Episode 123 - Fourth Down and Long

Today on Power Rangers, it's a Very Special Episode about dyslexia! And football. And about how whenever there's a Rocky centric episode the other Rangers get turned into things.

Honestly, before this episode I would have sworn that I'd seen every episode of MMPR, but I didn't remember this one at all!

We are back in Mr. Wilton's class, where Billy begins the necessary exposition. We find out that apparently Rocky's uncle is a really famous quarterback and he's coming to speak to the football team or something. For some reason, they are just chatting in the middle of class, and the teacher waits until they're done with the conversation before reminding them it's time to put on their safety goggles and start mixing chemicals.

Rocky asks his partner, Alan, (he's partnered with a non-Ranger! Gasp!) to read the formula. His partner reads the formula, Rocky combines the chemicals, and the stuff emits a gas, forcing class to be evacuated, and Mr. Wilton to threaten to kick the partner off the football team. Oh noes!

On the moon, Rita makes fun of their chemistry skills, and Zedd proves he has no athletic talents at all. Finster's centipede monster mold accidentally gets combined with a football, and we get our monster of the week.

Back in Angel Grove, we find out that Bulk and Skull don't appear to go to class anymore, because they're always busy with police things. This time they're guarding Rocky's uncle. Billy reads over the notes, and says that the Alan must have reversed the formula. Rocky offers to tutor Alan, and they have a conversation about how smart Alan is, but how he has trouble reading. After the tutoring session, they realize they missed Uncle Joe, so they go to find him, only to discover that the monster has shown up, and already turned Bulk and Skull into footballs. Alan and Joe soon follow, and Rocky has the best shocked expression on his face. His acting skills have improved a lot, he really sells that anger.

Rocky calls Zordon, who calls the other Rangers, but the other Rangers manage to get themselves turned into footballs. Rocky teleports back to the Command Center and successfully figures out a way to reverse the spell, proving for once and for all, that he is smart. End of discussion. He's also the only one who figures out that maybe you should DODGE THE FOOTBALL that will turn you into a football. FAIL HARDER, RANGERS.

The football fight would have been way more entertaining if there had been football putties instead of tengas. Just for the record.

Anyway, Ninjor shows up to help, and Zordon warns them that there's going to be a snowstorm even though there is NO SNOW in Angel Grove and they go down and reverse the spell and rescue everyone. The monster grows, they punch it, everyone goes home happy. For the record, the snow looks completely ridiculous, like the screen was just all static-y. It gets better once they have the actual Zord fight, but argh.

Later, all the Rangers are having a bad hair day (side effect of being turned into footballs) and Uncle Joe tells them that Alan isn't kicked off the team anymore, because he's fixed everything! It turns out that Uncle Joe also has dyslexia, and he recognized it in Alan, so he got him tested, and sometimes teachers don't recognize it but Mr. Wilton totally has strategies to help him now, and the important thing is that he isn't kicked off the team! Cue very special episode cheering.

Bulk and Skull get in trouble for being afraid of footballs (Which is understandable, since they got TURNED INTO THEM) and then Bulk gets covered in fruit salad. Everyone laughs at them. Oh, SHOW. How about a very special episode about why mocking others is wrong, instead?

Fish: 4. How do you NOT DODGE the football? Also, there is no snow in Angel Grove.

Billy speak: "Judging from the explosion that occurred, and the formula you have written here, I'd say you reversed the elements."
"Yeah, you read them backwards. That's what caused such an adverse reaction."

Covered in: Bulk is covered in fruit salad

Episode 122- Wizard for a Day

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present for your viewing pleasure, pretty much the only real actual Rocky-centric episode that gives him some semblance of development. Sure we get another one (next episode in fact), but it's not really character development and if I remember correctly, it's more about a FRIEND and random relative than it is Rocky. ANYWAY! Today I get to bask in the glory of TEH PRETTY.

So Billy is doing martial arts with Tommy in the Youth Center. Billy is very pretty. I highly approve of this. He's getting ready to break a board when Rocky comes in with a huge stack of books. Rocky is also very pretty. Not even five minutes in and we're getting one of the prettiest episodes of the season. *happy sigh*

Rocky explains that he's been selected for the Teacher for a Day program Angel Grove High does every single year. He explains it as if he's been party to this program his entire high school career, yet only a few months prior he lived in Stone Canyon. I guess we're supposed to forget that part. So apparently this is a program where for one day a student takes the place of a teacher, teaching all the classes, doing everything the teacher would be doing. The teacher gets to go through the teenager's classes and school day. I have mixed feelings about this program. Anyway, Rocky is carrying all these books because Mr. Wilton, the science teacher (OMG Angel Grove now has THREE teachers! Must have been a big budget year), has given him all his teacher editions to help him in classes the next day.

