Jake shows up, too, looking for Cassie, and her mom peaces out to find her. Jake calls a secret meeting of the Animorphs in the AniBarn, but Tobias just starts petting the damn bird. Jake tells Marco and Rachel about his visit to the crash site, and they deduce that the Yeerks have infiltrated the police. Jake yells at Tobias to stop fucking around and tell him about the disk he dropped. Tobias gets super pissy about that. Jake suggests they all head back to the crash site as animals to look for it. Then Cassie shows up as a horse. We learn that the show has decided to add a terrible filter (similar to Visser Three’s) whenever the Animorphs communicate telepathically (or in “thought-speak”). It sucks. Moving on. Cassie demorphs back to human and they’re really, really trying here. Rachel wants to chase that same high. She morphs a barn cat.

Being a cat turns Rachel into a bitch, but no one notices much of a difference. Jake is like, “Your turn, Marco,” and Marco says fuck that. Jake tries to apply more peer pressure, but Marco goes off on him about the mortal peril they’re all engaged in. Then he says, “You don’t even know what reality is,” and oh, it’s time for Sad Moment. Turns out that Marco’s mom is dead. Marco doesn’t want to be involved in this shit, because if something happens to him, his dad will have nothing left. This is a major part of Marco’s character, but it really comes out of left field in this scene. It passes just as quick; Cassie brings up the valid point that Marco is more likely to survive if he can transform into a gorilla and beat the shit out of everyone than as a teenage boy in a big orange coat who won’t stop bitching about having superpowers. So he turns into a rat. At least, he tries to. Since he doesn’t believe in himself or the heart of the Animorphs, he gets stuck halfway through and turns out like this.