Mighty Morphin #1.59 – Mighty Morphin Mutants

The penultimate episode of the first season. I can’t believe it.

We begin with Tommy sprinting to his locker to pick up his notebook. Kimberly says hello to him, but he says he has to run because he’s “late for Ms. Appleby’s class,” which makes no sense because if he’s late, Kim should be, too.

Tommy tries to sneak into class, but Ms. Appleby spots him coming in and scolds him for his tardiness. We seem to have changed the structure of her class quite a bit — what was once a roster of Jason, Zack, Kimberly, Trini, Billy, Bulk, Skull, and occasionally Tommy has now become only Bulk, Skull, and Tommy, as evidenced here and in an episode previous. Maybe we did switch semesters after all, and they have separate periods with Appleby?

Tommy apologizes and says that he forgot to set his alarm, and Bulk and Skull have the audacity to mock him for his tardiness.

Because, as we’ve learned, Ms. Appleby is secretly a kindergarten teacher, her weekly assignment to the class is to:

“Ask your friends to choose something about you that they think needs a little work. Your assignment is to try your best to change this fault.”

Bulk and Skull’s hands immediately shoot up, wanting to know what to do if they don’t have any flaws. Dryly, Ms. Appleby replies:

“I’m hopeful some of your classmates will be happy to offer suggestions. If not, come see me. I’m sure I’ll be able to help.”

Tommy leans over and, with a shit-eating grin, whispers:

“If you really get stuck, I’ll help you guys out.”

Bulk snaps back, “You’ll be lucky if you remember what the assignment is,” hinting that forgetfulness is going to be a recurring theme for Tommy this episode, as we all pretend it’s something he’s struggled with all along.

On the moon, Rita confirms this, declaring she has found the Green Ranger’s weakness at last. She orders her minions to “go to the dungeons and get the Badges of Darkness,” which will allow Putties to turn into mutant Rangers.

At the Juice Bar, Tommy and Jason are training, but Jason is consistently able to get the upper hand over his friend. Because he’s a good pal, he stops the fight and asks:

“Am I getting better or are you getting worse? What’s the matter with you, Tommy?”

Tommy admits that he’s struggling with an assignment, and Jason pulls him aside to cool off while they chat. Tommy asks for a drink out of Jason’s water bottle, as he forgot his at home. The Red Ranger is chill with this, even handing Tommy his extra towel when he realizes he left his in his locker. Then, Tommy asks the magic question:

“So, uh, what do you think I really need to work on?”

Jason asks if he really wants to know, and Tommy insists that he does. Jason explains that his greatest flaw is that he “forgets things,” and heads off to hit the showers.

Tommy can’t believe this, remarking that he “never thought of [himself] as forgetful.” He then proceeds to grab a straw, stick it in the drink that has suddenly appeared in front of him, turn around, and forget to bring said drink with him to the table where Kimberly and Trini sit.

He asks the ladies if they agree with Jason, and Kimberly points out that he had to go back to his locker for his notebook earlier. Tommy remarks that he must have forgotten all the times he’d forgotten things.

Trini proposes helping Tommy find ways to remember things in the future. Given how severe his problem seems to be, I’d say the first thing should be getting him to a psychiatrist to check for ADD.

Meanwhile, Goldar is training the mutant-Rangers-to-be, which leads to possibly the most amusing villain scene we’ve had so far in the show: Putties practicing unnecessary flips and other signatures of the Rangers’ fighting style.

At the end, Goldar declares that Putty #6 is “going back to the clay jar on Finster’s work bench,” and vaporizes it out of existence.

Goldar hands out the Badges of Darkness, which each correspond to a particular Ranger color. Interestingly, the one that will be excluded (by virtue of his killing the sixth Putty), is Jason, as he declares:

“No one’s worthy of becoming Red Ranger!”

Bulk and Skull arrive at the Juice Bar to continue to berate Tommy over his forgetfulness. When he asks then what faults they’re planning to work on, Bulk continues to insist they have none.

