Episode 3 - "Teamwork"

With the scorching guitar solo out of the way it’s time to kick things off in another episode of Power Rangers. We start things off this week with Kimberly and Trini handing out flyers in front of 2 large screen TVs. Not sure where they would have got them as big LCDs like that would have cost a fortune back in ’93. Kimberly probably batted her eyelashes or something… anyway it seems that they’re trying to get support from the other sassy teens at the juice bar/gymnasium to get a garbage dump shut down. They claim that they can’t stand the smell, apparently these dirty hippies have no respect for the incredible engineering feats that are landfill sites but I digress. They are approached by Mr. Kaplan who nods in approval of the girls resolve… either that or he’s thinking about them doing each other.

Rita has been watching this little exchange through her big ol’ telescope and explains that her pollution will ruin the whole planet. Apparently they’re going to use the earth’s own pollution against it. If Rita is going to destroy the earth using its own pollution, why is she keeping it confined to a landfill? I’m sure this will make sense soon (or else maybe they’ll just ignore that and send some monsters.)

Trini and Kimberly are again banging the hippie drum and hassling people to sign their petition. The boys arrive and the girls explain that they plan to deliver the petitions to the managers of the dumpsite and not some kind of governing body. I’d expect that kind of savvy thinking from Kimberly, but Trini? You’re better than that. The guys all agree to sign the petition but they all start making (lame) excuses so that they don’t have to go to the dump. Trini gives them the disappointed mom routine and they leave in disgust. A noxious belch sound fills the air and Bulk and Skull’s theme music hits. Bulk drops a soda can on the ground and tells Kimberly to “recycle this”, then Skull throws a can at them and Bulk empties a garbage can over some poor random nerd and takes a page out of the Donkey Kong playbook by rolling the barrel towards Kimberly. I should point out that he rolls it very very slowly and instead of just stepping to the side Kimberly does a bitchin’ backflip to avoid it. Boy, these teens sure do have attitude. Bulk snaps and tells Skull to “GET HER!” and he and Skull charge at Kimberly who does another bitchin’ back flip causing Bulk and Skull to come together in a tender embrace. They realize what has happened and before anyone can call them gay they scream and push each other away so that they both land in garbage cans. (For those that are keeping count there seems to be 3 garbage cans in this one very small stretch of hallway.)

Rita is spying down on the waste dump that she apparently is controlling. It’s the same waste dump that Kimberly and Trini are delivering their socialist petitions to! Goldar suggest they soften the girls up with some putty’s and then finish them off with his big monster. What a romantic guy… Rita instructs Finster to prepare the putty’s and we cut to a dirty garbage dump. Most of the garbage seems to be old rusty barrels, which aren’t traditionally all that smelly. The girls wander around looking for someone to give their petition to until they are ambushed by the putty patrol! Trini keeps doing karate chops and seems to be holding her own, Kimberly on the other hand is running away and occasionally turning around to do a big kick. Rita sees that the girls are distracted by the putty patrol and decides it’s the perfect opportunity to send a monster down to the junk yard.

Meanwhile, back at the command center it turns out that Zack’s awkward excuse for not going to the garbage dump wasn’t a badly told lie after all, just bad acting. It seems Alpha 5 asked Zack to come teach him some break-dancing moves. An alarm goes off and Zordon interrupts this weird little scene to tell Zack that Trini and Kimberly are getting pwned. Alpha starts screaming “dudettes in trouble” over and over just in case we had forgotten it was 1993. Apparently Alpha forgot that they’re standing in a command center with the ability to teleport and that they’re all superheroes because he seems to truly be at a loss as to what to do about all this. Zordon, to his credit, doesn’t call Alpha a moron and calmly explains that they should summon the other guys and send them to help. However, rather than sending them straight to the dump to help their friends Zordon has them come to the command center to join them in watching the girls get the shit kicked out of them on the crystal ball.

Back on the moon Finster has completed the new monster and sends him down to earth. Once the hotness of watching their nubile teenage friends being beat up by S&M monsters wears off they teleport down to the earth to fight the crazy minotaur monster.

IT’S MORPHIN TIME!!!

