Home Is Where the Spark Is

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The Autobots settle into their new home base, an abandoned automobile manufacturing plant, but the ancient assembly line machinery seems to have developed a mind of its own.

Synopsis

As a armored car leaves a bank in the dead of night, the Angry Archer robs it and makes his escape from the cops on a fire engine, thinking the police won’t stop a firetruck heading to a fire. It’s the Archer’s mistake however because he hitched a ride on the back of Optimus Prime. Prime, playing hero, subdues the thief easily and smiles for evening news cameras.

Elsewhere, Prowl observes a cat stalking a bird and finds it amazing, only to have his safari cut short by awe-struck humans and camera bots, and he heads back to the new Autobot headquarters, an abandoned car factory, in a huff. The other Autobots are in the middle of installing the world’s largest flat-panel TV in their new home and sharing their views on their newfound stardom. Prowl returns upset with the constant interruptions and goes to his Japanese-decorated room. In his room, Prowl lectures Optimus on his fascination with the Earth's animals only to have that cut short with Bumblebee's antics. Annoyed again, Prowl leaps off into a tree.

Meanwhile, Sari tries to enter her father's private lab. After she uses her All Spark key to open the door, Professor Sumdac leaves with her before she can enter reminding her no one but him is allowed in there. Residual energy from the key floats over and reactivates the head of Megatron, who views video of the last battle between the Autobots and Starscream, including the latter’s confession of sabotaging his leader. Megatron is understandably ticked and, while lamenting his lack of a body, he discovers his new power to control machines around him.

After trashing her tutorbot using the All Spark key, Sari tells Sumdac she is leaving to the Autobot base for a slumber party. Overhearing this, Megatron sends one of Isaac's pocketbots to hide in her backpack so he can search the base for the All Spark.

At the Autobot base, Prowl watches a nature show about caterpillars evolving into butterflies and he finds this fascinating. Bumblebee of course, isn't interested and changes the channel on him. Annoyed, Prowl pounces Bumblebee like a cat to prove what he has learned from animals before leaping to a high point to meditate. Later, Bumblebee and Bulkhead play Twister with much difficulty; Bumblebee then challenges Prowl to try. Prowl jumps in and easily touches all the spots Sari announces. Being victorious, he leaves to his room.

Sari then tells ghost stories to the rest of the Autobots and succeeds in scaring Bumblebee. Meanwhile the search proves fruitless, Megatron decides to kill the Autobots and find the location from their lifeless shells. He takes control of the assembly line robots and uses pincers, bolt shooting bots, a big magnet and a crushing device to pummel the Autobots. Prowl shows up and realizes that the machines are detecting the Autobots by use of motion sensors. He instructs everyone to be "still, then strike" in order to get to the control panel. Only problem is, he is not invisible to Megaton so he gets caught by the machines as well. The only bot left is Bumblebee, who manages to listen Prowl long enough to outrace the machines and destroy the control panel.

In a parting gesture, Megatron cuts open a fuel tank perilously close to a fire, but the Autobots team up and launch it into the sky, where it explodes harmlessly. As they wonder who tried to kill them, they discover the pocketbot under Megatron's control, but Bulkhead smashes it before they can study it.

Back at the lab, Megatron has a fit over his loss, and decides to reveal more Cybertronian technology to Sumdac in order to get a new body.

At the end, Prowl again coaches Bumblebee in the art of stillness while both play a game of Twister.

Stats

• Written by: Michael Ryan
• Directed by: Matt Youngberg, Shunji Oga
• Original airdate: January 5, 2008

Featured characters

(Numbers indicate order of appearance.)

Autobots	Decepticons	Humans
Optimus Prime Ratchet Bulkhead Bumblebee Prowl	Megatron Starscream	Angry Archer Isaac Sumdac Sari Sumdac

Quotes

"HAHAHA!!! Victory is mine! Yon police would ne'er stop a firetruck from speeding to an emergency!"
"Only one problem with that theory. You're the emergency."

—The Angry Archer's escape is cut short by Optimus Prime

"No way, being a star rocks! If the titanium alloy plating fits, wear it. And... I make it look good."

--Bumblebee, being himself.

"Oh-baaa-MegaMega-Meeeegaaa-Mega-I am Megatron!"

—Megatron awakening after his 50 year long slumber

"What's the matter? We're not still enough for you? Well fine! Have a great time in there watching the grass grow!"

--Bumblebee to Prowl as he heads off to his private quarters.

"That can't be good."

—Bulkhead seconds away from being crushed

"You Autobot fools are the keepers of the All Spark! This must be some cosmic joke..."

—Megatron disgusted at the Autobots merry-making.

"Still, then strike."

—Prowl as he sneaks past the Megatron-possessed machinery

Other notes

Continuity errors

• When the Angry Archer turns around to notice he's being followed by police cars, the bags of money he'd just tied to his waist are nowhere to be seen. They're back in other shots, though.

• Sari says "Right foot on green." during the Twister game. The only problem is there are no green spaces in the next scene, just purple, orange and yellow. at the end of the episode, the yellow is replaced by green.

Transformers references

• In a different kind of Transformers reference, the Angry Archer is designed to resemble Hasbro's Aaron Archer.

• When Megatron comes online, his first coherent words are "I am Megatron!", the same thing his movie counterpart said.

Real-world references

• Bumblebee's line "I make it look good!" is paraphrased from Will Smith in Men in Black.

• Bumblebee pounds on Prowl's head and says "Anybot home?", much like Biff Tannen does to George McFly in Back to the Future.

• A high-tech, Transformer-scaled version of Twister is repeatedly played in this episode.

Miscellaneous trivia

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