Mighty Morphin #1.32 – A Star is Born

The get-rid-of-Tommy plot is off to an immediate start this episode, as Kimberly asks him if he’ll be going to the beach with the rest of the group this weekend. Unfortunately, he’ll have to miss it, as he’s trying out for a “karate commercial.”

Zack wigs out at the idea that Tommy might be on TV — as if the Power Rangers aren’t on TV all the time — and Bulk cuts in to say that he already has the audition in the bag. In response, Tommy pulls the scarf from around Bulk’s neck (rude) and twirls it around while doing kicks and backflips.

He does all this to intimidate Bulk, which works, but it’s honestly a little mean-spirited, given Bulk hasn’t actually done anything to deserve it yet this episode.

On the moon, Rita loudly announces that she’s tired and needs a day off. When Goldar tells her that she needs to lead them, she remarks, “I don’t wanna! You do it!”

Goldar makes a grand speech about how he’ll obliterate the Power Rangers while she rests, but the shot fades to commercial because Rita gives about as much of a shit as the rest of us.

At the beach, Billy and Kimberly are lounging, Jason is training, and Trini and Zack are caught in a fierce game of volleyball. Bulk and Skull stride in carrying a thousand accessories — except, I thought the commercial audition conflicted with the beach trip? If not, where the hell is Tommy?

Zack takes a swipe at the volleyball, but the shot goes awry and smacks Bulk in the face. As he falls, a voice that is supposed to be Trini’s — but decidedly is not — apologizes. Because even fake Trini has class.

As revenge, Bulk turns his attention to Jason, who he terrorizes by mocking his training and stating he’s going to crush Tommy at the audition that’s supposed to be happening right now. Jason blows him off and Bulk returns to his spot on the beach, telling Skull he needs to get a tan before the audition.

Of course, Skull accidentally pops the top off the sunscreen bottle, dousing Bulk with lotion. He growls, “You airhead! I want to get a tan, not a bath!” and the teens laugh at his misery like it’s the end of the episode.

For some reason, Skull sees a jar of mayonnaise and decides to pretend it’s sunscreen, throwing it all over Bulk while he’s not looking. I don’t know, man.

Back on the moon where things somehow make more sense, Goldar is cackling about his plan…and that’s all for that scene.

On Earth, we see Tommy stretching for the audition as a beet-red Bulk strides up to him. He smack talks Tommy until he’s interrupted by Skull clapping a hand on his sunburnt shoulder, causing him to shriek with pain.

The director calls the next auditioner into the classroom — why this is happening at Angel Grove High, I have no idea — and the D.A.R.E. poster behind her tells you everything you need to know about the era this show was made in.

She asks Bulk to take his sunglasses off, revealing his tan lines, and bids him inside with an eyeroll. He does a bunch of terrible karate moves in a sequence that is entirely too long, given how unfunny it is.

The casting agents stare at him in shock until the director mumbles that she thinks they have their man. He bursts out of the room with pride, telling Tommy he can “kiss Hollywood goodbye,” because the producer loved him. Tommy just stares him down with the same wordless amusement he always seems to reserve for the bullies.

At the beach, all the teens have joined the volleyball game. Trini runs after the ball and is shocked to find Scorpina waiting for her. She runs back to her friends as the general sends down a squad of Putties.

Luckily for our heroes, the once-full beach (Bulk and Skull kicked sand in the faces of several unknown teens upon their entrance, and we saw others in the backgrounds of various shots) is now empty, so Jason is free to cry that it’s morphing time.

Scorpina invites them to meet her pet worm, which, despite being about a centimeter in size, is able to immediately encase them in a cocoon.

Please just watch the sequence of events here:

And by cocoon, I mean those play tunnels that look like the love child of insulation and the paper lanterns every fifteen-year-old had back in the day.

The walls that appear thinner than papier-mâché are able to block both the Rangers’ communicators and teleportation access, meaning there’s no way to call for help. Goldar orders the Putties to throw the cocoon into the ocean, and while the material proves to be airtight, the current drags the Rangers away.

Luckily, Zordon and Alpha are on the case…sort of. Alpha freaks out about the Rangers’ situation, but Zordon dead-pans that “they will be both brave and clever and break the cocoon.” He does add that they need to contact Tommy, because blind faith only gets you so far.

At that moment, Tommy is called into the audition room, leaving his bag with his communicator in it outside. Damn it, Tommy, will you just wear your in-case-the-world-is-ending pager?

The director asks Tommy what karate has done for him, and I’m going to repeat his answer in full in case I need to use it for unnecessary, unasked-for character analysis at a later date:

“Well, it’s really helped me discipline myself. Especially with my schoolwork. Plus, it’s given me a lot of self-confidence.”

The blonde casting agent puts on some sweet fight music that was not offered to Bulk, and Tommy does a lot of slow-motion kicks and splits and flips that are all very impressive, blah blah blah.

Obviously he’s great, and the six-year-olds watching this show wanted to be just like him. It’s hard to critique the glory shots of Tommy’s fighting for being boring and repetitive because they did exactly what they’re supposed to — I’m just no longer the audience they were meant for.

The director gets all hot and bothered by Tommy’s audition, telling him they definitely want to talk to him more. At the Command Center, Alpha frets about how he’s still not answering, and Zordon tells him to keep trying. Great scene there, writers. Really added a lot to the story.

