Episode 19 - "Green With Evil - Part 3"

Episode 19 - “Green With Evil – Part 3”

Greetings friends! Welcome back. I join you tonight in the itchiest state I've ever been in. Went for a walk with the bride and was positively devoured by mosquitos the size of small birds. But, despite by itchiness I'm ready to rocket with part 3 of the Green Ranger story! Let's roll.

RECAP

We start off with Goldar brutally murdering Jason. Well actually we start with Goldar about to murder Jason, but Jason rolls to the side and the sword misses him. Then Jason just stays low so Goldar can't find him. You see, the jail cell is filled with waist-high fog and mist, bit of a design flaw if you ask me.

Meanwhile, Rita is explaining yet another phase to her plan. I'm not going to go into detail because you know what the stupid plan is. She's summoning another monster. This one's name is Scorpina, can you guess what creature theme her costume is?

At the command center, Alpha is trying to lock onto Zordon but the signal is failing. The signal grows too weak and they completely lose ol' baldy again. The computer is also unable to locate Jason. Zack (being the most perceptive ranger) points out that something doesn't feel right. Really Zack? There's an evil green ranger who's kicked your ass twice, your leader is missing, your base destroyed, your big floating head lost in time and space and you think that maybe, just maybe something fishy is going on? Congratu-fucking-lations Zack, someone give the boy a medal... Anyway, the rangers decide to split up and search for Jason.

Meanwhile, Goldar is still wandering around in the mist stabbing blindly at the ground. As soon as Goldar's back is turned Jason jumps up and kicks him, causing Goldar to stumble. Jason gets cocky and asks what it feels like to be outsmarted by a human. Jason, I hate to be a that guy, but I have to say you didn't really outsmart him. You kicked him and he stumbled a bit, he's still a monster in armor with a sword and you're still a dork in a red wife-beater. The only difference is now he knows where you are. Now who's the idiot?

Back at the gymnasium/juice bar, Kimberly is asking if Ernie has seen Jason. He hasn't, but Bulk and Skull offer their services to find Jason in exchange for sexual favours. (Ok, they just want kisses, but I felt their true intentions were implied.) On her way out of the gymnasium/juice bar Kimberly bumps into Tommy who is still acting like a huge d-bag. Zack arrives and Kimberly tells Zack that Tommy said he waited for Jason yesterday but he never showed. Zack points out that that is totally bogus! They decide to ask Tommy more about it and follow him out to the parking lot.

On the moon, Goldar tells Rita that he thinks Kimberly might suspect Tommy... wait... what?! Goldar says this? How the fuck is that possible? He's in the jail cell playing grab ass with Jason! Come on guys! There's 4 other henchmen who could have made that observation! Oh well, anyway, Rita sees Kimberly and Zack chasing after Tommy down a path in the park and sends her putty patrollers to head them off. The putties sound extra murloggy in this fight. It's pretty ridiculous. As Zack and Kimberly take care of the putties we see a very creepy looking Tommy hiding in the bushes watching them. The best thing about this fight scene is that it's slightly sped up so it looks very odd, especially when the putties fall to ground. After the battle Kimberly and Zack agree that it sure is strange that the putties didn't attack Tommy. COME ON YOU GUYS. YOU CAN FIGURE THIS OUT. FFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU.

Back at county, Goldar (who apparently is everywhere) is still chasing Jason around in the fog. Just as Goldar is about to deliver the crushing blow, the green ranger ports into the cell and explains that Rita has ordered that Goldar bugger off so that Tommy can be the one to kill Jason. Goldar leaves without argument and then Tommy and Jason exchange some of the best dialogue in the history of television:

TOMMY: I work for Rita, I'm her Green Ranger.

JASON: SHE'S EVIL!

TOMMY: Yes. And so am I.

Seriously, it's like David Mamet himself wrote this episode. Anyway, karate happens and Jason gets knocked down as Tommy taunts him some more and as usual nothing happens.

Back at the command center, Alpha explains that they will have a fix on Zordon in 15.2 minutes (AND NOT A MOMENT LATER!) and Billy informs everyone that he's fixed the wrist communicators and can thus lock onto Jason and teleport him back to the command center! Good thing too, because Tommy was just about to deliver the coup de gras to young Jason.

On the moon, all the goonies are still talking about Scorpina. Ok, we get it. Her name is Scorpina and she's a badass, just summon her and get on with it.

Billy locks onto Jason and teleports him back to the command center just as Tommy was about to use that bitching sword Rita gave him. Honestly, Tommy has the same problem as all the other rangers, if he spent less time posing and babbling and more time fighting he'd have killed all the damn rangers by now.

Back at county, Goldar is giving Tommy shit for wasting too much time. (Seriously? How long did that Golden Teddy Graham stand around babbling in that cell? What a hypocrite.)

At the command center, the rangers are reviewing what happened to Jason, they brush over the fact that Tommy's story didn't make sense at the school (SERIOUSLY, HOW CAN YOU NOT FIGURE THIS OUT?!!!) The alarm goes off and the rangers see Scorpina running amok and leap into action (after lots of posing and time-wasting of course)

IT'S MORPHIN' TIME!

Scorpina, (who has a great hat) sends a squadron of power rangers to attack the power rangers and the fight is on. Goldar warns Rita that if Scorpina stays down there by herself she's going to get pwned (pretty much what happens to every monster in every episode) so Goldar goes and fetches Scorpina. (Holy shit, all that build up to that character and she's in the fight for 30 seconds before Goldar pulls her out.) All the goonies start arguing about who should go fuck up the rangers. Rita chooses Goldar and then explains that while the fight is going on she's going to work on a spell to cause a solar eclips to block out the Megazord's solar power when the final battle begins. (The Megazord is solar powered? Is it just me, or is that retarded? And why is she planning on how to defeat the Megazord right now? Why doesn't she just send Goldar and Tommy to kill the rangers now? I should be in charge up there, I'd have taken over the world by now.)

Back at county, Tommy is jumping around and kicking the air (practicing?) he says he's ready for another chance to fuck up the rangers. Rita tells him to be patient, she's saving him up.

At the command center the rangers point out that it's weird that every time they go into battle with Rita she pulls back. Almost as if she's holding back in preparation for a bigger battle. For such perceptive kids you'd think one of them would have figured out the whole “Tommy is the green ranger you halfwit” thing. At least the wrist communicators are functional, and they learn that the computer is online again. Alpha manages to lock onto Zordon a wee bit and they hear the garbled static Zordon message again. They learn nothing, but before they can set to working on it again Rita interrupts with her magic wand, screaming MAKE MY MONSTER GROW. (Woot)

Alpha points out Goldar smashing downtown Angel Grove and with that, we cue the music. Or rather the TO BE CONTINUED SIGN.

THE GOOD

The plot was furthered much more this week than last, even if it was a lot of stage setting again.

THE BAD

Goldar being in 2 places at once REALLY annoyed me.

THE HILARIOUS

Scorpina getting less than 20 seconds of screen time. That was brilliant, I wonder if she'll be back or if that was filler?

Overall, up from last week and I'm getting excited to see this story start wrapping up. There's going to be some cool fighting I think, and despite the solar power thing being lame I think it will be cool to see the Megazord have to fight without power. I give this one 4 power-coins out of five.

