Mighty Morphin #2.04 – The Wanna-Be Ranger

We begin with the Rangers playing a pick-up game of basketball, apparently the show’s go-to opening after a plot-heavy multi-parter.

Everyone is participating but Zack, doing entirely unnecessary feats of acrobatics in their quest to slam dunk. The missing Ranger quickly makes his appearance, though, sneaking up behind Kimberly in a monkey suit and scaring the bejeebus out of her.

Tommy asks Zack what his deal is, and he explains that he was performing in his cousin’s birthday party and saw the opportunity for a prank. I’ll buy it.

Jason invites him to ditch the suit and play with them, and Zack quickly sheds it, but is unable to join the game due to the teens’ communicators going off. Zordon tells the team to report to the Command Center at once.

Trini is ready to face-off with Zedd, but Alpha quickly replies that the issue isn’t with Zedd, but Zordon. As Zordon explains:

“Rangers, due to a galactic imbalance caused by the linear alignment of the planets in your Solar System, I am about to temporarily de-ionize.”

Billy translates for the others:

“It means that Zordon’s gonna de-energize and lose his powers for a short time.”

Zack catches on at once, recognizing that they’re going to have to be on their guards for any trouble. Zordon instructs Jason to keep a close ear out for any contact from Alpha, and he agrees, telling Alpha to contact them the minute there’s any trouble. As he does, Zordon disappears from his tube.

Alpha bids them farewell as they teleport away:

“Have fun, Rangers. Don’t worry about poor, little old me. I’ll be fine. All alone in this big, scary Command Center.”

On the moon, we see Z-Putties creeping through the halls, approaching Zedd’s throne as he does yet another chair twirl to face them. His plan is to use Zordon’s absence (duh) and his own monster to get the Rangers to destroy one another. He waves his staff and brings Zack’s abandoned monkey costume to life as the Primator.

Already bored, Alpha switches on the Viewing Globe to see what’s happening at the park. As it turns out, a young boy has lost his mother, and Alpha moves to tell the Rangers. He hesitates beforehand, realizing he doesn’t need to call in the Rangers for that, and decides to send himself in instead.

Bulk and Skull are wandering the park with spy headsets, keeping an ear out for any sign of the Power Rangers. They hear a cry of “Ay-yi-yi!” and Alpha lands directly in front of them.

The bullies are understandably freaked by this and flee, despite Alpha’s attempts to calm them down. The motherless child happens across Alpha and stops dead, clearly dumbstruck. Alpha offers his help and asks the child his name.

The kid’s name is Dylan, and Alpha preaches about how the best thing to do when you’re lost is stay put, a reminder that the show, at this point, is mostly meant for really young kids. Dylan asks Alpha if he’d like to play soccer while they wait, and when Alpha is confused, he proceeds to show him how to kick the ball.

Squatt is as surprised as the rest of us to see Alpha out and about, and Zedd determines this is the perfect point to destroy the Rangers. At his command, the Primator turns into an exact clone of Billy.

Alpha mis-times a kick and the soccer ball soars toward not!Billy (seriously, how many times are we going to use this plot line?). He catches it and brings it back to the pair, leading Alpha to mumble:

“Uh-oh. Busted.”

Not!Billy tsks and replies, to my immense discomfort:

“And disgusted. You are a naughty, naughty little boy, aren’t you, Alpha?”

He asks who’s minding the Command Center, which is a valid question, clone or not. Alpha sputters and not!Billy loses it, yelling at him and ordering him to follow. Apparently Alpha doesn’t think there’s anything odd about Billy loudly sharing these details in public, because he looks down in shame as the Primator’s reflection is visible along the top of his head.

Alpha somehow spots this, despite his gaze being elsewhere, and he shouts out:

“Hey, you’re not Billy!”

The Primator transforms back to its original form at once, grabbing Dylan for a moment before the kid stomps on its foot and bolts.

It changes tactics after this, grabbing hold of Alpha and demanding he lead it to the Command Center. Instead, Alpha activates his self-destruct protocol and collapses to the ground.

Zedd barks at the Primator to ditch Alpha and instead focus on the Rangers. It does so with glee, teleporting to the Juice Bar and becoming a copy of Zack this time.

