Episode 69- The Beetle Invasion

Today on Power Rangers, I am reminded of lots of things that aren't Power Rangers!

We start out in the Youth Center. Ernie is playing broomball. He's apparently agreed to a match against the Stone Canyon team. The only problem is Ernie and Angel Grove don't actually have a broomball team. We had to squee for a few minutes because, hello, Stone Canyon! Setting up early perhaps? :D So Ernie tries to talk to rangers into playing for his team. They're a little hesitant. Until, that is, the Stone Canyon team comes in to hang up fliers. Why they're plastering the neighboring city with fliers for their team I don't know, but roll with it. They're total jerks. So because of their dickwad-ish attitude, the rangers agree to play for Ernie's team.

Meanwhile, Zedd has been watching. He's OBSESSED with Tommy. I mean, like, Goldar and Jason level obsessed. So Zedd/Tommy is now the OTHER Love That Daren't Speak It's Name. He plans on using the mascot for the Stone Canyon team, a beetle, and making a monster out of it that will drain Tommy's power.

Back at the Youth Center, Bulk and Skull come in with a giant pig nose. Bulk bought it off the back of a comic book. Aw, Bulk reads comics! Awesome. Anyway, they plan to use it to sniff out the power rangers. Not sure how that will work, but it's kind of cute, so I go with it. And here is where we meet Ritchie. He's the new kid in school and he wants to play for Ernie's team, but alas, the team is full. But Ernie says Ritchie can co-captain. And Trini swoons.

In the next scene, Tommy and Kim are running alone in the park. This means they'll be attacked by putties. It ALWAYS happens. So Zedd sends down some putties and they fight for a bit. They knock Tommy down a lot and Kim has taken lessons on how to vogue mid-fight. Instead of calling for backup, they morph and fight some more. Zordon is still apparently trying to sabotage Tommy because he doesn't alert the others until Kim calls for help. They morph and end up fighting the beetle monster who knocks Tommy down again and then drains his powers. While explaining that he's draining his powers.

They finally have to go to the Command Center where Billy analyzes some data and discovers that Tommy is just fine health wise. He agrees he feels fine, just weak. They then try to figure out what the beetle did to Tommy. Um. He drained Tommy's powers. He kind of explained that already. While he was doing it. It was really quite obvious, I assure you.

Then Alpha and Billy say some technobabble which I totally missed because I was too busy being distracted by the big school of fish swimming across the screen. I mean, by the explanation for power ranger energies and transducers and power replacement. It was really just a bunch of fish here. Billy tells Alpha to construct a transducer that can rebuild Tommy's powers, or something to that effect, and I swear Billy is very pretty and smart, but really all it sounded like was "Hey Alpha, take this fishing pole and go catch us a plot device, mkay?".

Morphed, they leave Tommy behind and go fight the beetle monster thing again. Zack takes him on by himself and the others just kind of stand back and watch. What were they doing this whole time? We're not sure. We do have a theory though. I believe they were distracted by his very lovely arse. I'm sure Jason was standing there saying "Hang on Zack, I'd love to jump in and help you here, but DAMN you're a fine piece of ass." which would totally explain why they... well... just stood there.

Jason then actually says they need to get the monster to leave the Conveniently Abandoned Rock Quarry so they can fight him on their own ground. So he runs off. And the others follow because they can't do anything else. Apparently they needed a big pile of fish to fight on.

Back at the Command Center, Tommy asks Alpha to explain the transducer. He sort of did, but I missed it because every time they mention the word transducer, I could only think of one thing. "This sonic transducer...it is, I suppose, some kind of audio-vibratory-physio-molecular transport device?"

Back at the fight, they end up in hill country. They call the power weapons and almost have the beetle monster, but Zedd makes him grow. I predict this before it even happens.
"and it grows
and they'll call the zords
and they'll form the thundermegazord
and they'll fight for a minute
and then they'll pull out the thunder sword
and the fight will be over"
And that's basically what happened. It grew. It knocked them over. They fell over in the cockpit. Billy and Zack made a Jason sandwich. They stand up. Jason tells them to get to battle stations, which always leads me to Captain Picard, even though I thought they already WERE at battle stations. They fight some more. They pull out the thunder sabre. The thunder sabre saves the day. End of fight. Surprise surprise surprise.

Zedd isn't upset he lost, though, because they drained Tommy's powers. He is really obsessed.

Back at the Youth Center, the Angel Grove team beats the pants off the Stone Canyon team. They're playing broomball in the very confined space of the Youth Center. And they're all wearing goggles. We can't help but to hope/imagine that they're slash goggles. Tommy makes the winning shot by possibly breaking the rules. And then they talk about Tommy losing his powers in the middle of the Youth Center. Way to go, guys. Because nobody will overhear you or anything.

List time!

5 fish. Solidly. I missed half the episode because that big school of fish kept taking over the screen.

Billy speak: "I thought there was a large coleoptera on that poster."

"Perhaps Alpha can construct a green energy transducer that will recapture Tommy's powers."

Covered in food: nobody