Well, that's it for this week. I might as well tell you now that my job as a teacher is going to be kicking into overdrive in the next few weeks and I'm teaching some seminars and workshops that will keep me away from home (I'll be out in the bush actually with limited internet access) I'm not planning to miss any updates, but I just thought I'd mention that if I miss a day or 2 in the next few weeks don't be surprised. That said, thanks as always for reading and if you have anything you'd like to say to me (even just hello, it's always nice to hear that someone's reading!) send me an email at joeygruszecki@gmail.com or follow me on twitter http://www.twitter.com/Colonel2Sheds

Well, I leave you this week with another quote from the great Douglas Adams' “Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”:

“One of the major difficulties Trillian experienced in her relationship with Zaphod was learning to distinguish between him pretending to be stupid just to get people off their guard, pretending to be stupid because he couldn't be bothered to think and wanted someone else to do it for him, pretending to be outrageously stupid to hide the fact that he actually didn't understand what was going on, and really being genuinely stupid.” - Douglas Adams, “The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy”

Episode 18 - "Green With Evil Part II"

Episode 18 - “Green With Evil – Part II”

Welcome back everyone! Another delayed (but not yet late) installment of our ongoing Power Rangers conversation has arrived. Once again due to work being ridiculous I don't have any fun off-topic stuff to talk about so let's get straight into the episode.

RECAP

Things kick off where they left off last week; in the ruins of the command center. Zordon is still messed up, Alpha is still deactivated and the rangers are walking around recapping what happened last week. Billy is working on Alpha's circuits trying to get him up and running. Billy connects the right doo-hickey's and Alpha seems to be recovering. Before anyone can celebrate too much Jason (AKA Mr. Sad-sack) reminds everyone that everything still sucks and they have no idea who the Green Ranger is.

On the moon, Rita announces the beginning of phase 2 of the big plan. We learn that part of this phase involves giving Tommy the evil sword of darkness. It has the power to keep the Green Ranger under her power forever, so long as the sword is not destroyed.

Back on Earth, Rita instructs Tommy to keep his identity as the Green Ranger a secret. Just as Rita departs Bulk and Skull walk up with intention to bully Tommy. (Apparently they both forgot how intimidating Tommy was the last time they fucked with him.) This time he glares at them really hard. This makes their feet turn green and make them run into a dumpster. Seriously.

At the gymnasium/juice bar, Jason is pissed right off. He's venting his frustration by beating on a punching bag. Zack asks Jason if he thinks it's possible that the Green Ranger is the one responsible for the destruction in the command center? I didn't actually realize that there was any doubt about that. I mean it seems kind of obvious... Anyway, the lads continue their chat and leave off with Jason saying he can't wait to get his hands on the evil jerk.

Back at the command center, Billy and Trini are working on the consoles. Alpha tells them that if Billy can get the generators back online they can fix the communicators and Alpha can begin searching for Zordon. At least we have a plan.

At school, Kimberly sees Tommy and confronts him about missing their date. How very like Kimberly, their mentor is missing, their base destroyed and they got their asses beat by the Green Ranger, but ol' Kimberly is still more concerned about her love-life. You suck Kimberly. Luckily Tommy totally blows her off. It's nice to see someone giving Kimberly shit. Tommy informs her that she's not the center of everyone’s universe. THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING OVER 17 PREVIOUS EPISODES DUDE! I like this Tommy guy. Kimberly responds with the awesome “well, excuse me for living” cliché. Heartbroken, she walks away to mope and we see Tommy's eyes flash green (just in case we'd forgotten the reason he's being a douche.)

On the moon, Goldar suggests testing Tommy's strength against the putties before giving him the sword of darkness. They all head down to the planet (to a nice scenic beach)) where they inform Tommy that he must defeat the putties before being given the sword. After a few minutes of putty-ass-kicking Rita bestows upon her Emerald minion the sword of darkness. (What an awesome sentence that was.) The sword of darkness is pretty badass. Tommy announces his intentions of disposing of the Red Ranger first.

Speaking of Red Rangers, Jason is walking through the halls of Angel Grove high looking for Tommy. When he finds him he informs Tommy that he has to cancel their plans to work out together, Tommy acts ridiculously suspicious and then, with Jason's back turned, shoots him with some kind of green lazer which transports Jason to a wacky jail cell. But, he's not alone, Goldar is there too, and he has Jason's power coin for some reason!

Meanwhile, Zack and Kimberly are waiting in Billy's garage for Jason. Before long they decide they can't wait any longer for him and take off in the Radbug to the command center. While they fly Zack notices Kimberly's sour mood. He tells her not to worry, they'll solve all these problems soon. Oh Zack, I think you're being far too optimistic about what Kimberly is upset about, which is what he finds out moments later. Kimberly informs Zack of Tommy's behavior. But, of course they're both too stupid to put jerk wearing green and Green Ranger together.

At the command center, Alpha and Billy decide to test some of Billy's repairs. They have managed to reactivate the wacky crystal ball! They see the Green Ranger posing. What is it about those costumes that make teenagers want to pose? Anyway, Alpha says that he's managed to get limited power to the generator and the morphing grid has locked onto the Green Rangers energy source (I love Power Rangers techno-babble.) Kimberly points out that they can't defeat Greenie without Jason.

Back in county (which is what I'm calling that jail that Jason's in) Goldar is taunting Jason. Jason and Goldar tussle a little bit before Goldar explains to Jason the reason he hasn't killed him yet is that Rita has given Jason to Goldar as a reward for his service... ew.

Back at the command center the rangers decide to go into battle sans Jason.

IT'S UNENTHUSIASTIC MORPHIN' TIME FOR EVERYONE BUT JASON!

A cool fight scene (or rather an ass-kicking) ensues. Greenie makes pretty short work of the rangers and blasts them with some power from the sword of darkness. During the fight Rita informs her goons that she has a green surprise for the power rangers.

WE NEED DINOZORD POWER! NOW!

Despite not saying the cool summoning catch-phrase, the rangers do indeed summon their zords. Zack gives the order to form up the Megazord. One thing about this bothers me... HOW THE HELL IS JASON'S ZORD THERE?! Seriously, that is really irritating! Tommy shoots a big laser out of his sword at the Megazord, but the Megazord reflects it back and forces Tommy to retreat. Rita seems annoyed as hell, but her mood brightens when her goons remind her that she has Jason held prisoner.

Back at the command center Alpha explains has made progress on the generator and it's locked onto something. Zordon's voice starts to crackle through, but it's very staticy and they can't really understand him. Before they can understand anything he fades out again.

Back in county Jason makes an attempt to get the power coin back. He fails and Goldar readies himself to finally do away with Jason once and for all. But, before he can kill Jason he freezes in time and the words TO BE CONTINUED appear. SUSPENSE.

THE GOOD

Decent battle sequences and it's nice to have a story be given so much room to breathe.

THE BAD

Well, Jason's zord appearing really irritated me.

THE HILARIOUS

There wasn't a lot of hilarity this week actually. I guess Tommy being tested with such a pathetically easy challenge was kind of funny.

Overall, not as good as last time, but it was a lot of exposition so we can forgive it that. I give this one 3.5 power-coins out of 5.