Quickly strike a pose and jump into battle. Jason breaks out the blade blaster and tries to shoot the minotaur. Somehow his shield reflects the laser back as three separate lasers that hit the rangers in the chest causing smoke and sparks to erupt from their spandex. Meanwhile, Kimberly and Trini find themselves backed in to a corner but they use some quick thinking and flip the remaining 2 putties into the open rusty barrels behind them, and as we all know rusty barrels are like kryptonite to the putty patrol. Zordon and Alpha 5 watch this unfold on the crystal ball and notice that it seems that Goldar is headed down as well, he instructs Alpha to contact the girls and tell them to hook up with the guys (I swear that’s what he said) their only hope now is to work together as a team. The episode was called “Teamwork” after all.

IT’S MORPHIN TIME AGAIN!!!

Goldar and a bunch more putties jump out of a tree and attack Kimberly and Trini who have no trouble with the putties but Goldar starts beating the shit out of Trini with his big sword. Trini sends Kimberly to get the others, but as Alpha 5 sees in the crystal ball, they still have their hands full with the minotaur. Zordon points out that this is the toughest challenge they’ve had to face yet and wonders whether he should reveal to them the secret of their power weapons. Once again Zordon has failed to give the rangers the help and training they need until they’re moments away from getting killed. Fuck you Zordon. The minotaur is beating down the three rangers pretty badly and then Squatt and Baboo start throwing rocks down at them from a cliff. Rita looks on and flings her staff down to earth (how does she always get it back? Does she just have a lot of them?) causing the minotaur to grow and start trying to stomp on the rangers.

WE NEED DINOZORD POWER! NOW!

1 minute of stock footage later the rangers all proceed to jump 80 feet into the air and land in the cockpits. Always a cool trick. Jason declares that “battle sequence” has been initiated, presumably that means that the dinozords have other sequences like “yard-work sequence” or “deep-tissue massage” sequence. The 5 zords all use different abilities in concert with each other to bring the minotaur down (teamwork see?) The rangers decide to play another 45 seconds of stock footage and combine to form Megazord to deliver the crushing blow. However, it seems that the zords are having no effect. Zordon instructs the rangers to teleport back to the command center. I guess the zords just go back to their places by themselves? Zordon proceeds to hand out totally awesome weapons to each of the rangers. Billy is given a lance which he is told is a weapon of great power and range. Kimberly receives a bow and arrow (only one arrow though, better not miss) Jason gets a big sword that he starts stroking in a very creepy manner. Zack gets the axe, lightning quick and hard as diamond. Finally Trini gets power daggers, feather light and true as arrows (which is ironic because she has twice as many of them as Kimberly has actual arrows.) The rangers teleport back down into the battle with their totally awesome weapons. Never being ones to waste an opportunity the rangers are sure to get in some great posing with their new weapons before they resume the battle. For some reason the minotaur is really small again and the rangers start beating him up with their weapons. Zordon instructs them to combine their weapons, which apparently you do by posing and then throwing them in the air. The weapons come together to form a big crossbow that shoots rainbows. (Apparently this is more powerful that their giant Megazord) The minotaur explodes in a flash of cute light and we cut back to the moon where Rita is passing the buck yet again blaming her minions for yet another defeat.

Back at school the plucky youngsters are confronted by creepy old Mr. Kaplan who is upset that the hallway hasn’t been cleaned up from earlier with Bulk and Skull. He’s seems about to give our heroes shit when suddenly an announcement comes over the loud speaker announcing that a Mrs. Quagmire (giggity) wants to speak to Mr. Kaplan. Kaplan tells the kids to wait a moment while he answers the phone. The rangers then use teamwork to clean up the hallway in a Benny Hill chase scene and when Kaplan returns the mess is cleaned up. Kaplan’s fucking mind is BLOWN. Zordon calls the rangers on the walkie-talkie watches and apologizes for the poor signal quality, apparently Alpha has been dancing so much that it’s shorting out the console. Apparently everything Alpha touches turns to shit. We have yet to have an episode where something doesn’t short out. Zack basically tells Alpha to know his role and shut his mouth and they all laugh as the credits roll.

THE GOOD

The weapons are pretty cool.

We get to see fights, zords, megazords, AND weapons in one episode. Awesome

THE BAD

The whole garbage dump sub-plot is retarded.

Mr Kaplan is creepy and weird.

THE HILARIOUS

Again, Mr Kaplan is creepy and weird.

That’s it for this week, the next episode is called “A pressing engagement” If it’s anything like “Rules of Engagement” Billy will try to rescue an American flag while the command center is being attacked and will stand trial for… something. Shit I can’t remember what that movie was about, I just remember it being really good…