Predatory

« Transformers: Prime ep 12 »
"So we have this episode that's really Predator-y. What should we call it?" "Hmm..."
"Predatory"
Season	1
No. in season	12
Production company	Hasbro Studios
Airdate	April 16, 2011
Written by	Marsha Griffin
Directed by	Todd Waterman, Kirk Van Wormer (co-director)
Animation studio	Polygon Pictures
Watch this episode on YouTube

When Arcee takes Jack on a routine mission, Airachnid turns up, putting him in danger.

Synopsis

A mysterious object streaks through the Solar System and crashes in a remote part of the northern United States. Trudging through the forest nearby are Arcee and Jack Darby, out searching for an underground energon deposit that Ratchet has detected. Jack complains about the mosquitoes, but Arcee picks up some strange readings and they quickly come upon the crashed spaceship. Telling an increasingly unnerved Jack to stay where he is, Arcee moves in closer to examine it, and suffers a flashback containing a menacing figure as she realizes whose ship it is. She attempts in vain to contact base to request a GroundBridge. Leaving Jack by the ship, Arcee walks out into the trees to find a trail left by her mystery assailant, and again flashes back to a past time when she had been captured. Jack interrupts her, and she transforms before driving them both at high speed through the trees for a distance. When she still can't contact base, she drops Jack off on the other side of a deep crevasse and heads back. Jack starts climbing down the side of the crevasse. Arcee, scouting among the trees, finds a tree stump covered in an acidic compound, and has another flashback.

Hellooo, alternate headsculpt!

On Cybertron, Arcee runs through ruined buildings while radioing Delta Team for backup. She trades banter with her partner Tailgate before asking directions, but before she can complete her next sentence, she's stuck to a nearby wall by a glob of webbing. She finds herself chained up, a prisoner of Airachnid, who scratches her face with an acid-emitting talon.

Elsewhere, Airachnid moves in on an unsuspecting camper in a tent. As she jumps to strike, she's tackled by Arcee, and the pair roll downhill to a clearing. Amused to be reunited with the Autobot after all this time, Airachnid reveals her new hobby: collecting the heads of endangered species, though most of them weren't endangered until she got to them. Now she has her sights set on a human for her next trophy. Enraged, Arcee begins fighting her, but Jack arrives, distracting Arcee long enough for Airachnid to web her to a nearby rock. Arcee cuts her arm free and zaps Airachnid before informing Jack that he's more a liability than a partner. Jack responds that he doesn't believe her and he can tell she's afraid, and Arcee flashes back again.

Finding Arcee a tough nut to crack, Airachnid has a couple of Vehicons drag in a severely battered Tailgate, and demands the information she wants, or Tailgate dies. Arcee, however much she wants to save her partner, doesn't know the attack coordinates, and Airachnid calmly kills him.

Airachnid recovers from the battle and closes in and says she'd heard about Cliffjumper's fate, then twists the knife by asking Arcee if she has a problem with losing partners. As Jack flees, Airachnid promises to finish Arcee later, after she's added her human companion's head to her trophy collection. As Airachnid leaves, Arcee flashes back once more...

Color-coded for your sake.

As Airachnid moves in on her living prisoner, Bumblebee and Cliffjumper burst in to execute a dramatic rescue. Though they gun down the Vehicon guards, Airachnid makes her escape. The Autobots free Arcee and carry her out as she laments that she couldn't save her partner.

Arcee is overcome with grief at having put Jack's life in peril, realizing that she should have just... kept... driving! Her lament gives her the insight she needs to free herself, pulling at the webbing enough to transform to cycle mode and peel out at full throttle, eventually breaking her bonds.

No consideration for personal space.

Meanwhile, Jack ducks behind a fallen tree in an attempt to evade Airachnid, but she easily finds him. He continues running, and though he's scared, keeps looking for ways to fight back (though he quickly dismisses his Swiss Army knife as a viable weapon). Eventually, he reaches Airachnid's ship and hides against it as she enters, believing him to have snuck inside. While clambering through the trench left by the ship's landing, he finds a puddle of energon leaking from a port on its underside. Grabbing a nearby stick, he uses his pocket knife and flint to set fire to it, then throws it into the leaking port. Airachnid, now standing on top of the ship, yells his name as the ship explodes.