Well, that's it for today, see you all on friday. I leave you with more Douglas Adams goodness:

“You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young."
"Why, what did she tell you?"
"I don't know, I didn't listen." - Douglas Adams “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
“

Episode 17 - "Green With Evil - Part I"

Episode 17 - “Green with Evil Part 1”

Hi folks, apologies for today's late posting. I've been working crazy hours and haven't been able to devote the time I would like to the blog. But here I am, better late than never right?! No off-topic recommendations today due to the work I've been doing so we'll just get right into today's story. We're finally into the Green Ranger stuff! I've been looking forward to this for a while now! Let's roll.

RECAP

We kick things off this week at Angel Grove Martial arts expo! (Which, of course, is being held at the gymnasium/juice bar.) The team is giving Jason a pep-talk. (Well not the whole team. Kimberly is just drinking a Big-Gulp.) Jason points out that he's going to need all the advice he can get as the kid he's going up against is pretty spectacular (again, except for Kimberly who just says he's cute. That girl is USELESS.) The announcer tells us that Jason will be competing against this new challenger in a martial arts competition.

Rita, meanwhile, has been watching this all unfold and thinks he'd be a perfect Green Ranger! It's such a brilliant idea! She can't believe she hadn't thought of it before now. Neither can I frankly, she's been using the same damn plan over and over again for weeks.

Back at the gymnasium/juice bar, the competition is under way. Jason is winning 2-1 over Tommy (I have no idea how this competition is being judged, but I doubt it really matters.) The fight continues with Tommy gaining the upper hand. With the score tied up the two warriors get back into it. Tommy lands another blow and takes the lead. This is getting boring. Like REALLY boring. Basically it ends with Jason and Tommy battling to a draw. Jason and Tommy shake hands. Tommy seems like a pretty nice fella. Jason's friends are all so proud, even Kimberly offers him some of her Big Gulp. Everyone wanders off to do teenage things, leaving Kimberly who is staring at the ever-so-dreamy Tommy. Sigh, he's such a hunk.

The next day, Kimberly is at her locker when up walk Bulk and Skull. As per usual, Skull is trying to hit on Kimberly who tells him to scram. Bulk says it's time to teach her a lesson. We never get to find out what kind of lesson the fat man had in mind because Tommy walks up and tells Bulk and Skull to beat it. Bulk threatens Tommy which causes Tommy to start jumping around and doing spin-kicks in the air like a lunatic. It has the desired effect though as it sends Bulk and Skull running. Kimberly thanks the big strong man for saving her (for christ's sake, she's a goddamn power ranger and Bulk and Skull are buffoons, it's not like she really needed his help. But, she plays the helpless damsel card and manages to score a date with handsome Tommy for the following afternoon at the youth center.)

Meanwhile, Rita calls forth the power of the sixth power coin. I guess she just had one kicking around. She plans to turn Tommy to the evil green ranger after he faces down some putties in a test!

In an alley full of cardboard boxes and wooden pallettes the putties attack Tommy who beats them repeatedly over the head with a garbage-can lid. He has far less trouble with them than the other five rangers put together usually have. I guess he passed the test.

Rita is very pleased indeed. She prepares her crystal ball to receive him. (whatever that means.) Rita appears before Tommy and blasts him with her wand, teleporting him to a wacky candle-lit cave on the moon. He's unconscious laying on some kind of altar (getting a little “Rosemary's Baby” on us now”) a few magic words later and we have an evil power ranger! Rita instructs Tommy to infiltrate the command center (which he can do now since he's a ranger) and disable Zordon, then he can destroy the other rangers.

At that exact moment, Zordon is instructing Alpha to power himself down and recharge himself. Your timing SUCKS big head. Rita tells Tommy it's time to GET DOWN.

IT'S EVIL MORPHIN TIME!

The Green Ranger is born! He has a bitching set of shoulder pads, but other than that he just looks like another ranger. He teleports into the command center and starts by sticking a mini-disc into Alpha's chest, Alpha starts freaking out and so Tommy yanks some cables out of his back. Zordon wakes up from his wacky meditative state and questions how Tommy was able to enter the command center. Tommy explains that he has a power coin. Zordon is not surprised, it turns out he knew Rita had a power coin and could recruit her own ranger. Why he didn't tell anyone else this I don't know. He does a lot of stupid shit like this. Zordon tries to convince Tommy not to be a dick (Wil Wheaton style!) but Tommy's not hearing any of it. Tommy rips a bunch of cables out of the console and Zordon becomes all staticy. I don't know if that means Zordon's dead (I doubt it) or just needs some rabbit ears or something.

Rita is thrilled that something is finally going her way. She announces that its' time for an even BIGGER surprise. Rita chucks her wand and MAKES HER MONSTER GROW!!! (Wow. Big surprise.) Goldar (he's the one they made big) starts running amok.

Meanwhile, Billy, Jason and Zack are waxing the radbug. Trini and Kimberly turn up, Kimberly is acting all depressed because Tommy never showed up for their date. Just then, Alpha contacts the rangers and attempts to tell them what's wrong. Unfortunately communication and teleportation are both down. Good thing we have the RADBUG. (I knew they'd use that stupid thing again eventually.)

At the command center the rangers discover that Tommy has fucked shit up royally. Zordon is gone and Alpha has a virus! (Should have used Linux). Billy removes the virus (by just removing the disc Tommy inserterted. Terriffic.) The rangers spot Goldar making a mess on the crazy ball viewer thing and leap into action.

IT'S MORPHIN TIME FOR THE GOOD GUYS THIS TIME!

The rangers are immediately attacked by the putty patrol. While the rangers fight the putties Giant Goldar stands back and watches (occasionally hitting rocks with his sword. Why doesn't he just step on them?!)

WE NEED DINOZORD POWER. NOW!!!

The rangers hop up into their zords and combine to form up the Megazord. The go straight into battle-mode and summon the power sword. Goldar does this crazy-awesome jump kick, and then suddenly disappears! Tommy leaps up onto the megazord and gets inside it's head (literally) he punches the rangers which somehow causes them to fall to the ground (did they go through the windshield? Holy shit!) Back on the ground the Green Ranger is kicking all 5 rangers asses quite badly! Tommy does this awesome “Street Fighter 2-Hadoken” style move. It's way cooler than any other shit the other rangers ever do. They get pwned something FIERCE and run away like little bitches. They teleport back to the command center to find Alpha still messed up. The rangers stand around calmly discussing how bad they got their asses kicked and how they'll have to defeat Tommy all on their own. Sorry, but.... THEY SHOULD BE WAY MORE CONCERNED RIGHT NOW! Goldar and Tommy are still out their wreaking havoc while they're standing around the command center like jerks! How will they overcome these odds?! We'll find out next week on another action packed installment of: POWER RANGERS! (did you like that ending I just did? Pretty exciting no?)

THE GOOD

It's great to let a story have some time to unfold and breathe. It makes everything so much less nonsensical.

THE BAD

Not a lot actually, this was definitely the best episode yet.

THE HILARIOUS

I thought Kimberly's Big Gulp was pretty funny.

That was definitely the best story we've seen yet. 4.5 power-coins out of five!