This baffles Trini, who asks:

“Yeah, and you don’t consider being rude and obnoxious bad qualities?”

Kimberly cackles and says: “Just once, I’d like to see you two dress and act like gentlemen.” The bullies insist they like themselves the way they are (self-love for the win?), but Tommy replies that they’ll get an F on the assignment that way, which Caplan is sure to love.

This is sufficient to scare them out of the building, presumably to go plan how they can half-ass their way through this assignment without incurring the principal’s wrath.

Rita, meanwhile, decides it’s time to send her new mutant Rangers down. They’re easy to differentiate from the regular Rangers by their black gloves, belts, and boots, which is much appreciated, given previous Ranger clone difficulties.

She sends the green and pink copies down to fight Tommy and Kimberly, who are now walking through the park on their way home from the Juice Bar. Why she doesn’t just send them all to gang up on them, I have no idea, but this makes for a cooler fight, so I’ll take it.

Kimberly suggests morphing, but Tommy is hesitant, wanting to see what these new foes can do first. A nice touch is that the clones’ voices are clearly recognizable as being the Rangers’ own, showing that they’re linked not only to their Power Coins, but to themselves.

Both mutant Rangers are easily able to defeat their heroic counterparts, though they vanish to save them for another time for…undisclosed reasons. Kimberly can’t believe Rita’s created evil Rangers “again,” which I only mention because it’s nice whenever the show remembers its own continuity.

The whole team meets up at the Command Center, where Zordon gives them all the info on the Badges of Darkness because he knows everything. Jason asks why there isn’t a red mutant, which he somehow knows despite the Rangers only having seen the green and pink ones.

Zordon explains that Rita hasn’t yet found a leader for her troops, but that when she does, it could be catastrophic. And then Power Rangers does something I’ve never seen it do before, ever:

It goes back to the plot. Despite the fact that this week’s monster has already been introduced, we see Billy in the Juice Bar handing Tommy a device he’s programmed to help him remember everything he needs throughout the day. Tommy thanks him for his generosity, and Billy replies:

“Anything to take my mind off Rita’s Rangers for a while.”

The thing about this scene? It makes sense. The Rangers have no idea when the mutant Rangers will be back, so they can’t sit around the Command Center waiting for Rita to make her next move. They’re still teenagers. They have responsibilities, schoolwork, even football practice if I thought we were ever going to touch on that plot point again. Which I don’t.

Of course, it’s at this moment that Alpha receives an update that Rita has found the leader for her team. Zordon instructs him to keep an eye on the situation, but doesn’t yet alert the Rangers.

At Angel Grove High, Kimberly is tying ribbons around Tommy’s wrist, a trick her grandmother taught her to remember things. Zack loudly proclaims in the middle of a crowded hallway that it’s worth a try, “especially with Rita’s Rangers out there.” Tommy replies that that’s one thing he has no trouble remembering, which is the second time we’ve heard him say as much in as many scenes.

The device Billy gave to Tommy begins to malfunction, announcing it’s time to do everything from take out the trash to feed the cats. This somehow triggers Tommy to remember that he left his notebook at home, which he feels terrible about, given Trini spent so much time reorganizing it. He shoves his locker closed and races off to pick it up.

Making a face, Kimberly remarks that Tommy might have been doing better before they started to help him. Billy concurs, adding:

“He seems to be getting more forgetful by the minute.”

Zordon finally decides it’s time to call the Rangers in, and Alpha states that “this is one fishing trip that won’t be any fun.” Which I guess is referring to teleporting them to the Command Center? Except that makes zero sense, given he’s just paging them and the Rangers will teleport themselves.

Kimberly and Zack are antsy for a fight, unhappy with their current status of waiting for Rita to make her move, so they practically drag Jason into a deserted section of the hallway when his communicator pings.

