Under Wraps (Ben 10 episode)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Ben 10 episode | |
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| "Under Wraps" | |
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| Episode # | 34 |
| Production # | 309 |
| Airdate | March 10, 2007 |
| Writer(s) | Greg Weisman |
| Director | Sebastian O. Montes III |
| Story | John Fang Samuel Montes Lauren Montgomery |
| Guest star(s) | Kath Soucie Rob Pinkston Khary Payton |
| Season 3 November 29, 2006 – April 21, 2007 |
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| List of all Ben 10 episodes... | |
"Under Wraps" is the 35th episode of the American animated television series Ben 10. It aired on March 10, 2007.
[edit] Plot
The episode begins in Dairyville, where three boys are sneaking under a fence to go cow-tipping. The two older boys mock a younger one, and when he tries to tip the first cow, he falls, and instead angered the bull he attempted to tip. The older boys run away, and the younger, named Todd, tries to scare the bull off. When it turns and runs off at his insistence, he realizes there is a huge, glowing monster behind him, and he runs away as purple lightning strikes behind the creature.
In the RV, Gwen is reading Charmcaster's spellbook and Ben playing a videogame while listening to a portable radio. Grandpa Max walks up behind Ben and startles them both because his head is covered in shampoo. After chiding Ben for not keeping the RV's water tank full with water, as well as not taking out the trash, he gets mad at Gwen, who hasn't done the dishes. They both complain it's summer break, not chore-break, so when an announcement comes on the radio for a farm willing to house some hard-working, possibly moral-needing helpers, Grandpa immediately signs them up.
After arriving at Joan Maplewood's farm, Ben and Gwen are immediately put to work. Max sternly scolds Ben for attempting to use the Omnitrix to make their jobs easier, so all three unload a truck full of feed bags and eventually finish, out of breath. After finishing, they eat dinner with the Maplewoods, and during the meal, Todd mentions seeing something strange a few nights ago. After dinner is over, everyone heads off to sleep, to Ben and Gwen's surprise. On the way to their beds, Ben and Gwen eventually persuade Todd to talk about the incident, and they immediately become curious. Having heard about the monster that attacked Todd earlier, which Todd describes as an "alien mummy", Ben and Gwen decide to check it out.
When they go looking for the mummy, the two find a crater with a trail of purple footprints leading from it. However, black and purple outlined cows, hideously mutated, attack them. Ben transforms into XLR8 and makes short work of them. He then sets off to find the mummy, leaving Gwen alone before she can object. XLR8 finds the mummy digging out a glowing, purple crystal from the ground, and after the mummy spots him, a battle ensues. XLR8 proves to be little match against the creature, which is not only much stronger, but practically impossible to hit because it can change its shape to dodge attacks. As XLR8 reverts back into regular Ben, he finds himself nearly crushed when the mummy attempts to collapse a silo on him. Gwen pushes him out of the way in time, asking if they're even, and they realize the mummy, and the crystal it was digging up, are gone.
The next morning, Ben and Gwen are forced to do more chores. Separated from Max at this point, Ben uses the Omnitrix to complete the tasks with relative ease. Afterwards, they have a talk with Todd about the amount of work, which he considers light in comparison to harvest season. He also reveals that the alien mummy arrived in purple lightning, which Ben and Gwen connect to the alien werewolf from the episode "Benwolf".
After telling Max about the mutated cows and the glowing crystal, Max retrieves some gear and identifies the crystal as corrodium, a radioactive element that can be used as a power source and was the radiation that mutated the cows. Though the crystal isn't native to Earth, he assumes a meteor deposited some on Earth thousands of years ago. Realizing that the mummy will no doubt be looking for more, they search for more deposits. A large cache is discovered under a dairy factory, which Ben promptly digs up as Diamondhead. Gwen remarks that Ben just did the work for the mummy, which appears at that moment to accent her point and to grab the crystal.
As Diamondhead proceeds to fight the mummy, fairing better than the first time but still unable to harm it, the night guard walks in on the battle. Despite Grandpa's warning, the guard stays, and the mummy quickly grabs him, using the corrodium to mutate him into an impromptu minion. The guard is now a monster, complete with razor sharp arms and a disfigured face, all in black with purple outlines. Seeing this, Max sticks portable HAZMAT suits on himself and Gwen, insisting Ben's current alien form will shield him for the moment. While Ben continues to battle the mummy, Max and Gwen deal with the mutated guard. Gwen tries a spell from Charmcaster's spellbook ('Imotja Objectia'), but the HAZMAT suit absorbs the effect, inflating like a balloon and bouncing Gwen about the room. Though inconvenient, she manages to land on the guard before deflating. They manage to trick the guard and force it into a packaging machine and turn it on to encase him.
Still fighting the mummy, Diamondhead's time limit ends and he reverts to human form, so Ben quickly dashes off and hides. Max spots Ben promptly puts a HAZMAT suit on him, and after the mummy knocks Grandpa off the ledge, Gwen and Ben fight it. Using what they learned on the farm, Ben and Gwen manage to trip the mummy into a peanut grinder that slices him to pieces. The mummy survives being torn apart and reforms, grabbing Ben. The mummy attempts to mutate Ben by ripping his HAZMAT suit, but in doing so grabs the Omnitrix, allowing the Omnitrix to sample its DNA. Max tells Ben to go alien to avoid mutation, which Ben does. Instead of becoming the mummy, however, he ends up as Upgrade. The mummy promptly smacks Upgrade aside, knocking him into a tank of liquid nitrogen. After being warned of this by Max, Upgrade realizes that he can use the tank to freeze the mummy. Possessing it, he fires a freezing beam at the mummy, turning it into what they dub a "mummy-cicle".
They quickly bury the mummy in the hole that they found the corrodium in, and use a cement mixer possessed by Upgrade to cover it up. Max also notes that the mutated cows and guard should revert to normal within a few hours. As they make their way to the RV, Max comments on going back to the farm. Ben and Gwen beg him not to go back, having learned their lesson. Max is equally ready to leave the farm behind, not wanting to get stuck with manure-duty again.
[edit] Notes
- The alien mummy was said to have arrived on Earth by means of a purple lightning, the same way the werewolf alien arrived. Ben, Grandpa Max, and Gwen speculated that there may have been a connection between the two.
- In the beginning of the episode, Gwen is seen reading Charmcaster's spellbook (which she took from her in "A Change of Face"). Later, during the fight with the mummy, Gwen attempts to cast a spell for the first time, which the HAZMAT suit she is wearing interferes with.
- The Omnitrix absorbs the mummy's DNA, giving Ben access to the form. However, it transforms Ben into Upgrade instead of the mummy when prompted.
- Ghostfreak's silhouette can be seen when the Omnitrix samples the mummy's DNA.
- When entering the plant where the mummy is searching for corrodium, Ben comment's that the plant, "Digby Dairy," makes his favorite ice cream.