Next day? Wait. One day to prepare? Rocky gets ONE day to learn course material for all the science classes? That's not very fair. Nevermind that teaching is A LOT more involved than just picking up a book with all the answers and giving that information to the kids. Way way way more involved. You can't just be successful with one day to go over a teacher edition textbook. Wow.

So apparently Mr. Wilton is a bit of a hard ass and the rest of the Rangers don't seem to keen to have him hang out with them all the following day. They jump when he talks, call him Sir all the time, stand at attention, and Tommy even compliments his tie in an effort to suck up. It doesn't appear to work.

The following morning, Rocky shows up to school in a SUIT. And my screen explodes from OMGTHEPRETTYSOSOSOSOPRETTY. My literal words were "HOT DAMN! Rocky in a suit." Bulk and Skull, handing out parking tickets, see Rocky leave a building with all the teacher books. They think perhaps he's trying to cheat and stole the books. This is actually good thinking on their parts! They are determined to investigate and return the "stolen" books. As Rocky heads to class, leaving the books in his locker, Bulk and Skull break in and take the books back. This is actually not too bad of a plan, except they didn't investigate first. Oh boys.

Rocky heads back to his locker but finds the books missing. He can't wait, however, and hurries off to class to teach anyway. He's obviously going over something new and, having had no time to prepare or learn it himself, doesn't do a half bad job of at least naming some of the chemicals he's using. Though he ends up creating a big mess and not actually teaching much. Later, in history class (with yet another teacher that is not Ms. Applebee!), Mr. Wilton, who's name is actually Wilbur (poor guy, Wilbur Wilton? What were his parents thinking?), disrupts things by answering all the questions properly and then telling everybody else to be quiet. He gets sent to the principal's office.

We have to pause here because really? This doesn't make a lot of sense. It would be better to have the teacher there shadowing the student while s/he teaches (and then had the student shadow the teacher while s/he learns on a different day). I mean, they don't even let student teachers run a class unsupervised! Classrooms... well they just don't work like that! But then again, this IS Angel Grove we're talking about and they DO lack quality education. And teachers. Though at a whopping FOUR teachers, the staff really does seem to be growing by leaps and bounds.

So Rito, having observed this odd little program Rocky is taking part in, has decided he wants to do the same thing. He wants to switch places with Rita and Zedd. They are hesitant, but Rita eventually agrees and talks Zedd into going along with it. Rito takes the throne, takes the Z staff, and then comes up with a brilliant plan while Rita and Zedd taunt him. He calls Finster to make him a monster, but Finster refuses. He doesn't serve anybody but Empress Rita! Rito is determined, however, and goes to make a monster himself. Rito is so awesome.

At the end of the school day, Rocky finds Mr. Wilton in the park. Mr. Wilton assures Rocky that he had no idea, it really is hard to be a teenager, much harder than when he was a kid. I'm kind of surprised by that. Being a teenager is hard and a crapshot no matter what era it's in. Rocky agrees that being a teacher is also hard, and then invites Mr. Wilton to the Youth Center. He says he'll follow along shortly and Rocky (OMGSOPRETTYINASUIT) walks off. Mr. Wilton is then attacked by the DUMBEST TENGAS EVER. Goldar has goaded Rito (so the Rita to Rito's Zedd) into sending them down while he finishes up his monster. They apparently think balding, middle aged, blonde haired blue eyed Mr. Wilton is ROCKY. Delicious, dark, Latino ROCKY DESANTOS. Um... yeah. Stupid birds. So they start to haul off Mr. Wilton but Rocky chases after them, uses his communicator to call for help (because he's AWESOME and SMART and KNEW HE HAD ONE), and then attacks in Ninja Mode. He can't hold them off, but the others show up about the same time Rito does. Rito turns MR. WILTON into the monster. That's right, he used a HUMAN BEING, whom he knew the Rangers would NOT hurt, into the MONSTER (and okay, so the turning into a monster was mostly a mistake, but it was still an awesome move!). Because he's freaking BRILLIANT!

So Monster!Mr. Wilton, with a creepy real Mr. Wilton face inside begging for help, starts to turn the others into chemical compounds. He's about to get Rocky when Tommy takes the Heroic Moment of the Day and dramatically pushes him out of the way in slow motion, taking the shot on himself. Really show? Did Tommy HAVE to have a dramatic hero moment in this episode? I mean, at least the whole episode isn't Secretly About Tommy, but this is Rocky's episode, one of the precious precious few we get (which I cling to tenaciously, stroke, and call My Precious). Let HIM have the hero moments.