That's all for this week, we'll watch part 2 for tuesday!

I leave you this week with another quote from the brilliant Douglas Adams' “Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy” series:

"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."

Episode 16 - "Switching Places"

Episode 16 - “ Switching Places”

Gooooooooood eveninggoodeveninggoodeveninggoodeveninggoodevening and welcome welcome back to the blog. (that welcome sounds much better out loud and not in text... also when Stephen Fry is the one saying it. But then, most things sound a lot better when Stephen Fry is the one saying them.) I'm going to start a possible new segment here in the intro this week wherein I briefly give mention to something that I've either read, watched or done recently that I would like to share with you. So, I begin this new segment with a recommendation for a novel by Canadian science fiction author Robert J. Sawyer called “Wake.” It's nominated for the HUGO award this year and is fantastic! It's about a blind girl named Caitlin who undergoes an experimental procedure to possibly restore her eyesight but rather than give her normal human vision, she finds that her brain has adapted to years of navigating the internet without sight and so what she actually sees is the landscape of the world wide web. Using this “websight” she also begins to discover that there is something else lurking somewhere in the folds of cyberspace and that something appears to be getting smarter. It's a brilliant read and in addition to being a great story I learned a lot of cool scientific concepts. So I give it a big thumbs up and recommend it to everyone. Here's the link to it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.ca/Wake-Robert-J-Sawyer/dp/0670067415

and here is the link to the author Robert J. Sawyer's website as well: http://www.sfwriter.com/

If you read it send me an email at joeygruszecki@gmail.com, I'd love to hear what you thought of it.

One final housekeeping announcement before we get on with the show, I received some feedback and it has been overwhelmingly in favor of bringing the pictures back. So this week we'll be seeing the screen-caps again. Now, on with the show.

RECAP

This week things start off with Squatt sneaking around in the dark of Billy's laboratory in search of the power source to Billy's new invention. Once he finds it, Squatt reverses two of the cables and explains that when Billy tests his new invention it will scramble his brains like and egg and the rest of the rangers will be so busy trying to deal with him they won't even notice what Rita is up to! Unless the rangers have a big, floating, disembodied, giant head in a tube watching stuff for them...

Back on the moon, Squatt informs Rita that now she can send down another monster to stark wreaking havoc. Rita decides on a monster called “The Genie” which is a terribly boring name, so this week I'll be referring to the monster as “Kazaam” who was another terrible genie character. Google his movie if you've never seen it.

The next day at Billy's lab, Billy is explaining to Kimberly that he's been working on an invention that will allow people to read minds! What a clever boy. Kimberly seems impressed, but even more impressed are Bulk and Skull who are hiding behind the radbug listening. (Remember the Radbug? That stupid car Billy built that they haven't ever used again?) The best thing about the invention that Billy created is that there are 2 cutouts for the people to stand in and they just so happen to be the exact heights of Billy and Kimberly. It's like he specifically designed it for their two minds. Billy throws the switch and there are lots of explosions and sparks (which is frankly par for the course for this show.) They step out of the smoking machine, but something is amiss... OH MY GOODNESS! Billy and Kimberly's brains have switched places! Freaky Friday style!

At Rita's fortress, Squatt, Baboo and Goldar rub this magic lamp to summon Kazaam. Goldar orders him to go down to Earth and attack the power rangers!

Meanwhile, back at the lab, Bulk and Skull have snuck in and are strapping themselves into the machine to try it out. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention they didn't witness Billy and Kimberly's brain swap because they were being chased by a german shepherd. Always with the shenanigans these two. Bulk and Skull climb into the machine (where Skull has to hunch over a bit due to being taller than Kimberly) and Bulk throws the switch. We see similar results and, like Kimberly and Billy the hapless bullies have switched bodies!

Later that day, a group of teenage girls are standing in the hall at school, laughing at Kimbilly (get it? Kimbilly?!) because he/she has smeared lipstick all over her face. Apparently Billy can't put on makeup (has he never used lip-balm?) Meanwhile, across town Billberly (HA! Funny right?) is attempting to teach computer science to some poor kid and screwing up all over the place. We get several back and forth scenes of a makeup smeared Kimbilly and Billberly messing up all the tasks the other would normally perform. My favorite being the part where Billberly presses a single button on a computer keyboard that causes the monitor to explode. (This was back before 2003 when computer manufacturers stopped including a self-destruct button. Kimbilly also makes a cheese souffle that turns into this thing (see cheese ball picture) and then explodes. Terriffic.

On the moon, Kazaam and the other goons are standing around bragging about how badly they're going to mess up the rangers. Less talky, more maimy.

At school, Kimbilly and Billberly are getting all up in each others grills, and that means that it's finally time for the other rangers to make their first appearances in this episode and break that shit up. Kimbilly and Billberly explain what happened to which Trini responds by looking at Billberly and asking “Kimberly? Are you in there?” Were you listening to Billy and Kimberly's story Trini? No? Then you have no frame of reference here Trini, you're like a child who wanders into the middle of a movie and wants to... YOU'RE OUT OF YOUR ELEMENT. (Apologies to the Coen Brothers.) While all this is going on we see that Bulk and Skull seem to be coping a lot better, they're just hanging out eating hero sandwiches. I'd like to believe that I'd react similarly in that situation.

Rita sends Squatt and Baboo down to the Earth with Kazaam's lamp to hide it on the Earth so that Zordon doesn't discover him. Unfortunately, they immediately drop the lamp which alerts Zordon to it's presence and he dispatches the rangers to retrieve it. In the command center Zordon tells the rangers that the genie that lives in it has been summoned by Rita to destroy them. Just then, the alarm goes off, alerting everyone to the putty patrollers who are running amok!

IT'S MORPHIN TIME!

The rangers make short work of the putties and Zordon tells Alpha to teleport the rangers to Kazaam's location. (Maybe he should have just done that in the first place, it's not like the putties ever do any actual damage just running around in the desert.) The rangers charge into battle, but they get caught up in a weird, silly-string net that Kazaam shoots. Zordon has Alpha teleport the rangers back to the command center to regroup. (This is the most disjointed battle ever.) Kimbilly suggests that the secret to defeating Kazaam is to network their maximum energy linkage. Zordon explains that that is correct, all they have to do is believe in themselves and combine their powers to defeat the genie. I don't know about you, but to me that sounds like Zordon saying “just use your zords like usual and defeat this one the same way you do every week.”

Back at the battle, we are treated to some crazy “Ginyu-force” style posing (Dragonball Z reference) that includes awesome Kimberly dialogue from Billy, and vice versa. Rita shows up and shoots some lightning at the rangers, for a second there I got excited because it seemed like maybe she was going to be a part of the fight, but then she just makes her monster grow like usual. You know what that means.

WE NEED DINOZORD POWER! NOW!!!

We get the extended stock-footage this week, (must have been running extra short this week because it's like 1.5 minutes of it.) After what seems like forever, Jason instructs the rangers to show Kazaam some “Megazord” power! They go straight into battle-mode this week (which means even more stock-footage) and get to fighting.

