Mighty Morphin #2.07 – The Green Dream

We begin with Ms. Appleby reminding her class that their 500-word essays are due Friday, and all I can think is how crazy short that is. She snaps “This Friday” at Bulk and Skull, because she knows her students.

Skull instantly panics because neither of them have started yet, and at Bulk’s reminder that it has to be a topic that interests them, he lists off options:

“Slugs? Toe jam? Sweat!”

Bulk, however, thinks that all of those subjects are out of their league. Instead, he decides that they (are these group essays?) are going to write about the secret identities of the Power Rangers.

We jump to Tommy at his locker, which is filled with magazine cut-outs of people doing karate for reasons of one-dimensionality and also preciousness. Kimberly greets him, but when he doesn’t reply, she nudges him. He startles and explains that he was thinking about “that dream again.”

Being a good girlfriend, Kim knows exactly which one he means:

“The one where you lose your powers?”

He nods and says he’s had it three nights in a row, which really sounds like something he should be telling Zordon. He’s worried it’s a message he’s at “the end of [his] power cycle,” so…yeah. Tell Zordon.

Kimberly encourages him to think positively, and we cut to Zedd delighted by these events. He doesn’t say he’s behind the dreams, so it seems Tommy’s powers really are cutting out on him, but Zedd plots to take advantage of the situation nonetheless.

His plan is to grab the Sword of Power (come on, writers, we’ve already had two different Power Swords), which can only be summoned when all of the Rangers are together.

Goldar: Yes, but how can we take the Sword of Power when they are all together, Master? Tell me!

Zedd: Separate them. One at a time. Tommy first. To the Dark Dimension. I’m sure we can persuade him to bring us the Sword of Power. And when he does, I, Lord Zedd, will destroy the Power Rangers forever!

At the Juice Bar, Billy is showing Trini — who is wearing the cutest outfit — his latest addition to their arsenal, a signal scrambler with a range of twenty feet. He’s working on building one with a wider range to…I’m not really sure how that would help against Zedd, but I trust him.

Tommy and Kimberly arrive and we finally get an answer for what Ms. Appleby’s class is — homeroom! Why she’s assigning essays, then, I have no idea, but maybe this homeroom works differently than mine did.

Tommy’s planning to write about mythology, which makes total sense. Most of the Thunderzords are based on mythical creatures (the exception being Zack’s Lion Zord), and his in particular is the Dragon Zord. It would have been easy to have him write about martial arts, but this is a nice touch.

Bulk and Skull burst into the Juice Bar shouting about how they’re going to find the Power Rangers’ secret identities with their latest plan, and Trini tosses a piece of popcorn into her mouth with the words, “Here comes trouble.”

The bullies have purchased an “energy detector” from the spy store, theorizing that the Power Rangers have to be loaded with energy, and Trini gives Billy a wary look when they approach.

It actually seems to work for a moment, as the detector whirs and beeps like crazy as soon as they turn it on. Wisely, Billy switches on his signal scrambler and redirects the source away from their group. Bulk and Skull eagerly follow the energy detector, only to have it lead them straight to Ernie, who makes a fighting pose and pitches the whole room into hysterics.

Jason tells Bulk and Skull he hopes they didn’t pay too much for the device, and Kimberly breathes a sigh of relief. They all talk way too loudly about what a close call that was, and Billy’s just glad his scrambler works.

Tommy remembers he has to make the Sentai footage work be at the library before it closes, so he runs off in a hurry. Once he’s alone, Zedd sends down a squad of Z-Putties to capture and bring him to the Dark Dimension.

He fights them off well, but they manage to surround and teleport him nonetheless.

Goldar summons Zedd’s staff to his hand and promises that when he’s done, Tommy’s mind will be controlled by the emperor. Tommy flails at this, obviously not taking kindly to mind control given his past experiences, but the Z-Putties hold him tight.

As Goldar explains the plan, Tommy bellows:

“Never! I’ll never turn against my friends again, Goldar!”

Goldar remains confident — as well he should, because a single jolt of energy from the staff brings the Green Ranger to his knees in agony. After only a few seconds of fighting, Tommy sits up, eyes flashing red, and vows to obey Goldar’s every word.

To rub things in, Goldar immediately cracks:

“Seems like old times, doesn’t it, Green Ranger?”

He spots Tommy’s mythology book, which has come out of Tommy’s bag in the commotion. It’s fallen open to a picture of a knight fighting some sort of zebra monster, and he submits it to Zedd for monster inspiration.

Zedd welcomes this addition to his team and creates the Robogoat, which is 100% not what that picture showed.

The alarms sound in the Command Center due to the Robogoat’s appearance, and Alpha states that:

“Preliminary analysis shows high levels of electromagnetic and sonic distortion ability.”

This might seem like a way to work in Billy’s invention. It’s not.

Alpha reaches the Rangers at the Juice Bar. Tommy catches up with them “just in time,” as Zack puts it, but his eyes flash red behind their backs to remind the audience of the reality of the situation.

The teens teleport to the Command Center and Tommy is obviously raring to go, but both Kimberly and Jason suggest he sit this one out to conserve his powers in case they need him later.