So with everybody else turned into chemical compounds, Rito collects them all and then taunts Rocky. But Rocky is smart. He steals them back from Rito and then immediately teleports out of there and straight to the Command Center. Alpha, unfortunately, knows how to turn Rangers from soccer balls (oddly enough, in the OTHER Rocky-centric episode we get) back into Rangers, but NOT from chemical compounds back into Rangers. He starts freaking out, but Rocky uses his head! He remains calm and focused on the problem at hand, calming Alpha enough to help build a device that will change them back from a liquid state. Because Rocky is AWESOME and a GREAT leader. Too bad he never got to BE leader, since it was stolen from him and all. Not that I'm still bitter or anything. Ahem.

So everybody is back to their normal selves and Rocky comes up with a plan to destroy the monster to set Mr. Wilton free, and everybody says this was all thanks to the teaching for a day thing. Which... um... okay? I don't quite see how that's helping AT ALL here, but whatever. Fish. Move on.

So they go fight, Rito makes Monster!Mr. Wilton grow, they call the zords. They give him a smack down and Rocky, feeling responsible (how is it your fault, honey? I don't know), goes to finish him off alone. It takes one hit and the monster is gone, leaving Mr. Wilton lying in the grass in the park. The Rangers rush to make sure he's okay.

Back in the Youth Center later that day, Rocky talks about being a teacher and how it's hard and lots of work and we're all really? You think? DUH! Mr. Wilton learned to relax a little, and is now telling the story of how the Power Rangers rescued him. To ALL the teenage girls. He's VERY popular with the teenage girls. He seems pleased. I'm incredibly squicked out. Dude, it's not good to be middle aged and surrounded by teenage girls like that. It's CREEPY.

Bulk and Skull show up with the "stolen" teachers editions and give them back to Mr. Wilton. They accuse Rocky of cheating and Mr. Wilton defends him, making Bulk and Skull quake in their boots, call him Sir, and run away. Everyone laughs and I'm just... still kind of creeped out by Mr. Wilton and all the girls. (and I really think Rocky would have done FINE if he'd had the books the whole time)

4 fish because education doesn't work like that, but at least it wasn't entirely Secretly About Tommy.

Episode 98- A Reel Fish Story

I'm so disappointed in this episode. Rocky is a lifeguard and we don't get a single shirtless scene!

We start out at the lake. Kids are playing in the water and a little girl is trying to convince a little boy to go swimming with her. He won't go in the water, however, because Here There Be Monsters. The girl assures him the Power Rangers would save him but Little Dougie is a smart kid. He's not going in that lake.

We discover Rocky is a lifeguard. He's enjoying his position as lifeguard. He's wearing Teeny Tiny red shorts, and a yellow shirt. We feel he needs to lose the shirt. And his shorts could be smaller. There should also be lots of running down the beach. In slow-motion. Yes, we would both gladly watch Power Rangers: Baywatch.

Rocky tries to convince Little Dougie to go in the water, but the kid will have none of it. Rocky lies to him, saying he's been there his whole life and the lake is perfectly safe. LIAR! Angel Grove is plagued with monsters and the lake is certainly no exception! Nevermind the fact that Rocky lived in Stone Canyon until very recently, but I suspect Stone Canyon shares the lake with Angel Grove, but only when convenient for plot. Billy and Aisha join in to help convince Dougie the lake is perfectly safe, but the boy continues to insist There Be Monsters!

Bulk and Skull decide to pretend to be sharks in order to attract the Power Rangers. Instead it just draws Billy onto a jet ski. Rocky jumps onto his ass the back, and they both chastise Bulk and Skull. Meanwhile, Zedd gets an idea. He's going to send down all the fish monsters. Well, almost all. There is one conspicuous absence that makes me sad, but we'll get to that in a minute.

He starts with the Slippery Shark that he calls the Shark Monster. It's heading towards the lake and, unable to contact a scuba-diving Tommy (and Kim and Adam) in very familiar footage, Zordon contacts Rocky instead. Why he didn't contact Rocky first, seeing as Rocky was already at the lake and there to protect people, we can only assume is fish-related. Rocky abandons his post, grabs Billy and Aisha, and they morph. At some point, the beach is evacuated/everybody runs away/somehow whatever. The rangers fight the shark when two more monsters show up. We get the piranha monster from the season 2 premiere and the Goo Fish which wasn't even a Zedd monster to begin with. Shortly after they show up, we get Commander Crayfish as well. Tommy, Adam, and Kim emerge from a lake that looked suspiciously like an ocean in all the previous shots. This is the closest we get to shirtless as Tommy and Adam aren't wearing any shirts under the scuba gear. The gear covers most of their chests, however, so we only get a shot of the boys being Slightly Shirtless. Alas.