At the command center, Alpha is freaking out like a little bitch, Zordon tells him to track the source of the genie's power in hopes of finding a way to defeat him. Alpha does so and discovers that the source is, in fact, the genie's lamp! He says he can't believe it... really Alpha? You can't believe that the freaking genie monster gets its power from the magic lamp you guys found? REALLY?! Alpha is about to teleport the lamp to the rangers (although why he doesn't just destroy it is beyond me) when Zordon warns him to be careful. If he accidentally uses too much power he will destroy the morphing grid and everything in it, including the rangers themselves! I have no idea what the hell that means, but it sounds bad. Like crossing the streams.

Meanwhile, the Megazord is getting a bit of an ass-kicking given to it by Kazaam. Apparently Kazaam shorts out some whatchamahoozit and Jason instructs Kimbilly to fix it before it's too late! Kazaam unleashes some weird fireworks/silly string hybrid maneuver and down the Megazord goes. It is at this moment that Rita utters my new favorite Power Rangers line: “Use your big drill.” Kazaam complies with her wishes.

With time running out for the rangers, Alpha and Zordon are still dicking around with the console trying to figure out how to teleport the lamp. Kazaam's drill inches closer and closer to the Megazord just as the lamp finally teleports, or else is destroyed or something. I thought they were trying to teleport it to the rangers ,but I guess they were destroying it. Whatever, the point is it makes Kazaam disappear. Yay. Rangers win.

Some time later, Kimbilly and Billberly are once more strapped into Billy's machine. Apparently Billy fixed it because they've been restored to their own bodies. Billy seems disappointed. Enter Bulk and Skull, asking to be restored to their own bodies. What's amazing is that Billy and Trini actually seem hesitant to restore them. What a couple of assholes! The switch is thrown, and the procedure apparently a success. Bulk and Skull are once more in their own bodies. We end with a hilarious joke about Skull wanting to borrow Billy's brain for a math test. A quip worthy of Oscar Wilde himself.

THE GOOD

Nice to see a non-formulaic ending

THE BAD

The fight was boring and very disjointed and the way Zordon and Alpha save the day didn't make any sense, and was contrary to what they said they were doing!

THE HILARIOUS

“Use your big drill!”

An enjoyable episode, though I wish that Billy and Kimberly switching bodies had some kind of impact on the plot. But, overall I dug it. 3.5 power-coins out of five.

That's it for this installment. Next week we're really in for something special (unless my memory of this storyline is not accurate) because on friday we are watching Part 1 of the 5-part “Green With Evil” storyline. That's right folks, Tommy is nigh. The only problem I can forsee with the next 5 episodes is that they all share the same title “Green With Evil” and I don't think I can come up with 5 jokes about it. At least not 5 good ones. So instead, for the next 5 installments I'll be leaving you with quotes from my favorite book of all time written by a man much much funnier and far more brilliant than I.

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind- bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” - Douglas Adams, “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”

Episode 15 - "Dark Warrior"

Episode 15 - “Dark Warrior”

Welcome back once again to another edition of the blog! No announcements or housekeeping comments to make today so let's get straight into the episode!

RECAP

We start things off in the lair of a mad scientist. There are black lights and bubbling liquids in tubes everywhere (why do mad scientists always have their solutions illuminated with black lights? I don't get it.) A scientist in a powder-blue labcoat and yellow t-shirt is perfecting his invisibility potion. He tests it on a potted cactus that he has on his desk. (That's stage 4 of the scientific method; test your hypothesis on a cactus.) It disappears in a green flash and the mad scientist reacts with glee!

At the gymnasium/juice bar Jason is teaching a kung-fu class, a class which Trini is participating in. I notice however, that half way through she stops following along with the moves Jason is showing the class and just starts making her own up as she wanders off. I'd like to see a pop-star's backup dancer do something like that one day. Bulk (who is wearing an old-fashioned flight cap for some reason are playing some arcade game. I get the feeling that a bunch of pieces are being laid out on a chess-board and it's all going to come together soon (possibly with food landing on Bulk's head; this show is nothing if not formulaic.) Billy comments to Ernie that he wishes he had Jason's moves, Ernie ignores the self-pitying dweeb and asks Billy to go recycle some bottles for him. Whilst en route to the recycling bin Bulk and Skull nab Billy and try to strong-arm him into forking over some quarters so they can continue playing their game. Billy refuses and they pull the old “dangle-the-nerd-upside-down-so-his-quarters-will-fall-out-of-his-pockets” maneuver. Finally they deposit Billy in the recycling bin and start celebrating the quarters they've scored until Trini comes and bonks their heads together. (No cranial food this time.) Bulk and Skull walk off rubbing their bruised noggins as Trini helps Billy out of the trash can. (Can't help but notice that the guy teaching a kung-fu class who is supposed to be Billy's friend was nowhere to be seen during this, AND that the girl who saved him by cracking the Bully's heads together didn't bother to retrieve the stolen coins! What a gip.) Billy laments the fact that he's always getting picked on and decides to enroll in Jason's karate class. I get the feeling the producers realized how stupid it was to have a character who couldn't defend himself and knew no karate be a member of a karate-fighting super team. It never made sense that Billy could only fight when he was in costume.

Anyway, back at the mad scientists lab, the wacky professor himself has ditched the lab-coat and is now working in a yellow t-shirt and big suspenders. More standard issue scientist garb. We see that Rita has been watching this going on and barges into Finster's workshop to request a new monster. The monster she requests pops out of Finstsers easy-bake oven moments later. He looks kind of like a ninja with giant shoulder pads and a blue scarf. Wacky.

Later that day, the kooky scientist is wandering around the gymnasium/juice bar looking for somebody. In this scene, Trini will be playing the part of “captain exposition” as she tells her friends (and us) that she can't wait for everyone to meet her uncle. He's a super scientific genius who has just invented a new super-secret potion. How the fuck does she know that? We just saw the dude invent it a few minutes ago and he didn't call anyone and tell them, just grabbed the bottle and ran out of the lab, and if he HAD told someone then a) why the hell would he choose his creepy doll loving neice Trini, and b) it's not much a secret formula if he's telling everyone about it willy nilly! But, I digress; Jason takes on the role of “captain exposition's” sidekick and mentions that the genius uncle in question also happens to be a world famous martial-artist. What a coincidence! The scientist (who is way too chubby for a world-famous martial artist) is still wandering around aimlessly presumably looking for Trini. He carelessly places his top-secret invisibility forumula down on the bar and wanders off. Ernie picks it up and shrugs, placing it in with all his other bottles and such. Eventually Uncle Howard (turns out that's his name, but I'ma call him Mr. Miagi) spots Trini and her friends. Trini greets him and immediately asks him to give Billy some extra tutelage in the ways of karate. Billy refers to him as “karate-scientist” which is a good name, and I'd watch a movie called that, but I'm sticking with calling him Mr. Miagi. Mr. Miagi agrees to help Billy out and they get straight into it.

On the moon, Rita is instructing her goons to teleport down to the moon and steal Mr. Miagi's top-secret formula. Goldar finds it first and gives it to Squatt and Baboo to sample to confirm it's the right potion. Squatt and Baboo chug some and teleport back to the moon where Rita gives them both a tongue and staff lashing for drinking potions out of an unmarked bottle. That's good advice kids. The ninja monster (whose name I haven't caught yet so I will call him 'Josh') points out that Mr. Miagi probably hid the potion somewhere safe (right, or carelessly left it in a juice bar/gymnasium where a fat bartender can just scoop it up) and assures Rita that he will retrieve it.