This plays perfectly into Zedd’s plan, as Tommy suggests summoning the Sword of Power to give him an extra boost of energy to make it through the fight. Billy agrees at once (seriously, is this something they’ve had in their arsenal all along?) and even Zordon thinks it’s worth a try.

They all do an arm gesture they’ve 100% never done before and summon a random sword to Tommy’s hands.

Tommy instantly goes loco once the sword is in his hands, swinging it around and telling the others their time is at hand. He teleports back to the Dark Dimension at once, and Kimberly “can’t believe this is happening again.”

In the Dark Dimension, Tommy hands the Sword of Power over to Robogoat, which I can’t possibly be expected to take seriously with a name like that. The second it’s left his hands, he’s freed from the spell, and he grasps his head in pain as everything he’s just done sinks in.

Robogoat teleports away with the sword, and Tommy wheels on Goldar in fury. The general taunts him, telling him to go ahead and use up his powers, just like they want him to. He decides there’s no other choice and morphs.

Once morphed, Tommy is suddenly in a wide open field, shouting “Where’d you go? Come out and fight!” at Goldar as if they’re still in the same place.

He vows to get the Sword of Power back if it’s the last thing he does, and suddenly spots it randomly stuck in a nearby pile of rocks. This turns out to be a trap (duh) as explosions go off throughout his path.

Robogoat leaps in and tells Tommy he’ll have to defeat it before he can grab the Sword of Power, to which Tommy replies, “No problem, geekoid!” because apparently that particular insult is a keeper.

The two square off and Robogoat seems to have the upper hand at first, but Tommy manages to get to the sword and make a big speech about how it belongs to the Power Rangers. But as soon as he picks it up, it turns into a walking stick.

Robogoat knocks Tommy off the hill and picks up the Sword of Power, which is now suddenly not a walking stick. It then throws Tommy off a whole-ass cliff, because he hasn’t suffered enough today.

The Green Ranger can feel his powers fading, but is desperate to get back to the Command Center to tell the others what happened. Luckily, Alpha manages to lock onto him and sends the Rangers out to help.

There’s no doubt in any of the Rangers’ minds that Tommy was under a spell, which is nice to see. Unfortunately, the Sword of Power lives up to its name and blasts them all with lightning as soon as they arrive.

Robogoat splits the earth with the sword and everyone but Jason falls into the resulting chasm. The Red Ranger draws his own sword and meets the monster in battle.

Jason smacks the Sword of Power out of Robogoat’s hands, and it proceeds to turn back into a walking stick. To my immense confusion, we then get this exchange:

Robogoat: Impossible! Where is the sword?

Jason: Zordon teleported it back to the Command Center where it belongs.

And then Jason hits Robogoat and four lights erupt from its chest and turn into the other Power Rangers? Even though they fell into the chasm earlier?

Trini cries:

“Finally! I guess Jason got us out of those energy bubbles.”

I’ll try to avoid dipping too much into Sentai stuff because I just covered it a few episodes ago, but to my understanding, by this point a lot of the footage was being made specifically for Power Rangers. So why does everything in this fight feel like it’s been haphazardly cobbled together from a completely separate Sentai storyline?

Maybe this particular episode is a holdout from before Zyu2. You’d think they would’ve used all the original Tommy footage they could already (given running out of it was the reason they had to write him out the first time), but perhaps they overlooked this one.

Speaking of Tommy…is he okay? I’m pretty sure he’s still dying at the bottom of that cliff.

Zedd makes his monster grow and the Rangers call the Thunder Megazord. We get some new footage of the Red Dragon Thunderzord and a fresh battle theme in the background, both of which are good by me. The music turns out to be a longer version of the theme song, with a full verse leading into the chorus. I approve.

We finally cut back to Tommy, who is indeed still at the base of the cliff. The others page him to urge him to come to their aid, and hilariously, we catch sight of his definitively not-Jason David Frank stunt actor under the helmet as he calls the Dragon Zord.

The Dragon Zord doesn’t respond, yet another sign that the Tommy-losing-his-powers-arc is starting to get serious. This all ignores the fact that Tommy was expressly told not to use the Dragon Zord, but we’ve been overlooking that for several episodes now, so whatever.

Tommy is desperate to get back in the fight, but his Zord remains unresponsive and he’s of little use without it. The other Rangers, who have been struggling with the Thunder Megazord’s systems, finally get everything back online and take out Robogoat with the Thunder Saber.

Zedd stomps around his base threatening to mutilate various parts of his subordinates’ bodies in response to his defeat.

It’s not all doom and gloom with the villains, as Zedd remarks that despite their most recent failure, Tommy’s powers are still on the brink of total failure. On that note, we quickly jump to catch up with Jason, Kimberly, and Tommy on the stairs at school.

Kimberly asks Tommy how his essay went, and he makes a joke about being burnt out on short stories (I don’t get it) while acknowledging that it went well. However, the tone shifts as he glances at Jason and says:

“I’m at the end, guys.”

Kimberly urges him not to think that way, but he can’t deny his dreams or body any longer. Jason reminds him that he’s gone through this before and “came back stronger,” but Tommy insists that this time feels different:

“This time, it’s for good. Lord Zedd’s had it in for me ever since the beginning. And he’s closing in.”