In The Scrapped Movie Intro Both Future Leo & April Mention Leo Having A Team & The Members Of Leos Team

In the scrapped movie intro both future Leo & April mention Leo having a team & the members of Leo’s team can later be seen getting orders from Leo

The members of Future Leo’s team seem to be made up of Todd, Draxum, a grown up Baxter, Hypno, Warren & an unknown moose character. I was curious about who the moose on Leo’s team was & discovered that he was probably Monty Moose 

Monty Moose is a toy line only character from the 1987 series which is a fun little reference but through some digging about the scrapped Rise episode I also found out that Monty was supposed to have appeared in season 2 in a scrapped episode called The Return of Monty Moose

What a silly little boy

Okay it’s not exactly the same but you know how Red Eared Sliders sometimes ride of the back of Soft Shell Turtles?

It kind of reminds me of when we briefly saw that baby Leo used to like to sleep on baby Donnie’s shell

abrazos~~ anyway, still love them

Raph: Today we’re doing some team building exercises, starting with the classic trust fall.

Leo: Pass.

Raph: This exercise is mandatory, Leo. Sit back down.

Mikey: Don’t you trust us?

Leo: I trust you and Raph. Donnie though? He will drop me.

Mikey: How could you think so lowly of your own brother?

Donnie: No, no, he’s right. I will drop him faster then a politician’s approval rating post election.

Rise is really good with how they handle the character’s relationships even in the smallest moments

Raph: Dad!?

Mikey: Draxum!?

Donnie: April!?

Leo:…Foot Recruit? 

In Battle Nexus New York when Splinter, Draxum, April & Cassandra break free of the orb each Turtle yells out a different name & the name they call out actually has a lot behind it (at least for Raph, Mikey & Donnie)

Raph’s relationship with Splinter is a little complicated, as the eldest son Splinter put a lot of responsibility on Raph but Raph constantly wants to make Splinter proud. Raph’s shown to worry about making Splinter disappointed & was the one who convinced his brothers to take the Hamato training seriously for Splinter’s sake. He’s also the one who learned the most about Splinter’s past being the one who saw the memory of Splinter loosing his mother.

Mikey is the one closest to Draxum, the boy practically carried Draxum’s redemption on his back. Mikey was the first one who acknowledged Draxum’s place in the family as the boys creator & is the one who pushes Draxum to make connections with the other members of the family as well.

Donnie & April are best friends, Donnie trusts April enough to be vulnerable with her about his insecurities & April believes in Donnie to the point where he’s one of the first people she goes to for help as seen when she calls him for help when the Albearto at her work place breaks down. There have been a few Donnie & April solo episode together which really show how much they trust & believe in each other as well as how comfortable they are around each other as well.

Leo calling out Foot Recruit I think is just the writers having a bit of fun over the fact that before Karai appeared & Foot Recruit was revealed to be the Rise version of Casey, so many people thought that Foot Recruit was going to end up being the Rise version of Karai so whenever writers did Q&A’s on twitter a near constant question that was asked was when would Leo & Foot Recruit interact or if they would have an episode together ect so I think Leo calling out Foot Recruit was the writers doing a little nod to the people who kept on asking for Leo & Foot Recruit interaction.

Though Leo did end up being the sensei to Cassandra’s kid so they must have ended up friends at some point