Episode 13- No Clowning Around

We start out this episode really happy because it's a Trini-centric episode, but the happiness is short lived. This is the creepiest, weirdest episode I think I've watched thus far. I spent most of it unsure what was going on, actually.

It opens at some kind of carnival or fair. It looks like it might be fun with a ferris wheel and carousel (I love carousels), but there are clowns. And clowns are creepy. If you didn't think they were creepy before, you will after this episode.

Zack is walking around on some rockin' stilts and we're impressed. He's awesome! Billy throws out some typical Billy-speak and then Zack shows off by dancing. He's not half bad either... until he falls over. He is caught by Jason in what is probably the most romantic pose ever to happen in the entirety of Power Rangers. Seriously, Zack literally falls into Jason's arms, is encompassed by him, and lowered safely to the ground in Jason's warm embrace. Zack sing-songs "My big strong hero" and then kisses Jason on the cheek. I'm not even kidding, it's actually there on screen. Zack and Jason, in this scene, get more action and romance in this one scene than anybody in Power Rangers does until Tommy shows up. Zack/Jason is totally canon, and probably the only thing in Power Rangers I didn't ship until... um... well, now. But now I do and we wants fic!

Moving on we see Trini running to catch up to the gang with her Random Relative of the week, Cousin Sylvia. We meet the creepy clown who's name is Pineapple and we struggle to not make Pennywise references. Yeah, it didn't work. Pineapple the Clown offers to teach children juggling, but Billy kind of takes over and jumps at the chance. He sucks at it though so his eggs (why they're juggling with raw eggs I don't even know) end up flying through the air and landing on Bulk and Skull in what proves to be their only appearance all episode. Sylvia wants to stay and juggle with leering Pineapple the Clown, but Trini reminds her they need to stick together and drags her off to attempt a human pyramid. It fails and Sylvia, apparently unimpressed, runs off to see Creepy the Clown again. She looks to be about 10 years old. She really ought to know better by that point.

Trini ends up in a minor state of panic until she finds Random Relative Sylvia with Creepy the Clown. Trini tries to pull her away, but Pineapple gets grabby with the little girls and won't let go of Sylvia. He turns her into a cardboard cutout and then runs away. Yeah... I don't even know what's going on at this point.

It ought to be noted that while Trini ran off to find her wayward cousin, the rest of the Rangers just up and went on a park ride. They didn't help look for the missing kid. Trini catches up to them, their fun time now over, and shows them Cardboard Cutout Sylvia. She is sent to Billy's garage to use one of his devices to turn her back into a human and we just have to stop and love the fact that Billy has a machine to turn cardboard into people. In his garage. Because he's Billy. I could smush him.

Jason grabs a megaphone and starts calling out for the evacuation of the carnival. Instead of questioning a random teenager telling them to run, the residents of Angel Grove just run away. Either they know he's a Ranger (probably) or they're very well trained to hide at the slightest inkling of a monster attack. Billy ought to have gone to help Trini, but instead ends up leaving the others to deal with putties while he chases after Pineapple on his own. We think he might have a clown fetish. We marvel at the ingenuity of the Rangers using their environment to help beat the putties. They did an awesome job of improvising with the carnival rides.

Meanwhile, Alpha is in Billy's garage helping Trini reanimate Sylvia. He discovers all the water has been removed from her body, thus turning her into cardboard. Um... wha??? Again, I don't even know. We were yelling FISH by 10 minutes into this episode. That's never a good sign. He dumps some buckets of water on the cardboard, she comes back to the life, Alpha runs and hides, and Trini apologizes for what I don't know.

Trini runs to assist in the fight, they summon the Zords, and then Billy throws his Triceratops horns at the overgrown clown that now resembles some kind of deformed plant. He calls himself the Pinoctopus. He neither resembles a pineapple nor an octopus, so I'm just left scratching my head.

Zack uses his Zord to freeze the Pinoctopus and we see a nice background shot of a glacier. Which is amusing since the Mastodon Zord was standing next to the other Zords on... grassy flatland. Mmkay. Angel Grove geography is just weird. That not being sufficient, they form the MegaZord and Billy suggests something akin to lasers. That's good, but not good enough apparently, as Jason so harshly points out, and so they do... something? and defeat the Pinoctopus. It looked like somebody pulled a wire out of the ground and made dirt fly up and then he exploded, but we're not entirely sure what it was supposed to be. Again, no clue what's really going on, so fish fish fish.

The day is saved, Random Relative Sylvia thanks Trini for teaching her not to run off (seriously? she's ten and nobody taught her this before?), and then Billy is adorable on not-stilts. Credits roll. The end.

I'm still scratching my head and not sure what I just watched.

List time!
Covered in food: Bulk and Skull covered in raw egg

Billy!speak (and lots of it!):
"Remember to keep your center of gravity correctly proportioned."
"I estimate we'll lose structural integrity in about 8.3 seconds."
"We're in imminent danger of collapse!"
"She's been subatomically transduced into a two dimensional space."
"The quasitronic molecular generator in my garage could be the answer."
"Bipedally ambulate to the nearest convenient outlet."
"According to my calculations a multi-phased energy blast should overload him and bring on his destruction."

Overall we give this episode 4 fish due to the sheer rediculousness of the water turning a cardboard person back into a person, Billy's clown fetish, the weird battle, creepy grabby clowns, and the overall wtf-ery of the entire episode.