Not!Zack approaches Kimberly and Trini at the bar and tells them that Tommy’s in trouble at the north end of the park. He spins a story that Z-Putties attacked him and his powers are low, which is surprisingly believable for a villain plan.

Trini questions why Alpha didn’t contact them and not!Zack shrugs. Kim asks about Billy and Jason, and he remarks, “Who knows?” before saying he’ll go tell them himself.

The girls rush to help Tommy as not!Zack sips on Trini’s drink, saying:

“Mmm…banana shake.”

The girls arrive at the park via teleportation despite the dual facts that 1) We saw them run out, and 2) We’ve established many times over that the park is right outside the Juice Bar. They’re befuddled by the fact that they don’t see Tommy, though they could try walking like two feet before giving up.

Instead, Trini suggests the others might have already found him. She has the forethought to try contacting Jason via communicator, but he, Zack, and Tommy are all helping Billy with some new tech invention and have headphones over their ears.

Before the girls can figure out what’s going on, Zedd sends a squad of Z-Putties down to meet them. Kimberly reminds Trini to go for the Z in the middle of the chest and they launch into battle.

It’s a great fight, but it does make it abundantly clear that they have stunt doubles now. Most of the fight is them, but the hardest stunts are done with their backs to the cameras. It’s well done and would easily fool any kid watching, but an adult used to their abilities can pick the moments out.

The boys have apparently now moved to the Juice Bar, because they’re there watching Tommy practice karate when the girls stumble in. Kimberly is relieved to see Tommy is okay, and he laughs and says he’s doing great.

Trini demands Zack explain himself, and he’s confused what she’s talking about. Kimberly insists he told them Tommy was losing his powers and they had to get to the park, which is certainly news to Tommy and Zack.

Trini hisses they were attacked by Z-Putties and wants to know where they were in all of it. Jason explains they were in Billy’s “lab,” which I refuse to acknowledge as such because it’s a garage. Kimberly’s face falls as Billy confirms Zack was with them all day.

Tommy says they’d better contact Alpha, and when Jason tries, there’s no response. The teens hurry out of the Juice Bar in order to get to the Command Center stat.

Alpha, meanwhile, is having a full-on death scene with Dylan, who believes the robot is getting better. Alpha denies this, saying that he has ten minutes left until his self-destruct mode activates, which seems like a pretty bad system to me.

At the Command Center, Tommy is elated to see that Zordon has re-ionized, and the leader, having no time for greetings, gets straight down to brass tacks in explaining Alpha’s situation.

The teens are inclined to run after Alpha, but the alarms alert them to the Primator attacking the beach. Kimberly realizes the monster must have been the one who lied to her and Trini. She apologizes to Zack for mistrusting him, and he tells them “it’s solid.”

Jason calls for morphing, and interestingly, everyone calls out their old Zords instead of their new ones. I suppose the Power Coins are still attached to those particular beasts?

As began happening near the end of last season, I’m delighted by how far into the episode we are before the morphed battle happens. It’s not that I dislike morphed fights, per se, but rather that it means more build-up for the actual plot of the episode.

There’s a very funny moment in which all of the Rangers get a little line at the beginning of the battle, with the camera rolling down to show each of them in turn. At the very end, we hear:

“Yellow Ranger!”

“Yeah, Yellow Ranger!”

Trini and not!Trini bicker over who is the real Yellow Ranger, and while I’m not sure how the monster managed to impersonate her given they were all staring directly at it, it’s funny nonetheless. One of them pleads with the others, insisting they must know it’s the real her, while the other assures them that it’s just Primator trying to trick them.

Zack and Tommy are completely stumped, while Kimberly demands to know which of them is lying. Jason comes up with a plan I didn’t expect: Both of them fight him, and he’ll be able to tell which of them is the real Trini by their fighting styles. One eagerly agrees, the other more reluctantly, which I assume has to be the real one.

Indeed, as soon as Jason steps back to begin the fight, the real Trini says that she can’t fight her friend. Not!Trini shouts that she can, and rushes forward to do just that, but everyone opens fire with their Blade Blasters.

Not!Trini turns back into the Primator and leaps spear-first at the Rangers. Jason goes to take it on one-on-one and manages to split its spear in half, which only enrages it further. It smacks its ass at them and starts running, but Zack chases it down and launches both of them off a cliff in the process.

