The Widening Gyre

The Widening Gyre is the fortieth episode of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien and the eighth episode in the third season.

Plot
A can is floating in the ocean. Behind it, a boat is approaching a dark and foggy island (made out of trash). The people on the boat start to cough, while a man runs up to the captain telling him the smell is too strong and the crew can't take it anymore.

Suddenly the crew member tries to warn the captain in vain. A giant garbage-like creature appears and drags the boat down into the ocean.

Ben is digging through his garage while Kevin is moaning about how Ben promised them they would do something fun. Kevin asks Gwen if she ready to leave. She nods yes and they proceed to leave, but before Ben can stop them, some Government agents arrive and politely request his help.

Once at Colonel Rozum's base he explains that billions of people throw garbage into the ocean, and it's congregated by the currents into a single mass; the Pacific Garbage Vortex. Now there's something living on it and it's taken dozens of ships and hundreds of people, including two of his agents and his sister. The team agrees to help and proceed to the island made of trash.

Kevin is flying the Rust Bucket III over the ocean searching for the garbage island, Gwen easily spots it. After they landed on the island, the three of them are walking around the island looking for people. In the midst of the garbage, Ben discovers, to his shock and disbelief, an autographed photo of himself. Gwen then suddenly spots a giant skeleton of a dead bird in the floor. Gwen says that many birds die from eating plastic because the plastic poisons them. Ben says to get ready (for an attack) because he spots three mutated giant seagulls coming. Ben transforms into Terraspin and takes down one of the birds, and Gwen takes down a second. Sadly, Terraspin gets knocked down to the floor and the three birds gang up on him and try to eat him. Fortunately, Gwen manages to scare them off and the three of them run away.

They manage to find two people, Agent Locke and Agent Bricen. It turns out that they are the agents Colonel Rozum sent and they have Rozum's sister (though badly injured and in need of a doctor). They all agree the best course of action is to leave the island immediately. However, Gwen wants to know how the garbage can come alive and attack people. Agent Locke explains that, after discovering the enormity of the issue of the building garbage, the governments of the world combined forces to try to get rid of it. They dropped a bomb full of an experimental, plastic-eating bacteria on it, but it didn't work as planned. The bacteria mutated along with the garbage, thus creating the giant seagulls and the living garbage monsters.

Suddenly a deep mysterious voice from no determinable direction claims that they (the humans, not just Ben's team) will never leave the island alive. The group is then attacked by a garbage monster, which pins the group down with garbage. Ben turns into NRG to fight it while Kevin absorbs some metal from part of a pipe to fight and after a while, they defeat the garbage monster and escape on the Rust Bucket III.

Suddenly the Rust Bucket hits land ahead of schedule, at which point they realize that the island is moving towards land to acquire the garbage that it needs to feed off of in order to survive. Then the island transforms into a giant monster and Ben turns into Way Big to fight it. The rest of the group tries to help Ben in the Rust Bucket III, but it is shot down and crashes into the ocean. Ben is having a bit of difficulty fighting the monster which, as it turns out, can regenerate.

Ben uses Way Big's super speed to create a water vortex around it. This throws it into the sun, thus defeating the monster. Ben wonders if that's the end of it, to which Gwen replies "I hope so". Meanwhile a man throws a bottle into the ocean, and the bottle joins a larger pile of garbage while ominous music plays.

Major Events

 * The Rust Bucket 3 appears to be fully repaired after getting destroyed in the previous episode.
 * The Team destroys a significant portion of the pacific Garbage vortex.

Characters

 * Ben Tennyson
 * Gwen Tennyson
 * Kevin Levin
 * Colonel Rozum
 * Agent Locke
 * Agent Bricen
 * Government Agents
 * Captain Calledose

Villains

 * Garbage Monster
 * Mutant Seagulls

Aliens Used

 * Terraspin
 * NRG
 * Way Big

Errors

 * The depth of the Pacific Ocean should be about 7 miles deep, but when Way Big (who is over 100 feet tall) stood in it, the water goes up to his knees. Though to be fair, Way Big was fighting near a bay which is not as deep as the rest of the ocean.
 * In one scene, the side of Terraspin's shell was the same color as his skin.
 * In one scene, when Terraspin in rapid spinning form was battling the Mutant Seagulls, his Ultimatrix symbol on his chest had no black color.
 * NRG seems to be bigger when fighting the Garbage Monster.
 * In two scenes the insignia on the sleeve of Colonel Rozum appears on the right hand.
 * There is no reason that the Mutant Birds should have red eyes.
 * When the Garbage Monster changes from the island into the monster, Ben, Gwen and Kevin are close together. But when the scene changes, they appear to be far apart.
 * When Kevin grabs the garbage monster from behind, NRG's top is the color of his body.
 * They say that the trash island is twice the size of Texas but when they show an overhead view of the islnad near land, it is no bigger than the bridge it is next to.

Allusions

 * The title of the episode of is from the first line of the poem "the Second Coming" by William Butler Yeats ("Turning and turning in the widening gyre"). The poem was published after World War 1 and essentially describes a situation of great ruin and despair.
 * Kevin makes references to the old 1990's shows X-Files and Captain Planet (coincidentally, both Ben and Captain Planet were recently featured in the video game "Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion").
 * This is very similar to the Generator Rex episode Waste Land:
 * The plots have a number of similarities for example: the description of the area being made entirely out of garbage and twice the size of Texas is the same. Both the plots involved ships mysteriously disappearing, and both the plots involve a major ecological disaster (other than the formation of the garbage island itself).
 * The trash monster is similar to the X-Men villain Krakoa, the living island.
 * The manner in which the garbage swallows up the ship in the beginning of the episode is similar to the way the Kraken attacks in the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

Trivia

 * It is shown in the beginning there is some strain between Rozum and Ben's team when Ben mentions the incident in Prisoner Number 775 is Missing.
 * This episode aired in Egypt on 10/30/2011.
 * Way Big raising out of water, near a bridge to battling a giant opponent is similar to Way Big about to battle Evil Way Big in Cosmic Destruction.
 * The mutated seagulls that Terraspin fought actually have modified Anguirus roars, from the Godzilla series.