Jack is thrown clear, but just as he's beginning to relax, a still-burning Airachnid pins him to a nearby tree with webbing. She moves in, ready for the kill, but Arcee comes barreling through the trees and beats her with feet and fists, finally sending the Decepticon flying through the forest, creating her own trail of debris. Arcee cuts down Jack, but then they hear the sound of drilling, and find Airachnid has burrowed into the ground and escaped.

Arcee says she admires Jack's bravery, and as she radios base for a GroundBridge, saying she needs to get her partner back to safety. As Jack notices the choice of words, Arcee quips that he's still the junior partner in this team.

Featured characters

(Characters in italic text appear only in flashbacks.)
(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Quotes

"I may not have stinger-proof metal skin, Arcee, but in a pinch, I can use my multi-function pocket knife and magnesium fire-starter to cook up some freeze-dried mac and cheese."

—Jack subtly plants a Chekhov's gun.

"These days, I travel solo in pursuit of my new hobby."
"I got a look at your souvenir case."
"You mean my trophies. I collect endangered species. Of course, they aren't really endangered...until they meet me."

—Airachnid shares her favorite pastime with Arcee.

"So much for closure."

—Arcee is annoyed as Airachnid gets away.

Notes

Continuity notes

• Cliffjumper's rescue of Arcee from the clutches of Airachnid was foreshadowed way back in the Prime graphic novel from IDW Publishing, six months before this episode aired.
• Airachnid knows about the death of Cliffjumper, which happened in the first episode of the series. (It's notable that both Tailgate and Cliffjumper appear to share the same body-type. Lucky for Bumblebee that he's not mold-sharing with Cliffjumper this series.)

Real-world references

• This episode contains four or five possible references to the Predator franchise: Airachnid's ship entering Earth's atmosphere resembles the movie's opening scene, Airachnid coming to Earth with the sole purpose of hunting humans echoes the Predator's motive, Airachnid's trophy case of heads is similar to one seen in Predator 2, and the scene in which Jack uses a personally made flaming "arrow" to ignite energon resembles a tactic used by Arnold Schwarzenegger's character Dutch in the first film. The title "Predatory" is likely just as much a reference to Predator.
• The sound effects used for when Airachnid spews her webbing are the same used for Spider-Man in the 2008 Spectacular Spider-Man TV series, in which Josh Keaton (Jack) voiced the title character.

Errors

• Throughout the episode, the pendant on Arcee's head crest changes from red to silver and back, much like in "Out of the Past".

Trivia

The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout.
Down came the Jack, and blew the spider up.

• Arcee, Cliffjumper, and Bumblebee didn't have different robot bodies on Cybertron, retaining all of their Earth vehicle-specific kibble long before reaching Earth. This is likely due to budget concerns, as creating new models for a two-minute flashback sequence would be impractical. By contrast, Optimus and Soundwave in "One Shall Rise, Part 3" do have distinct Cybertronic forms – but only appear as stillshot animatics rather than as fully rendered CG models.
• With its scratches and angled spikes positioned against burnt trees, Airachnid's ship resembles a hairy spider in one shot.
• When Airachnid took a flying leap at the hapless camper and was intercepted by Arcee, the sound of metal clashing should have been audible to the lone human.
• Adaptations of this episode include a prose version as part of Airachnid Attacks!.
• In addition to being an absolute mouthful, the Japanese name for this episode Mystery Insect Transformation! Forest of the Spider Woman! is also inaccurate, as spiders are arachnids rather than insects.

Foreign localization

French

• Title: "Prédateur" ("Predatory")
• Original airdate: ?

German

• Title: "Die Trophäenjägerin" ("The Trophyhunter")
• Original airdate: 9 December 2011

Hungarian

• Title: "Ragadozó" ("Predator")
• Original airdate: 24 January 2012

Indonesian

• Title: "Arcee: Sekarang dan Lalu" ("Arcee: Now and Before")
• Original airdate: 17 September 2012

Italian

• Title: "Caccia di terrestri" ("Earthling Hunt"), "La Predatrice" ("The [female] Predator", 2017 airing)
• Original airdate: 30 October 2011

Japanese

• Title: "Kaimushi Henkei! Kumo Onna no Mori!" (怪虫変形!クモ女の森!, "Mystery Insect Transformation! Forest of the Spider Woman!")
• Original airdate: 23 June 2012
• Cut: The images of Airachnid's specimens were removed. This was done to fit Airachnid's new personality, as rather than hunt endangered alien species, she now collects the heads of "cute boys".
• Airachnid's personality is considerably altered for the Japanese dub; she's now a talkative, vain, boy-crazy romantic. Her pursuit of Jack is rewritten into a Pepé Le Pew parody, as Airachnid makes swooning, seductive comments as she amorously chases her unwilling target through the forest. Some of Airachnid's wooing can get a little... suggestive, as detailed below.