They morph and join the others in the fight. Four monsters against six rangers, they should be able to handle it. But wait! Zedd's not done. He makes a monster out of an inner-tube and sends it to downtown Angel Grove. It looks like a bunch of hoses looped together and isn't at all threatening, actually. Bulk and Skull, in the middle of the lake and now tubeless, are distraught at how they will return to shore. Zordon contacts Tommy and he sends the five other rangers to go fight the tube monster while he takes on the FOUR fish monsters BY HIMSELF. Tommy, math was never your strong suit, was it? And apparently he never did learn that lesson about teamwork. *sigh*

I have to take a moment here. I was hoping we'd get ALL the fish monsters, but we didn't. They did not include my favourite fish monster. The Vulva Monster is nowhere to be seen. I would have loved to see His Glorious Phallicness again, but alas, it wasn't to be. We get this Hose Beast (literally!) instead of the Vulva Monster? I'm so disappointed.

Both fights are amazingly short with the thundersabre being pulled out pretty much immediately and Tommy knocking out the other four monsters in a matter of seconds. We have to wonder why Tommy couldn't do that when he had five other rangers helping him, but whatever.

People return to the lake and Dougie notices Bulk and Skull struggling out in the water. Skull gets a cramp. Bulk is exhausted and can't drag him back to shore. They being to have problems and start calling for help. Steve, the lifeguard that stood in for Rocky while he ran off for his "emergency", is too busy flirting with a cute girl to notice the drowning people. So Dougie braves his fear and runs to the rescue. He grabs the now returned inner-tube and jumps into the water, swimming it out to Bulk and Skull, and then dragging them back to shore and safety pretty much on his own. He is a hero and Rocky says so, while Billy insists that he's seen enough fish to last him a lifetime. Oh Billy, honey, if only you knew what they had in store for you. It gets worse, Billy. Far far worse.

So we've determined that Little Dougie, Fred Kellman, and Justin will be a future team of rangers. Because we're special like that and the ages work. We'd love fic.

List time!
4.5 fish... um... kind of literally, actually...

Billy speak: None technically, but I'm so counting "I've seen enough fish to last me the rest of my life."

(note: this gets a rocky-centric tag even though Rocky was barely in it and it wasn't really anything-centric)

Episode 92- Rocky Just Wants to Have Fun

Today we have the ONLY character development episode for Rocky in this entire season, and it's Secretly About Tommy. We get one half-arsed episode in season three and then nothing until Zeo. Even that is sporadic. Poor Rocky. You could have been so awesome, if only they'd given you a chance.

So we start off with Rocky and Billy sitting around a table at Ernie's Juice Bar. They have a pile of books and Billy is quizzing Rocky on math. Rocky gets the proper answer and Billy is sure Rocky will have no trouble acing the ADVANCED MATH test. The same ADVANCED MATH test that Billy himself is taking. Which means, Rocky is on level with Billy when it comes to math which means Rocky is NOT stupid (despite popular fanon opinion).

I kind of love Rocky, can you tell? I hate that he gets a bad rap in the fandom.

Anyway, Ernie is setting up a new pachinko machine. Ernie tells Rocky to give it a try and Zedd notices that Rocky seems to enjoy it. So while everybody conveniently turns away, Zedd puts Rocky under a spell. An irresponsibility spell. It makes Rocky want to play non-stop (and I see sudden disturbing similarities between Rocky and my Spousal Person). He even says he just wants to have fun when Billy tries to get him to stop playing and study some more. A Tiny Child of Adorableness comes up and pleads with Rocky to help her practice for her green belt, but he refuses. She asks Billy what's wrong with Rocky and THAT was the first sign to Billy that something really was amiss. Really? Do you have so little faith in Rocky, Billy, that you wouldn't notice when he goes from abnormally responsible teenager to tethered to a pachinko machine? Seriously?

Meanwhile, Skull blocks Bulk's video game (oh arcade games... I miss the days of your allowance eating fun) with a huge stack of papers. It appears Skull has done LOTS of research. He's gathered information on every single monster attack for the prior six months and coordinated local citizens habits. He discovered that every time a monster attacked, Ernie had the day off (except he didn't really). Ergo, Ernie must be a Power Ranger! They grow suspicious.

