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”