tigatron and Blackarachnia conspicuously absent from earlier-produced episodes that ran afterward? If that’s the case, it doesn’t seem warranted, because the next episode features both Blackarachnia and Tigatron very heavily. Suck on those eggs, foresight!
Side Notes
- Rattrap has to jump from a hanging cage to a far away ledge over a boiling lava pit, but he doesn’t go through that “swing the cage back and forth for momentum” thing first, and just does a standing leap. Christ, who missed the tropes memo?
- Until looking it up for this episode, I thought Blackarachnia’s name was Black Arachnia, like (black) Debbie from Sealab 2021. Man, I should be reviewing that show instead of this.
- Oh hey, you thought Tigatron’s voice actor Blu Mankuma sounded like a cool robot? Blackarachnia is voiced by Venus Terza! Holy shit.
- Rattrap says “I’m blowing this taco stand!”OH COME ON HOW DO YOU KNOW ABOUT TACO STANDS?
- Dinobot here plays the part of Dennis from the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode “The Gang Broke Dee,” being the only asshole not in on the joke. Goddamn it, why am I not reviewing that show instead of this?
Beast Wars in review 