In Ranger happenings, instead of remembering those handy little communicators that he invented, Billy runs all the way to the park to meet up with the others and tell them something is wrong with Rocky. Adam says he'll go talk to Rocky, but not once does ANYBODY say "Gosh, maybe my normally reliable friend has fallen under a spell that has changed his personality! We ought to look into that hypothesis." No, that never crosses their minds. They are horrible friends.

Zedd doesn't want them ruining his fun so he sends down a bunch of putties. He's cruising around space in Serpenterra for no reason other than he's a badass. Go on with your bad self, Zedd, and have your fun.

Aisha brilliantly remembers the communicator she's had for all of a month or whatever and calls Zordon. They apparently need backup. Zordon is going to send Rocky over and doesn't question Rocky's behaviour when he answers his communicator in a surly voice and nearly refuses to go the park. He changes his mind, however, when he realizes the park could be a lot of fun since Adam is there and Rocky always finds "fun" with Adam.

Back at the Youth Center, Bulk and Skull are trying to be secretive and detective-like and investigate Ernie. It's adorable and Skull is awesome at improvising.

Rocky shows up at the park and ignores the putties, instead playing around with a frisbee and the playground equipment. He has some nice arms. Ahem. Anyway, Zedd turns Ernie's pachinko machine into a monster and the rangers all morph, even Rocky, though we can't figure out why he morphed as well. He runs straight for the monster, thinking he'll know how to have fun. He dances around the other rangers and generally acts very silly. They STILL don't suspect a spell or any kind of evildoing. Terrible terrible friends.

The pachinko machine monster starts turning rangers into balls and Rocky plays around with them. Heeee. My inner twelve year old giggles uncontrollably at Rocky playing with his teammate balls. Eventually even Rocky is turned into a ball leaving Tommy as the only ranger standing. He throws a frisbee and the monster chases it, giving Tommy enough time to collect his friends-as-balls and teleport to the Command Center. He tells Zordon Rocky was acting kind of funny and Zordon scans him, discovering he was under a spell the whole time. AND NOBODY NOTICED. *sigh* So Tommy is determined to be the hero and stop the monster on his own. He doesn't need his friends or anything.

Tommy goes off to fight while Alpha finds a way to turn the balls back into rangers. Tommy kind of fails and this takes up about half the episode it seems. Because it's all about Tommy and how he's supposedly awesome. Luckily, Rocky is revived and somehow that magically broke the spell. He feels incredibly guilty (and self-loathing!Rocky is really hot... I may have relationship issues) and is determined to beat the monster and make up for his irresponsible behaviour. So he goes to fight with Tommy. And he wasn't doing half bad until the others show up with their zords. At that point Zedd comes down in Serpenterra and tries to step on them. Tor magically appears and we see the same exact footage we saw four episodes ago. Tor gets squished, Serpenterra loses power (in this episode because Tor drained it), the city is saved (but looks nothing like Angel Grove, because four episodes ago it was an abandoned city on another planet), and Serpenterra flies away. The rangers win by default.

Back at the Youth Center, Bulk and Skull discover that Ernie is not, in fact, a Power Ranger. Bulk is mad at Skull for having an hypothesis. Poor Skull.

Rocky walks over to Aisha and Billy and tells them he'll join their study session after he teaches his karate class and helps Tiny Child of Adorableness practice for her green belt. Billy is kind of mean and decides to confirm that Rocky really is being responsible and doesn't "just want to have fun". Rocky says he learned his lesson, but really? He was UNDER A SPELL. His behaviour was NOT IN HIS CONTROL. It's not like he was doing it on purpose. Anyway, Aisha breaks out and old saying and it's basically a turnaround of "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."

Billy still doesn't quite believe him, though, even when Ernie offers Rocky another game of pachinko. I just want to smack Billy upside the head and repeat UNDER A SPELL over and over. It wasn't his fault, people! Give the poor kid a break.

And that's all the not-really-development of Rocky we get for... um... basically ever (although this episode does totally set up our personal fanon that Rocky has an addictive personality... which I kind of love about him, even if it's not exactly a healthy thing).

List time!
4 fish. I'd like some actual character development here, please!

Billy speak: "So it's the exponential difference between this number and that number."
"It's sensational not to be spherical"

Covered in food: Bulk and Skull had some popcorn accidentally spilled on them? But I'm not really counting it.