In a park, Mr. Miagi is teaching Billy the karate his useless character so gravely needs to learn. Just then they are ambushed by a putty patrol and we get to watch a chubby ninja go to town on the gimps. They quickly overpower Miagi and kidnap him! As they're carrying him away he calls out to Billy to remember what he as learned. (He's just trying to get Billy to wash his car and paint his fence.)

In a unidentified cave/dungeon place, Josh (who we learn is called “the Dark Warrior” but fuck that, we're sticking with Josh) demands Mr. Miagi give up his secret invisibility potion, the absent-minded professor informs Josh that he can't remember where the hell he left it. Josh gives Miagi and ultimatum, either Miagi hands over the potion within one hour or the will blow Miagi and the cave he's trapped in, to smithereens.

Back at the gymnasium/juice bar, Billy bolts in and informs his pals that Mr. Miagi has been captured by putties! Trini asks what the putties could want with him, he's just a harmless old man! (Right, a harmless old man who you just told everyone created a secret invisibility potion and is a world-famous martial-artist. Doesn't sound harmless to me...) Ernie walks up and delivers a set of black balloons that were sent to Trini. They pop and a message is inside telling the rangers that if they don't deliver the formula to Josh in one hour they'll do away with Mr. Miagi! The rangers head off to teleport to the command center and figure out a plan to recover the lost formula, while in the background we see Ernie still puzzling over what the strange green liquid in the jar he found could be!

The rangers teleport to the command center and Zordon explains that Mr. Miagi has invented an invisibility formula and that Josh is looking for it (thanks, we all knew that.) Zordon informs the rangers that Rita's plan is to use the potion on the rangers and make them disappear forever. Why yes, that is the stupidest plan in the history of the universe. It's not like making them disappear would destroy them, just make them invisible! Why not just fucking poison them? The rangers teleport back down to the desert and start fighting putties (didn't even say goodbye to Alpha and Zordon) At this point, we're more than halfway through the episode and there has been no morphing action. COME ON!

After dispatching the putties, the rangers charge into the cave where Mr. Miagi is being held prisoner. There are only 19 seconds left until the bomb detonates and everyone looks to Billy to disarm the bomb. (Don't bother rereading that sentence, it's not going to make any more sense.) Mr. Miagi tells Billy to use his karate training to focus his mind on defusing the bomb. So, Billy switches off his targeting computer and pulls a wire out, defusing the bomb. Everyone thought it was impossible, but Billy points out that it's not impossible, he used to bulls-eye womp-rats in his T-16 back home, and they're not much bigger than 2 meters (which is a terrifying size for a rat when you think about it.) With Mr. Miagi freed (which completely removes the stakes that were in this episode) the rangers tell us what time it is...

IT'S MORPHIN TIME!!!

After doing some wicked awesome flips the rangers pose/leap into action and start fighting Josh. Josh proves his superiority to the last monster by just knocking away Kimberly's arrows with his sword (seems like a good idea for the villain to have a weapon to deflect projectiles, Rita should keep that in mind from now on...) Rita sees that Josh seems to be doing well, but doesn't want to take any chances. She does her staff-trick and MAKES HER MONSTER GROW! (Gotta drop the namesake every now and then.) You know what that means don't you kids?

WE NEED DINOZORD POWER! NOW!!!

5 80 foot leaps later the rangers charge towards Josh in their bitchin' dino-rides. Jason gives the signal and it's time to show Josh some Megazord power! They roll into battle in tank mode (which rarely does the trick) and decide once Josh shoots them a few more times that what they really need is battle mode! With the megazord activated and the theme tune blaring Josh starts to lose. They battle back and forth for a bit until Jason summons the power-sword and they sort out Josh in the old familiar way! As per usual, Rita is horrified and takes her anger out on her poor beleaguered minions.

Later, at the juice bar/gymnasium, Jason is awarding Billy his yellow-belt. His kung-fu is STRONG! Mr. Miagi proudly looks on, as Bulk and Skull wander in in their own karate uniforms (complete with jean vests and bowler hat on Skull.) Mr. Miagi notices Bulk and Skull bullying his grasshopper and decides to teach them a lesson. He takes a swig of his invisibility potion (oh yeah, he found it on the bar where he left it. So that's kind of anti-climactic. I figured it would tie into the resolution with the monster somehow, but I was wrong.) Now invisible, Mr. Miagi goes over and beats up Bulk and Skull. Not sure why he had to be invisible to do that, but it's 1:00 in the morning as I'm writing this so I'm not going to think to hard about it and just let it go.

THE GOOD

Pacing was better in this episode than it often is, nothing was rushed and there wasn't as much weird padding (like all the airport shit last episode).

THE BAD

The invisibility maguffin was completely extraneous. It didn't tie into the plot at all, we get some hackneyed explanation of Rita wanting to make the rangers disappear that makes absolutely no sense.

THE HILARIOUS

Mr. Miagi telling Billy to use his karate training (which he had just started that afternoon) to disarm the bomb.

Overall, despite the stupid potion gimmick this was a great episode. Well paced, good battles both in and out of costume and a cool Megazord finish which we hadn't had for a few weeks. I give it 3.5 out of 5 power-coins. It loses some points for the weird fact that all the stakes are lowered when they rescue Miagi even before they encounter the monster and that the monster really never seemed to pose any sort of threat whatsoever.

Well that's all for today (or rather tonight as I'm writing this quite late) I apologize if this week ran a little long. Sometimes it's like pulling teeth to find something to write about in these episodes and sometimes it's impossible to stop! One thing I'll mention before we part ways is that you may have noticed that I haven't posted any accompanying pictures with these past 2 episodes. I'm wondering if people miss them, or if the words are enough. Let me know what you think and what you'd prefer by emailing me at joeygruszecki@gmail.com as always I'd love to hear from you.

Don't miss tuesday's edition where we'll be taking a look at episode 16; “Switching Places” wherin Trini bets Jason that she can turn a homeless, con-artist Eddie Murphy into a successful investment banker while simultaneously ruining the reputation, career and life of Dan Aykroyd. But things go haywire when Eddie and Dan figure out their plan and team up to turn the tables! Also, there's a scene where Jamie Lee Curtis is topless and it's just awesome.

Episode 14 - "Foul Play in the Sky"

Episode 14 - “Foul Play in the Sky”


VICTORY IS MINE! I have conquered the computer problems that plagued me last week and I have a nice fresh install of Ubuntu all set up on this machine. Having spent a few days using Linux I am kicking myself for not making the switch sooner. This is the best operating system I've ever used and I can't foresee a reason for me to ever want to go back to Windows! But, you aren't here to listen to me rant about the wonders of open-source. You're here because you are desperate to find out what our heroes the Power Rangers are up to this week, so without any further ado I present:

RECAP

We start things off this week at the Angel Grove airport. Kimberly is meeting her uncle Steve who is taking her flying! Not sure why a girl who flies around in a giant pteradactyl robot is so excited by this, but it's Kimberly so I won't even pretend to understand what goes on in her head...

