Episode 55- Second Chance

This was an incredibly boring and pointless episode. It... ugh. Should have had a beer. Would have made it easier. I think I'd rather suffer through Devon's Not-Actually-A Ghost again than watch this episode one more time.

So we start out in the Youth Center with Jason and Zack on a date. It's adorable, but that's the last interesting thing that happens. A bunch of kids run off all happy to have made Ernie's soccer team. Why Ernie is running a soccer team, we have no idea. There is one little boy who is very sad. Or rather, we suspect he's supposed to be very sad, but really he's just wooden and expressionless. I think the kid from Phantom Menace could act better than this kid. Anyway, Boy Who Can't Act, also named Roger, didn't make the soccer team. Jason suggests he practice. Ernie says if it was up to him, he'd hold another try-out (why this will help, I have no idea). Zack throws logic into an episode that lacks any and says it IS up to Ernie, who then says "Oh yeah" and sets up for a second try-out.

At school the following morning, Zack wants to do soccer tricks in the hallway. Bulk and Skull take the soccer ball. Kim is mean to Bulk (something about nobody seeing him on a soccer field... it was cruel, we'll just leave it with that). Bulk manages to kick the ball right into Ms. Applebee as she comes around the corner. She gives them detention. Zack chastises them for doing soccer tricks in the hall... which he was just about to do too... and I want to bang on the keyboard, but won't because I like my computer and don't want to break it.

Oh, and somewhere in there, Tommy slammed his wrist and communicator against the wall and broke it. He goes to first period, which he doesn't have with the other rangers but does have with Bulk and Skull (and what in the world do their timetables actually look like? I can't figure it out). His communicator keeps beeping and Ms. Applebee takes away his "pager", yet doesn't question that it looks like a watch and not the little heavy boxes with the tiny screen that pagers used to be. Oh goodness. Pagers. Dear readers, we feel very old right now.

After school that day, Jason and Zack practice soccer in the park with their Inappropriately Young Friend, aka Boy Who Can't Act. The kid is bad. They encourage him and instead of actually showing him how to do things, they just keep throwing the ball at him. So then they get attacked by putties. And then they get attacked by Rita's not-fully-charged Soccadillo. Oh show. The best part is the putties get together and start playing soccer with the Soccadillo. That was actually really cool. Not as cool as pumpkin!putties, but still pretty neat.

Zordon calls the other rangers in and Trini goes to stand by Boy Who Can't Act while Billy and Kim go after the putties. I'm a little confused as to the logic here. I mean, I know Trini is mostly Informed Ability, and she's only shown as being awesome in her (very very few) focus episodes, but I certainly doubt a novice and a girl with no martial arts training would be more skilled fighters than somebody who takes specialized martial arts classes with her own personal trainer.

Anyway, they get their rear-ends kicked by the Soccadillo (okay, so I know everywhere else lists it with only one c, but since it's a word smush and soccer has two c's, I'm going with that). They teleport to the Command Center and we're left wondering what they did with the kid. We can only assume they gave him some fish and went about their merry way.

They morph and go fight in the Inexplicable Abandoned Rock Quarry again. They blast and blast and apparently forget it's an ARMOURED mammal, so the firepower really isn't going to work against it. Meanwhile Tommy is trying to get his communicator back from Ms. Applebee and is surprised to discover it did not, in fact, magically fix itself while locked in her desk drawer all day. Zordon teleports him into the fight and they call Zords. Yada yada yada, Power Sword Saves Them All, explosion, the end.

Back at the Youth Center we discover every kid made it onto the soccer team because Ernie couldn't bear to let anybody down and made a second team. Bulk and Skull tell Boy Who Can't Act that he really didn't have to practice after all and he says he did, but frankly, they're kind of right. He would have made the team regardless of his actual skill level because EVERYBODY made the team no matter what. But Skull decides to show off, has something sticky on his hand, gets the soccer ball stuck, knock both Bulk and himself over, and then get covered in milkshake.

And I'm just glad it's over.

4.5 fish. It made little sense and was just BORING.

Billy speak: "Looks like a member of the dasypodidae family. [beat] An armoured mammal."

Covered in food: Bulk and Skull in milkshake.

Times I had to go back and edit out where I accidentally typed football instead of soccer and didn't catch it until the end: twice