Everyone is raring to go, so the only question the kids have before jumping into action is about Tommy. Zordon explains that they’ve been unable to get ahold of him thus far, but once he answers his communicator, they’ll send him in (as an interesting note, Zack looks especially annoyed when Zordon mentions that Tommy is unreachable, so while the Green Ranger’s forgetfulness may have been an invention of this particular episode, perhaps his unreliability for the sake of Sentai footage is starting to catch up with him).

With that out of the way, Jason calls for morphing in the middle of the hallway.

Once again, the mutant version of the absent Ranger — this time Tommy — is not present at the fight, so maybe they can only fight when the people they’re clones of are there. Except that Jason’s copy 1) Doesn’t transform, and 2) Isn’t even a Putty.

The fight is pretty good, as far as morphed battles go. Kimberly and her clone are especially enjoyable to watch, given both are showing the high energy so distinct to her fighting style.

Tommy finally gets back to his locker to discover his communicator beeping like crazy. He picks it up and checks in with Zordon, who gives him a quick run-through of everything he missed.

As if to up the ante on his friends, the editing suggests that Tommy morphs right there in the middle of the well-populated hallway, as his morphing sequence occurs just as he slams the locker door shut.

The lobster monster summons Tommy’s clone to the fight the moment he arrives, though Tommy is able to handle it fairly easily. To the Rangers’ horror, they realize the mutants have their own Power Blaster, which they wield to great effect.

Jason calls to Zordon to get them out of there, and in a flash, they teleport away to the Command Center. There, Zordon tells them they’re going to need all-new weapons to defeat the mutant Rangers.

If you guessed that these weapons look exactly like their usual weapons, you win the prize! Zack even mentions their similarity, but Alpha assures him that they’re totally new and deadly additions to their arsenal.

Jason vows to take care of “these bogus Rangers,” and with their definitely-all-new weapons in hand, they hurry back to the scene of the fight.

Kimberly doesn’t have the best showing this time around, as she and her clone shoot each other in mid-air, fall to the ground, and just sort of flop there for a second. The lobster leader (I don’t know its name, so that’s what I’m calling it) shouts that it’s time to use the Power Blaster. Jason replies that they have a Power Blaster of their own, and so the Rangers combine their weapons to out-weapon their opponents.

The Rangers’ weapon wins the duel, knocking the mutants onto their asses. Rita throws her wand to make her monsters grow. Oddly, only Jason, Zack, Tommy, and Billy’s counterparts grow, which I would call sexism if it weren’t for the fact that the Yellow Ranger is a man in the Sentai.

The mutants make for formidable opponents, able to gang up on the Megazord and Dragon Zord through sheer numbers alone. Then they do…this:

The Rangers attempt to pummel their enemies the old-fashioned way, but the mutants are still able to kick and (in the green mutant’s case) blast despite their hands being tied. The Rangers decide enough is enough and summon Titanus to form the Ultrazord.

The lobster leader orders retreat, but it’s too late. The Ultrazord blasts it out of the air and it and its companions explode into ash.

We cut back to Angel Grove High, as evidenced by the appearance of that same establishing shot.

Tommy says he’s glad Rita’s mutants “weren’t perfect, either,” and only wishes he could have managed to fix his fault. Laughing, Kimberly says that he tried his best, and that they weren’t much help, anyway.

We get a nice, rousing speech from all the Rangers about how sometimes one’s faults are just part of who they are, and that real friends love you despite them.

And then the scene we all knew was coming:

Bulk and Skull tell a passing Ms. Appleby that they just came in from the opera, even presenting their teacher with a gift. Ms. Appleby commends them on taking the assignment so seriously, but being wiser than she appears, hands the gift back to them and asks if they would be so kind as to open it for her.

Bulk tries to weasel out of it, but Tommy eggs him on from across the hallway, prompting Skull to snap “Shut up, dweeb” in his put-upon haughty voice. Ms. Appleby taps the present impatiently and adds:

“Please. I insist.”

Grimacing, Bulk takes the gift in-hand and Skull pries it open, releasing a spray of silly string to fly all over them. Tommy lets out a bark of laughter and Ms. Appleby chuckles, saying:

“Well, I suppose some of us will never change.”