At the juice bar/gymnasium, Jason is punching a punching bag in a very fast, aggressive manner. He seriously looks like Jake LaMotta and it's scaring the hell out of me! We pull back to see that Zack is helping by holding the bag, he really seems to like watching Jason work out. But, before I can call his sexuality any further into question he points out a girl playing with a hula-hoop (which apparently is a normal exercise to do in a juice bar/gymnasium) he tells Jason that it's the girl of his dreams. Zack strolls up to hula-chick and she shoots him down in a very embarassing scene that ends quite abruptly as we jump cut to the moon.

On the moon, Rita is outlining her new plan to her goons. She wants to drug pilot Steve (Kimberly's uncle) with a sleeping potion so he'll crash the plane (why she doesn't just throw her staff into one of the engines is beyond me) and then send down something called “scissor.” Not sure if that's the name of a monster or if she's just going to start throwing office supplies at the rangers. Squatt teleports down to the planet and puts some potion into uncle Steve's soda. It seems like he pours an awful lot of it... the can must have been half empty.

Nearby, Bulk and Skull are sitting on a bench with binoculars looking at planes and waxing philosophical about their desire to take to the skies. Bulk and Skull spot Kimberly walking across the runway with her uncle, they run across the tarmac and beg Kimberly to take them flying too, uncle Steve agrees despite Kimberly's objections. Everyone climbs aboard and uncle Steve preps for take-off. They take to the skies in a very boring sequence that takes too long. (Seriously, of all the things to try to be accurate about on this show, why taxiing?) Once up in the air, Bulk and Skull realize that they're afraid of flying. OH YOU RASCALS!

Back on the moon, Goldar explains the next part of the plan. They're going to send down the snizzard. Half snake, half lizard. So apparently it wasn't scissors afterall. Frankly, I'm disappointed. He shoots snakes out of a bow and arrow to drain the energy out of his enemies.

Back in the sky, Kimberly's uncle Steve points out the mountains to Kimberly. She says she has a lot of memories of these mountains, 13 episodes worth so far! We go into a flashback sequence from the first episode that goes on for a pretty long time. (Again, must have been short on the script this week.) Suddenly, Kimberly notices that uncle Steve doesn't look so good! He tells her he's feeling a little dizzy and Bulk and Skull promptly start freaking out. Justified in this case if you ask me. Rita is ecstatic! She Scissor-man (fuck it, that's what I'm calling him) to finish the rangers off once and for all.

Back in the cockpit (giggity) Kimberly takes her uncles pulse and determines that he's unconscious (what?) luckily for Kimberly, Bulk and Skull pass out so she can radio Alpha 5 for help! The alarm starts blaring, alerting Alpha to Scissorman's attack! Oh the shit has really hit the fan now! Zordon teleports the other rangers to the command center where Zordon informs them that they have to go stop Scissorman. Alpha tells Kimberly he's going to talk her down “Airplane” style. Looks like Alpha picked the wrong week to quit drinking. (If you don't get that reference... then fuck you.)

IT'S MORPHIN TIME!

The rangers (sans Kimberly) leap into battle in the middle of a park that has a dozen tiny Easter Island statues in it for some reason. Angel Grove is a weird place.

Meanwhile, Kimberly is barreling straight towards a mountain. Alpha tells her to move the flight yoke to the left and go around it. Wow. It's a good thing you were there Alpha, Kimberly wouldn't have figured that one out on her own.

Back at the weird park, Scissorman is kicking the shit out of the other rangers. He drains most of their energy with the weird snakes he shoots out of his bow and arrow! Hurry Kimberly, before it's too late.

On the plane, Bulk and Skull wake up briefly, only to faint again when they see that Kimberly is flying the plane. Yeah guys, I'd probably faint too. Alpha gives Kimberly a pep-talk about self-confidence and she lands the plane safely. Remember kids, all you need to be able to fly a airplaine is CONFIDENCE! Once she's on the ground uncle Steve conveniently wakes up and finishes parking the plane. Kimberly runs away from the scene to join the fray!

IT'S MORPHIN TIME AGAIN BUT ONLY FOR KIMBERLY!

Just in time Kimberly! Scissorman summons about 15 putties whom Kimberly dispatches with no difficulty. Scissorman prepares to unleash his ultimate move. TORSO-SNAKES! (Not making that up) two little snakes wriggle out of his torso and Kimberly just shoots them with her bow. WOW. Then she shoots an arrow at the weird apple that is growing on the top of his head and he explodes. That is what we call “anti-climactic”

As usual, Rita is furious and blames everyone but herself for this most recent failure. Rita, when will you learn that you'll never succeed until you learn to start taking responsibility for your own actions?

Back on the tarmac, Bulk and Skull are revived by the paramedics and then run off into the sunset. Those are some weird dudes. Back at the juice bar/gymnasium some guy who looks like Sandra Bernhard is flirting with Kimberly and telling her how brave she is. Zack and Jason are mocking him, but I think they're secretly jealous that they hadn't thought of it first (seriously, it's working. It looks like Kimberly's about to blow him.) Zack accidentally elbows the hula-chick from the beginning causing her milkshake to go flying, and, this being Angel Grove, there's only one place a stray milk-shake can land. That's right, on the heads of Bulk and Skull who just happened to walk in to the juice bar/gymnasium at the wrong time.


THE GOOD

Lots of Bulk and Skull, despite how stupid they are, I get a kick out of them.

THE BAD

All the tedious airport shit.

THE HILARIOUS

Torso Snakes... seriously?


A bit of a step backwards in terms of quality after the last few episodes, but that's because there was very little action and a lot of boring airplane stuff, but it did have torso-snakes so I'm giving this one 2.5 powercoins out of 5.

Well, that's all the time we have for this week, don't miss friday's post where we'll be taking a look at episode 15 “Dark Warrior” wherein they must defeat their most terrifying foe yet. The Ultimate Warrior of 1980s WWF fame!

Another Interlude: In which Joey learns the dangers of internet porn...

CRISIS!
My PC has been stricken with a series of Viruses! (Viri?) which means I'm unable to stay logged in long enough to do a full episode! I feel terrible (especially since this comes a week after I promised no more interruptions) but at least I know this one's not my fault... Well, not really. All I can say is that I won't be downloading porn from that website again any time soon...

In lieu of our regularly scheduled blog post I present to you this picture of me losing my will to live sitting at my desk at work!



What a handsome man!!! (if you find chubby dudes handsome...)

I should have all this nasty computer nonsense sorted out (I'm going to install Ubuntu. Linux! WOO) by tuesday and if I'm able I'll try to do 3 posts next week to make up for this terrible terrible injustice.

As always, if you have anything interesting to say, just want to say hello, or have any suggestions about safer ways to acquire the adult entertainment I love so dearly please send me an email at joeygruszecki@gmail.com

Thanks to everyone for reading!

~The Management

Episode 13 - "Peace, Love & Woe"

Episode 13 – “Peace, Love & Woe”

Greetings everyone, it’s time for the bakers dozenth episode of Power Rangers! No housekeeping announcements this week, let’s just get right to the episode.