The Rangers, meanwhile, are in increasingly-growing danger, as the air is starting to thin inside the cocoon. Zack has the idea to try using their blasters to free themselves, and Jason orders them to set the weapons on low, just in case.

The blasters work — it seriously took them this long to think of shooting the cocoon? — and Zordon tells Alpha to teleport the Rangers to their Zords as soon as they’re free.

Zordon then says possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard on Power Rangers — that Alpha needs to warn the Rangers that “Goldar sent down Babe Ruthless, the baseball monster.”

I don’t…I don’t have…I…I’ve got nothing.

We cut to a bunch of Zord footage, the repetitiveness of which means my brain has all the more time to think about Babe Ruthless.

All the monsters — including you-know-who — grow large, and the individual Zords actually get some play for a change. The writers are apparently just as unable to keep track of them as they are the different Megazords, as at once point, Babe Ruthless hits the Saber-Toothed Tiger and Mastodon with his “curveball” (just go with it), but we see Trini and Billy reacting in pain as Zack randomly cries, “He’s got Jase pinned down! We’ve gotta do something!”

Billy and Zack plot to come at Babe Ruthless from both sides, and Jason gives a rousing, generic speech about how they all need to power up their weapons to defeat the monster, no matter what. Where exactly is Kimberly in all of this?

Having finished his audition, Tommy at last hears his communicator beeping, and rushes to open his gym bag. Zordon gives him the low-down on the situation, and he boldly decides to morph right in the halls of Angel Grove High.

He appears at the battle with the usual lack of any actual transition — as always, we’re just supposed to assume he teleported — and calls forth the Dragon Zord. The Rangers form the Dragon Zord Battle Mode, which has now gotten its single obligatory full-name mention before being shortened to DZBM for the remainder of this recap.

Jason decides to give me an absolutely heart attack by exiting his Zord and jumping off the top of it, which apparently now serves to explain how he’s sometimes in the cockpit of the DBZM despite his Zord not being involved in its structure.

I’m not sure how he jumped down to it, though, since the DBZM is a lot taller than the Tyrannosaurus Zord.

Someone trying to do an impression of Billy’s voice cries that they need a shield, which prompts Jason to summon the drill spear that the Power Rangers Wiki has helpfully informed me is actually called the Power Staff.

The battle lasts way too long and involves too many baseball puns for me to list here, but rest assured that they are numerous. The DBZM stabs a hole straight through Babe Ruthless, but despite putting an end to him, we’re nowhere near through.

In a really confusing transition, we see Goldar on the moon shouting about how it’s not over yet, despite the fact that he’s supposed to be on Earth fighting the Rangers right now. Zordon calls the Rangers to tell them that Scorpina is attacking Angel Grove, even though she’s also already in the battle. Do these fights follow hide-and-seek rules, where if you beat one monster, the rest are allowed to run off while the Rangers shut their eyes for sixty seconds?

The Rangers jump out of their Zords to face Scorpina, who has changed from her giant monstrous form. She makes her worm friend from earlier grow in size and orders it to encase the Rangers in another cocoon — because that held them so well last time.

Kimberly worries that if the worm traps them again, they’ll never be able to get out. But why, though…?

Regardless, Jason has other ideas, and calls for the Zords again, meaning we get another set of entering-the-Zord shots.

They form the Megazord, because what this episode needed was more stock footage. What follows is a super boring Kaiju battle, even by this show’s standards, culminating with the worm managing to encase the Megazord in a giant cocoon.

Jason calls for Tommy’s help, reinforcing the fact that he’s apparently just disappeared during the second half of this battle.

Tommy makes his entrance using the exact same footage they used the first time he joined the fight in this episode, made all the more confusing by the fact that he cries, “Right here, Rangers! Morphed and ready!” as if he hasn’t been here this whole time.

The Dragon Zord — whose summoning footage we see again despite the fact that we just acknowledged it was already in the battle when Trini, Zack, and Billy’s Zords disengaged from it to form the Megazord — knocks over the worm with its finger blasters, and frees the Megazord from the cocoon with the drill on its tail.

Because we had to have one last toy commercial before the episode’s end, Jason calls for the formation of the Mega Dragon Zord, which handily shuffles the worm off the mortal coil.

On the moon, Rita screams at her minions for their failure, oddly going for the line, “I take one day off and look what happens!” as if this is different from any other day for them. The goons all try to place the blame on one another, and Rita moans about how she never wins.

At the Juice Bar, Ernie asks the kids how the trip to the beach went, and they confess that it didn’t turn out to be as relaxing as they planned. An unnamed newscaster we’ve seen in previous episodes comes on TV to report that while there was some property damage in Rita’s most recent attack, the Power Rangers were successful in ensuring no civilians were hurt.

Kimberly asks Tommy when they’ll see his commercial, which obviously cues it to start playing right that second. Bulk and Skull stride in just in time to see that the audition Bulk thought he nailed has been reframed to be an example of someone who tried to teach himself karate, while Tommy’s exemplifies what can happen if one signs up for the Angel Grove Karate Center.

Bulk tosses Skull across the room for daring to laugh at him, while the rest of the cast gets in plenty of chuckles at his expense.