Blurred TFP

Blurred is the fourth episode of Season 3 and the forty-ninth overall of Transformers: Robots in Disguise.

Plot
After his reckless actions cause the escape of a dangerous Sharkticon, Sideswipe goes out of his way to recapture the 'Con and prove his value to the team in fear of getting replaced by a younger, and faster, newcomer - Rescue Bot Blurr.

Synopsis
Team Bee pops out of a GroundBridge to see a light plane trailing smoke as it flies overhead. Bumblebee contacts Fixit who confirms the stricken plane is still going to crash on one of Windblade's caches. As this could result in the rescue teams stumbling on whatever's in the cache, Sideswipe starts making his way up a nearby cliff to try to save the plane from crashing. As he gets to the top of the cliff, it crumbles beneath his feet and he's left clinging to the edge as the plane hurtles towards him. He's saved at the last moment by Blurr, who streaks in out of nowhere and pulls him up onto the cliff. While the rest of the team is accidentally buried under the collapse when Grimlock falls over, Bumblebee takes off after the plane and manages to stop it by grabbing its landing wheels.

The excited Blurr greets Sideswipe, who's slightly put out about Blurr taking over the rescue. They're joined by the rest of the team, whom Blurr is somewhat starstruck at meeting. Once Grimlock moves a concealing boulder out of the way, they find Windblade's cache contains supplies and a captured Sharkticon, Ragebyte. They realize that the explosive the Decepticon scientist was working on may be in one of the containers, and decide to take everything back to the scrapyard for safekeeping. Blurr asks if he can tag along, and Sideswipe starts wondering if the new Bot is after his spot on the team.

Later, the Autobots are driving along a highway. Sideswipe continues grousing about Blurr's over-eagerness, but when he carelessly passes Strongarm, he ends up sending the trailer-load of supplies and the stasis pod off the side of a bridge and into a river. The shock of landing releases Ragebyte from the pod, who immediately retrieves his explosive and sets off to find the missing ingredient he had originally come to Earth to obtain: polystyrene. The Autobots hurry to try to secure the cache contents, only to see Ragebyte departing in submarine mode. Sideswipe continues to act like a jerk as they fish crates out of the river, and when it turns out there's been a shark sighting at some nearby docks, he immediately takes off to investigate, with Blurr following before Bumblebee can stop either of them. Bumblebee sends Drift back to the scrapyard with the supplies to pick up a jet boat, since they'll need some way to keep up with Ragebyte on the water.

Blurr and Sideswipe reach the docks, the latter still complaining that Blurr is trying to take his spot on the team. The pair head into a warehouse where Ragebyte is feeding polystyrene into his device and try to sneak up on him, however Blurr steps on some loose packaging foam and they have to take cover momentarily. Sideswipe jumps out, only to find Ragebyte has disappeared. He manages to cut off the Decepticon's escape, and Ragebyte obediently hands over the bomb... before blasting Sideswipe. Blurr takes possession of the bomb and leads the Con on a chase to the loading gate, where the rest of the team have arrived and proceed to ambush the Con. Unfortunately for them he blasts his way free and dives back into the river. As they're wondering how they're going to catch him, Drift appears through a GroundBridge in Denny's boat which Sideswipe immediately commandeers, acciedentally knocking Drift into the drink in the process. Blurr manages to get on board as the boat streaks along, and makes it clear to Sideswipe that he's trying to help, not take Sideswipe's spot on the team.

The pair pursue Ragebyte along the river, but until he tricks them into hitting a buoy, destroying the boat and sending the pair to the bottom. They try to grab Ragebyte, but he manages to knock them off by swimming through an undersea structure. Ragebyte attaches the explosive to one of the supports of Crown City Bridge, intending to test the explosive's yield. Sideswipe contacts Bumblebee, who is on top of the bridge with the rest of the team. Strongarm clears the bridge by pretending to be actual police, but while she's doing that, Ragebyte takes out Drift, Bumblebee and Grimlock. Sideswipe and Blurr reach the top of the bridge, and while the latter speeds off with the explosive device, Sideswipe manages to render Ragebyte unconscious. As the team regroups, there's an explosion in the distance, however Blurr returns unscathed having ditched the bomb.

Back at the scrapyard, Ragebyte is locked away in a stasis pod. Though Sideswipe assumes Bumblebee is going to kick him off the team, Bumblebee instead suggests he take on Blurr as a temporary intern.

Autobots

 * Bumblebee
 * Sideswipe
 * Drift
 * Strongarm
 * Grimlock
 * Fixit
 * Blurr

Decepticons

 * Ragebyte

Humans

 * Denny Clay
 * Bush Pilot

Quotes
"What's he doing? Angling for a spot on our team?"

"Why not? Some days it seems like you don't want one."
 * —Sideswipe is unimpressed with either Blurr's enthusiasm or Strongarm's burn.

"Experimentation paused. New objective, dissection of Autobot."
 * —Ragebyte subscribes to the Shockwave school of science and engineering.

"Congratulations, Sideswipe!"

"...don't say it!"

"You really jumped the shark."

"UGGH!"
 * —Strongarm is on fire, and Sideswipe needs more burn cream.

Continuity notes

 * Sideswipe and Blurr first met in the Rescue Bots episode "The Need for Speed", when Sideswipe chased the escaped Cyclone Mini-Con Bounce all the way to Griffin Rock.
 * Blurr offhandedly remarks on his his new look. This would indicate this episode takes place after the finale of the Rescue Bots cartoon, since Blurr was still purple then.

Prisoner manifest

 * In stasis: Crustacion, Ragebyte

Transformers references

 * Bumblebee asks "Who the Helex saved Sideswipe?", referencing the city.

Trivia

 * This is the first time a character native to Rescue Bots has crossed over into a "main" Aligned cartoon, though Bumblebee alluded to Heatwave's existence back in "Battlegrounds, Part 1".
 * The official synopsis seems to imply that this fairly young and immature version of Sideswipe is older than Blurr... but Blurr has been alive for well over 10,000 years, as seen in the Rescue Bots episode "The New Recruits". However, Blurr has been in a stasis pod for a long time, and for the most part was shown to be more reckless than Sideswipe ever could hope to be.
 * Bumblebee has visited the Rescue Bots during Blurr's time on the team, in the episode "Uninvited Guest". However, Bee was at the Rescue Bot Training Center outside of Griffin Rock while Blurr was in town dealing with traffic emergencies, so the two hadn't met until now.
 * Ragebyte's bomb appears to re-use the data cylinder model from "T.M.I.".
 * Apparently explosified extruded polystyrene glows exactly the same color as Dark Energon.