RECAP

We being in the juice bar/gymnasium where all the plucky teens (including our heroes) are engaged in normal teenage activities; a little gymnastics, some karate and everyone else is getting the place (which looks WAY bigger than usual. New set?) seems to be decorating for a big dance. Bulk barges in on one of those big 90s skateboards that are starting to become popular again. As usual, Bulk manages to crash into Ernie who is carrying a cake and Bulk gets it all over his face. Totally classic Bulk, no wonder he’s so fat.

On the moon Rita is explaining her new plan, basically her plan is to attack the Power Rangers with a monster when they least expect it. That’s right, it’s the same plan she uses every time… But in the words of General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmany Melchett “doing the same thing we’ve done 18 times before is PRECISELY the last thing they’ll expect us to do this time.” (If you don’t know that reference you need to watch the fourth series of Blackadder. Go ahead, I’ll wait.)

Back at the juice bar/gymnasium Ernie tells Bulk and Skull to stop being assholes all the time or don’t come back. This is the first time we’ve seen any kind of non-food-in-face discipline being given to Bulk and Skull, I wonder if it will change the way they behave? Zack asks Billy to let him teach him some moves for the big dance tonight and then launches into the same annoying spinny dance moves he does every week. Zack… this is not teaching, that is called “being a douche.” How’s Billy supposed to follow that? Billy says he’s not interested in dancing just to attract girls. Zack laughs at him and walks off dancing. What an ass. Jason asks Billy if he asked anyone to the big dance. Why is everyone so interested in Billy’s love life all of a sudden? As far as I’m concerned Billy is as asexual as a teletubby. Billy says he has not because his priority is to finish his crazy weather science experiment or something. Billy excuses himself to go do science or something, but on the way out he bumps into the female version of himself (she’s wearing blue and everything!) they exchange awkward Billy dialogue before Billy puts the girls necklace back on her. Billy and the girl (who they haven’t named yet so I’m going to call her Boobly- for ‘Billy with Boobs’) go and sit down to have a juice (it is a juice bar) and a chat. They discover they both graduated for the “accelerated baby genius” program which sounds like a barrel of laughs. Just as it seemed Billy was about to invite the girl to the big dance his friends call him over, claiming there is an emergency. When he gets over there they tell him to just ask her to the dance. THAT’S WHAT HE WAS DOING YOU MORONS! Anyway, it doesn’t matter because she asks him, he suggest they meet up later in the day to get to know one another better and talk about his weather machine thing. She says that is a “capital idea!” (I have met lots of nerds and scientists and with the exception of one friends dorky economist/lawyer brother NOBODY talks like this) and they agree to meet at the park by the lake. Hot.

We cut to what looks like a Kabuki-themed monster wearing the helmet that Shredder used to wear on Ninja Turtles and with big “Lady Deathstrike” blade fingers. Rita contacts her and recruits her to use her crown jewel to send the Power Rangers to another dimension. Kabuki-Sue (my fun name for her) agrees to do just that. She materializes before Boobly (who for some reason she thinks is a Power Ranger) and traps her in the weird pocket dimension thing. Rita was watching this and she’s annoyed because Kabuki-Sue screwed up the incredibly simple instruction she was given! I don’t see why she’s so surprised, Rita’s goons have yet to perform a single task correctly so why should Kabuki-Sue (who apparently is actually named Madame Woe, but I like my name for her better) be any different.

Billy arrives at the appointed time to meet Boobly and discovers that she’s gone! He finds her necklace that she claims never to be without, but before he can look for her he’s jumped by putties! Billy radios for the other rangers for help and they dash off to rescue their karate-impaired buddy. One of the putties employs my new favorite move: “The Donkey Kong” he literally rolls a big barrel at Kimberly and she has to jump over it. Terrific. After one of the non-costume battle sequences the putties retreat. Billy tells everyone about Boobly’s disappearance. Just then, the rangers are summoned to the command center by Zordon, who informs them that Boobly was captured by Rita! Billy blames himself, but everyone tells him to shut up so they can continue the briefing. Zordon explains that Kabuki-Sue can control weather (not unlike a certain invention that a certain blue ranger.) The only way to defeat her is to combine all their powers. Zordon explains that by combining their power coins any one ranger can assume ALL their powers! Once again, a new power that Zordon never bothered to tell the rangers about…

IT’S MORPHIN TIME!

The rangers charge into battle with Kabuki-Sue, but before they can do anything she teleports them to the pocket dimension where Boobly is a prisoner! Rather than leave them for all eternity, Kabuki-Sue stays in the pocket dimension to fight with the rangers. Kabuki-Sue unleashes a devastating attack! Well not that devastating I guess… in fact it’s kind of silly… she makes water spray at them. Her big move is the same thing every dad in history does to his kids when he’s watering the lawn. But, the rangers act like it really hurts. Zack points out that their weapons are having no effect and says that there must be some way to beat her. Apparently they’ve all forgotten what Zordon said 30 fucking seconds ago!!! It takes Kabuki-Sue trying to strangle Billy for them to remember and they all combine their power coins which allows Billy to escape. He and Kabuki-Sue start fighting back in the real world. Despite having combined all their powers Billy is still getting his ass kicked. Maybe they should have let Jason combine the powers and not the most useless fighter… Billy catches a lucky break and snatches the jewel off Kabuki-Sue’s forehead which allows the other rangers and Boobly to also escape the pocket dimension. The rangers do a bunch of flips and jumpkicks and such before Jason gives the signal to combine their weapons into the cool laser crossbow. One rainbow laser blast later and Kabuki-Sue is no more! Rita’s failure has caused her a migraine and she starts emoing out about how unfair it all is.

The time of the big dance has arrived and everyone has opened up a big circle to watch Zack dance around. I wish someone would throw a shoe. Billy and Boobly are sitting at a table and she’s telling Billy about her ordeal. She mentions that her favorite ranger was the blue one (she’s probably the only person in history who chose Billy as their favorite ranger too…) Too bad Billy has to play it cool, because he probably would have gotten laid… Meanwhile, Bulk and Skull are wearing totally awesome disguises, but they don’t fool Ernie who tells them if they want to stay they’ll have to pay for the cake that Bulk destroyed with his face. Reluctantly, Bulk agrees and starts taking off his shoes (which is apparently where he keeps his cash) Skull appears terrified and ties a bandana across his nose. Bulk reaches into his dirty sock and pulls out the money he owes Ernie. But OH NO! The smell of the money overpowers Ernie so badly he passes out into the cake. The rangers revive him and still covered in cake he leads everyone in a hilarious dance.

Another pretty good episode! Could it be that the show is actually getting better?!

THE GOOD

The out of costume fight sequence was cool and once again we didn’t have to resort to the Megazord to kill the monster

THE BAD

Well, Rita describing her plan like it was a brand new strategy was a little annoying.

THE HILARIOUS

Seriously, Ernie’s dancing at the end is the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.

I give this one 4 out of 5 power-coins.

That’s it for today, don’t miss Friday’s post where we’ll be reviewing episode 14: “Foul Play in the Sky” wherein Jason joins the mile-high club but regrets it when he discovers he has herpes. Power Rangers: Fun AND Educational!
ALTERNATE NEXT WEEK ON JOKE (I couldn’t decide which I liked better)
Don’t miss next weeks episode “Foul Play in the Sky” wherein the rangers battle a thespian duck-monster!