My favorite canon Baxter episode

I've pondered long and hard on the matter, and after seeing all Baxter episodes, I feel my opinion remains the same: Curse of the Evil Eye is my favorite of them. One might ask Why, considering I like Baxter to be on the good side in my stories and Curse of the Evil Eye arguably depicts him at his darkest while still a human. I have several reasons.

Out of all of the Baxter episodes, Curse of the Evil Eye certainly gives him the spotlight more than any other episode prior to Enter: The Fly, with the possible exception of A Thing About Rats. I love seeing a favorite character take the spotlight if he seems to be in-character, even if within the episode he is definitely operating as an antagonist. And I like Baxter best as a human overall, and not just because I abhor flies. I think there was much more they could have done with Baxter as a human and that the transformation happened too early. It was tragic seeing him degrade in intelligence following the cross-fusion with the fly. Here, we see him at full mental power.

An early scene in the episode shows him actually being, well, cool and quick-thinking. Upon emerging from the Chinese restaurant, he suspects he is being followed. With a push of a button, he turns his glasses into rear-view mirrors and observes the Turtles coming up behind him. His response to that is to whip out a mysterious gun and send a strange flare at them. Whether he was trying to harm them and didn't succeed because it's a cartoon or whether he never intended real harm is unknown, but since antagonists have hurt the Turtles multiple times throughout the series it seems more likely that his invention was only meant as an inconvenience and not a danger. Its effect removes or disintegrates the Turtles' disguises, rendering them visible as turtles for all to see. In this scene, Baxter is fully in control of the situation and isn't a shaking, sniveling coward, as he is when the Turtles attack his Ratcatcher in Return of the Shredder. This side of Baxter isn't one we see often, and it is very welcome to see here.

We also see him really abandon his usual meek and mild persona for the first time in the series, minus the short scenes from Return of the Shredder where he abducts Splinter and cackles madly, and later chases the Turtles while cackling madly again. Shredder has verbally and occasionally physically abused him one time too many by the middle of Curse of the Evil Eye and he has had enough. It's delightful to see Baxter stand up for himself against the cruel treatment, unlike how Bebop and Rocksteady idiotically idolize Shredder no matter what he does to them.

Of course, the manner in which Baxter stands up for himself is quite concerning. Claiming the Eye of Sarnoth for himself is going to go very badly; that's immediately apparent. He is already clearly insane from what he went through between seasons 1 and 2, which would be reason enough to be concerned. In addition to that factor, he has a legitimate grievance with Shredder. And no matter how bad off he is from working for Shredder, something powerful like the Eye will corrupt him further.

Baxter is at his darkest once he determines to claim the Eye for himself, and yet there may still be some shreds of the good person he once was. When he corners Mr. Blodgett, he exercises power over him much as Shredder has previously done to him, by insulting him and using a rather bizarre invention to boot Shredder's helmet with the attached Eye of Sarnoth over to him. But while he certainly could have then done some serious, even potentially fatal, damage to Blodgett, he chooses instead to simply tie him up and leave.

He talks to himself as he heads off, declaring he wants to make the people recognize his genius. It's unknown what he might have done had he continued to possess the Eye; after the cross-fusion he wanted more than once to make humanity pay for not caring about him, but in his crazed and garbled state he may very well have carried such ideas to extremes that he would not have considered as a human, even after insanity set in. He may have mainly wanted people to really see and take notice of his inventions as they never had before. On the other hand, he may have intended to try ruling over the people as a king, since he created a palace for himself.

The creation of said palace, a duplicate of the Taj Mahal, shows the arrogance and egocentric nature of the man. This is a trait that all Baxter Stockmans have to varying degrees. With the TMNT 87 Baxter, who is the only one to canonically start out wanting to do good and make an honest living, it is an interesting contrast. No one is perfect, and even Donatello has a bit of the "egotistical scientist" mentality. Clearly it is one of Baxter's negative traits, but it in itself doesn't make him a villain. It is how Baxter uses it that does that.

Naturally the Turtles catch up with him, and now, armed with such great power, he is even more bold than he was in the early scene. He creates a monster out of a billboard character and sics it on the Turtles, sneering for it to make him some Turtle Soup. Despite this alarming threat, he arguably seems to have not really intended for the Turtles to be killed. After the fight has proceeded for some time, with the Turtles struggling against the clay monster, Baxter offers to maybe spare them if they acknowledge that he has defeated them when Shredder could not. What he really wants is just to win, to finally be top dog for a change, and killing isn't necessary or even wanted for that to happen. Shredder certainly never gave the Turtles such an option, save for their very first encounter when he tried to convince them to join him. Then he became obsessed with his revenge and only a permanent defeat would do. Baxter only became obsessed with revenge after his mind with merged with a fly's. Here, he doesn't desire revenge anywhere as badly, even though the precursors for his later rampages are seen. And despite how his life spiraled downhill after that fateful night when he met Shredder and the Turtles and the Turtles blindly considered him an enemy, he is willing to grant them mercy.

After Shredder catches up with Baxter, breathing vicious threats all the while, Baxter continues his bold and rebellious approach. He attempts to create another monster when Shredder defeats the clay beast and the Turtles have similar luck with the electrical creature. Then Blodgett appears on the scene, having been freed by his cat, and also demands the helmet. Following a brief fight, Shredder reclaims the helmet and delivers a knockout punch to Baxter.

This is unfortunately the last we see of Baxter in the episode. One would hope he wasn't still laying there when parts of the building started to collapse, as that would mean he was simply forgotten about and abandoned by the protagonists to potentially die.

I always wonder why he and Shredder returned to the master and servant/slave relationship they had before this episode happened. Most likely, Shredder decided he had to keep Baxter around for the time being since he had no one else, but why did Baxter agree? Was he scared and submissive again after the destruction of the Eye of Sarnoth? That would be a very human reaction; people often have bursts of rebellion followed by guilt and fear when it passes. But regardless, in Baxter's case it is a question that will never be officially answered.

Curse of the Evil Eye was actually the first Baxter episode I saw in recent times. My immediate impression of the character was that his character design, hair color, and meek personality reminded me of Mr. Smee on Peter Pan and the Pirates. But I soon saw that, unlike Mr. Smee, Baxter was not going to blindly adore and serve Shredder forever. The character made a strong impression on me as being very different from the 2003 Baxter, with whom I was more familiar, and leaving me wanting to see more. Perhaps too, Baxter's rebellion against the cruel treatment Shredder gave him resonates in a very real way with me and anyone else who has ever felt like a doormat. It is somehow empowering and invigorating to see someone stand up for himself, even if he is a fictional character.

As far as human Baxter episodes go, I definitely find this one to be the best and the most satisfying. My second favorite would probably be A Thing About Rats, which I may dissect at a later time.