The Grim King wrote:Since Netflix now has season 1 and 2 I'm giving it another shot. Haven't watched an episode since the premier...I think. Is there any particular reason it's worth watching? I'm still having trouble dealing with their portrayal of Grimlock, it hurts me; in my soul.
NOTE: The following will pertain strictly to the Grimlocks of TF animation (minus the RiD 2001 Grimlock). Comics and prose Grimlocks are excluded for this response.
This is a very different kind of Grimlock from what we've usually gotten before. He's still true to the spirit of previous Grimlocks in that he's a big strong T-Rex guy who isn't the brightest but loves to fight and smash things while having a heart of gold, which is basically the core of any traditional take on Grimlock. This time, though, he's much more sociable and outgoing, and most of all younger. This is the first time we've ever really gotten a "rookie" take on Grimlock and had that aspect fully explored and developed. Previously Grimlocks tended to learn things by instinct at first and almost immediately got to a point where the writers were comfortable to keep at without further development (and often any changes from that status quo were later undone to return those Grimlocks back to "normal"). Here, however, we're presented with a Grimlock whose growth is ever-present. A Grimlock who's constantly learning and evolving as a character while still maintaining what makes him who he is. This is probably the deepest and most thorough take on Grimlock we've ever gotten.
What's more is that, despite how this Grimlock upholds the tradition of being less intelligent than the other non-Dinobot Autobots, this show has reassured us time and again that he is anything but stupid. He's not only even acknowledged his lower intellect a few times in the show (saying things to the others like "Just because I'm not as smart as the rest of you guys doesn't mean I'm an idiot!"), but he's even proved several times that he's own special degree of smarts is all he needs to be helpful. For instance, there was the episode that was a dual-homage to the G1 episode "Grimlock's New Brain" and the Prime episode "T.M.I." in which Grimlock temporarily got super-intelligent from a Cybertronian data cylinder (a condition that Grimlock almost immediately recognized as mentally fatal, which then reminded Bumblebee of what happened to Bulkhead in "T.M.I."). By the episode's climax, the Decepticon they were going up against, Simacore, was a super genius and had captured both Bumblebee and Strongarm, leaving Grimlock alone to face him. By this point, though, Grimlock had just gotten cured of his own fatal genius condition (which had by then become a hindrance since he had become compelled to calculate every possible tactic instead of relying on instinct), but a side-effect of the cure left him temporarily immobile, and he still had another genius to contend with. Using his own simpler brainpower to stall for the time needed for his mobility to recover, he challenged Simacore to a quiz of smarts and the very first question that Simacore asked (a rather complicated mathematical word problem) Grimlock gave an acceptable answer to based on his own knowledge of a place Simacore included in the question: The question was basically asking how long a holo-rail train would take to reach one city from another (one of which was Nuon City) under certain specific conditions, but Grimlock remembered that the Decepticon Underbite had previously bragged about having eaten all of Nuon City, so Grimlock's answer was that the question was a trick question because Nuon City no longer
has a holo-rail; a line of reasoning that Simacore never considered, but reluctantly conceded as "technically true". And when it was Grimlock's turn to question Simacore, he at first struggled to think of something complex to say, but then his mobility finally returned and he also had an epiphany: He didn't
need to ask Simacore a complex question because, with his mobility restored and Simacore awaiting Grimlock's question, Simacore had just then given Grimlock the opening he needed to fight back. Thus, Grimlock asked a rather simplistic question that Simicore chuckled at for its elementary nature, a moment that Grimlock took advantage of to maul through Simacore and reach his captured friends in time to save them from a particle accelerator that would have most assuredly killed them had Grimlock been any second later. Boo-yah!
There's also the episode with Scowl, another Dinobot who Grimlock tries to befriend since Scowl doesn't seem like such a bad guy, but because Scowl was so unhinged, undisciplined, and unwilling to learn restraint as Grimlock had, Grimlock's own since of ethics were put to the test as Scowl initially tempted Grimlock into reverting to his own Decepticon ways of wanton smashing. But while Grimlock gave in at first (since Scowl used a line of reasoning that Grimlock believed made it okay for them to smash the particular thing they were smashing at the time), he later came to his senses and spent the rest of the whole episode trying to stop Scowl from doing whatever he wanted. This led to Scowl feeling that Grimlock betrayed him and their Dinobot nature. Grimlock, in a stark change from most Grimlocks, tried to
reason with Scowl, tried to appeal to the friendship that he and Scowl had formed earlier, but Scowl wouldn't listen and the two fought. Eventually, the conflict came to an end at a local spa, where Scowl tried to create as much damage as possible. Grimlock confronted him one last time, Dinobot vs. Dinobot. At the end of their fight, Grimlock seemed to have a change of heart, confessing to Scowl that Scowl's methods of collateral were indeed easier and more fun than Grimlock's own ways as an Autobot... but in that moment, Scowl hesitated and believed Grimlock to be joining him, which gave Grimlock the out he needed to knock Scowl out with a large stone ornament. Before passing out, Scowl heard Grimlock's final say: "Just because somethin's easier and more fun, Scowl, that doesn't make it right." In the end, Grimlock did good, but was saddened to see that he couldn't help Scowl the way Bumblebee and the others had helped him, realizing "you can't help some bot who doesn't wanna be helped." It's moments like this where Grimlock's genuine wisdom and maturity are brought to the surface and applauded.
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