• While Jack is cowering under the log, Airachnid amorously swoons, "Oh my cute little Jack! Come out, come out wherever you are! Mmmmm... If you don't come out, I'll give you a spaaaaanking. Jaaaaaaack!"
• When Airachnid surprises Jack beneath the log and he lets out a horrified scream, she responds, "Aha, what a good scream, hm? And your face is so cute, it must be very popular. You'll no doubt become a star! But I want to have you all to myself, my little Jack! Sticky-Sticky Attack!"
• As she chases Jack to the cliff edge, lots of new lines are adlibbed. First, Airachnid swoons, "It's useless to ruuuuun!" then begins excitedly singing to herself, "This is fun! This is fun! All of this is so much fun!"
• Approaching the cliff, Airachnid calls out to Jack, "Aaah, look out, my little Jack. There's a cliff over there!" As she leaps over the cliff in pursuit, Airachnid asks if he's heard of Japanese TV star, model and idol Gakky. When her attempts to woo Jack by stealing a catchphrase from the popular model fails, Airachnid grumbles to herself, "I never cared for her, anyway".
• When Jack starts making his way toward Airachnid's ship, she calls out to him, "I'm over heeeere!" Airachnid then begins flirtatiously singing an old Japanese folk song, "Zui Zui Zukkorobashi". That particular song, despite being a nursery rhyme, is known for having a hidden sexual meaning. It's about a woman (represented by a tea pot), who amorously chases an unwilling man (represented by a mouse), catches him, then loudly slams the door behind them so she can... do things to him.
• Incidentally, the love song prefaces her pursuit of Jack into her spaceship. As Airachnid creeps inside to look for him, she continues to make the "door slamming" sound, indicating that she wants to close the door behind them and finish the song.
• After Jack destroys Airachnid's ship and she finally captures him with her webbing, she actually proposes marriage to him. Airachnid claims that because he's stranded her on Earth, it's Jack's "duty" to wed her (she pops the question as she rubs his face with her fingers). Luckily for Jack, Arcee shows up in the nick of time to break the engagement.
• When Arcee finally lays the smackdown on Airachnid, Airachnid screams, "Not the face! I'm an actress!"

Korean

• Title: "Geomi ui Sanyang" (거미의 사냥, "Spider's Hunt")
• Original airdate: 4 October 2011

Polish

• Title: ?
• Original airdate: 20 December 2011

Portuguese

• Title "Destruidor" ("Destroyer")
• Original airdate 23 January 2011

Spanish (Spain)

• Title: "Depredador" ("Predatory")
• Original airdate: 12 November 2011

Home video releases

DVD

2012 — Transformers Prime — Season One (Shout! Factory)
2012 — Transformers Prime — Season One Collection (Madman Entertainment)
2012 — Transformers Prime — Folge 3: Nur dieses eine Mal (EDEL:kids) — English and German audio.
2012 — Transformers Prime — Volume 3: Alien Threat (Madman Entertainment)
2012 — Transformers Prime — Vol. 6 (Avex Trax) — Japanese audio only.
2012 — Transformers Prime — Staffel 1 - Das Bündnis (EDEL:kids) — English and German audio.
2013 — Transformers Prime — Saison 1 Vol. 3: L'attaque des Decepticons (Universal Pictures France) — English, French, Italian, Dutch and Spanish audio.
2013 — Transformers Prime — Vol. 3: La furia dei Decepticons (Universal Pictures IT) — English, Italian, Dutch, French and Spanish audio.
2013 — Transformers Prime — Season One: Decepticons Unleashed (Universal Pictures UK)
2014 — Transformers Prime — Saison 1: L'intégrale (Universal Pictures France) — English, French, Italian, Dutch and Spanish audio.
2014 — Transformers Prime — Ultimate Autobots (Shout! Factory)
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.