Episode 357 - The Queen's Return

WE'RE BACK! I know it's been, like, half a year. But we're back. For reals this time!

Okay, so part of the problem is that this season is so. Freaking. BORING. I just can't bring myself to care about... any of it. I actually had to go look up the episodes we'd already recapped because I'd forgotten pretty much everything except Ryan being shirtless.

We start off with villains! Who's names I can't remember! And don't even care enough about to go look up! So we'll just call them Symbol Guy, Horned Guy, Whingy Demon Bratling (who I almost called Fabulously Shiny Red Guy, because he is super fabulous), and Weasly Less Awesome The Count. Plus Lady Who Can't Act. They are planning plans. Or something.

So then we get to our intrepid heroes. Carter is driving. Joel is being a jackass in the back of the jeep and singing horribly to some old cd player (that probably wasn't that old when this aired). He is not wearing a seat belt. Carter slams on the brakes and Joel REALLY should have gone flying out of that Jeep and being horribly maimed by the road. If, y'know, physics existed in this universe. Chad and Kelsey are rollerblading and they stop at the same time as Carter. Because there is an Ominous Black Cloud in the sky.

Ryan knows about it and finally deems it the right time to tell them it's an evil ceremony. Something he could have mentioned, oh, I don't know, any other time prior to this point! So off go the Rangers to Stop Things. First they have to save people from a burning building, though, and once again I wonder what happened to the firefighters in Mariner Bay.

This leaves Ryan to go off and stop the summoning. He gets caught by Lady Who Can't Act, though, and thrown down to take part in the summoning. As a sacrifice, I suppose. Which is a bit dark for a kids show! Or maybe just to be tied up and look attractive. Symbol Guy pulls some Space Doesn't Work Like That and Lady Who Can't Act sounds less than excited that now her Queen can have a corporeal body again.

Luckily the Rangers finish with the building-on-fire and show up just in time to interrupt the ceremony! They free Ryan and fight the bad guys and I guess Ryan can morph now? Because he finally did and knocks out some underlings. I forgot how cute they are in this series! Why don't we get to see the little bat guys more often?

Oh well. Carter takes out Symbol Guy, or so they think. Instead he just get bigger. It looks like he has little Christmas lights dangling from his hat and it's also the first time I found him even remotely interesting. But he's big so that means all the zords must come out to play.

There is fire and brimstone and things shooting from the damaged building into space. Physics, show. This is not how it works. The ceremony is sort of complete and the Queen sort of shows up, but she's mostly just a big head floating in the sky, and everybody is really happy. She is clearly What's His Face's (Lokar) girlfriend. I wonder if he knows he has a whiny demon bratling? In celebration of her triumphant return, she plans to destroy the city herself. She sends a tsunami, but Ryan thrusts a sword into things and jams up the Evil Flow. She vanishes. The planets come out of alignment (SPACE DOES NOT WORK LIKE THAT MKAY). Ryan appears to be No Longer With Us.

The rangers and all the zords beat the Symbol Guy. Whingy Demon Bratling is sad he won't see his mother again, except then she's totally there. Or something.

Ryan crawls out of the rubble apparently unharmed. LIKE MAGIC. Back at the base, Ryan decides to leave to figure out how to capture the bad guys again. It has Super Dramatic Music. Really it just reeks of "Making new footage is out of our budget now". TSB says, at least they didn't send him to a Peace Conference. AGREED. Although maybe he really went on some secret project for Torchwood...

The only thing that could make that ending more bearable would be if Ryan had been shirtless. Or Carter had been shirtless. Or Ryan and Carter had been making out. OR THEY HAD BEEN MAKING OUT SHIRTLESS! That's how the episode ended in my head.

Why so boring, season? WHY?