The Rangers head to catch up with him, and when they ask how he’s doing, he says he’s great and punches Jason in the gut. The others swarm him immediately, but he manages to throw them off and slips away when the real Zack emerges from behind a bush.

The Primator begins to shift between all the Rangers, and once it switches to the Red Ranger, Jason leaps in to fight it himself. One of them gets knocked back toward the others, and when they rush forward to help him, the Jason still standing shouts that it’s the bogus one.

Everyone freezes until the still-standing Red Ranger bursts into shrieking laughter, revealing himself to be the Primator after all. He fires beams from the Tyrannosaurus eyes on Jason’s helmet, which is something I bet Jason now wishes he could do.

The Rangers teleport back to the Command Center, because I guess that’s just what we do in the middle of fights, now. There, Zordon reveals that, as happened with Alpha earlier, the Primator briefly turns back into itself when it sees its own reflection.

Zack laughs and jokingly asks if anyone brought a mirror with them, and to everyone’s surprise, Kimberly whips a whole-ass hand mirror out of nowhere, saying she never leaves home without one.

The Rangers somehow get split up when teleporting back to the area (convenient), and Jason, Trini, and Billy stumble across a flailing Tommy shouting about how he’s losing his powers. He cries that this is too much and they should give up, leading Jason to kick him to the ground, shouting that the real Tommy would never give up.

The impostor insists he’s the real thing, but Billy pulls out a mirror that is decidedly not Kimberly’s and tells the Green Ranger to put his claims to the test.

The Primator smashes the mirror as soon as it’s found out, and its attempts to flee lead it directly into the path of the other three Rangers. Trapped between them, it unleashes a surge of lightning that knocks everyone to the ground.

The Rangers are back on their feet in no time at all and all gang up on the Primator. Sensing the turning of the tide, Zedd sends a bomb down to make his monster grow.

The Rangers call their new Zords, and I guess the footage of the old Zords turning into the new ones is here to stay? Poor Jason has to shout “Tyrannosaurus Red Dragon Thunderzord power!” every time he calls his Zord.

In case you haven’t figured it out, the Thunder Zords are from a different Sentai series than the originals. Without going into too much detail, the main points you need to know are:

• Like later seasons of Power Rangers, each Sentai series changes characters, plots, costumes, weapons, and the like from season to season. You’ll see this start to seep into Power Rangers come Zeo, but it’s most apparent in Lost Galaxy and beyond.
• The Sentai the first season footage came from was called Zyuranger. But eventually they ran out of footage to pull from, so come season two, they started mixing their own blend of newly-made footage with stuff from the following season, Dairanger.
• Dairanger is where the Thunder Zords come from, as well as one other key element that we’ll see later this season. Any appearance of the Rangers in-costume is from a variety of sources that are entirely too complicated to go into here. Just look up Zyu2 if you’re interested.

There’s a lot more I could get into with regards to Sentai oddities — they explain the vast majority of Tommy’s plot lines, for instance — but that’s all you really need to know to understand a lot of the weirdness of both this season and the next (as after that, they’ll start switching up costumes and weapons from season to season alongside the Sentai series).

Breaking the rules Zordon explicitly set out last episode, Tommy summons the Dragon Zord to the Thunder Megazord’s aid.

The Primator puts up an okay fight, but there’s not much time left in the episode, so the Zords get the job done fairly quickly. They do a really good job of hiding the fact that the Dragon Zord and the Thunder Megazord are never actually in a shot together, as they’re from different Sentai.

Once the battle has been won, the Rangers rush to save Alpha, who is mere seconds from destruction. Dylan begs them to save his friend, and Billy is able to deactivate the self-destruct mode.

Dylan’s mom comes racing up to the Rangers as soon as Alpha’s back on his feet, saying she’s been looking for him everywhere. I should certainly hope so, given how long it took her to find him. She and Dylan wave goodbye to the Rangers and Alpha as they teleport away.

Back at the Command Center, Zordon commends Alpha’s intentions but scolds his decision not to tell the Rangers he was leaving. Trini jokes that he’s going to be grounded for a “few thousand years,” and Alpha is distressed that he’ll never learn to play soccer in that case.