Episode 228- The Phantom Phenomenon

Today on Power Rangers, we meet The Phantom Menace Ranger.

Justin is playing soccer with his little boyfriend Nico. He's actually pretty good, which is surprising since he only just started playing. He kicks the ball over the fence and into the woods, where Nico goes to retrieve it. He finds a spaceship and immediately gets Justin to show him. Fascinating!

Bulk and Skull are back on the force, or at least private duty security guards, and end up guarding a bank. Where Elgar is trying to steal money. And Bulk doesn't even notice. They are REALLY bad at this. We still aren't sure why Divatox needs Earth money. Coming out of the bank, Elgar is attacked by something invisible and thwarted in his robbery efforts.

TJ is smart and figures out they need to view the security camera footage to figure out who their little helper is. Cassie sees it off in the distance, but she can't describe it and nobody else saw it. Justin has a theory, but he's not going to tell. It probably has to do with the spaceship Nico showed him that should have come from Aquitar and been Billy.

Bulk and Skull are apparently weirdness magnets because as soon as they start guarding the coal mine (what the ever living fuck???), Elgar shows up. The Rangers go to help but the Phantom thing attacked Elgar first and he runs away. Cassie sees him in the sideview mirror of a truck and tries to find him. She's becoming obsessed. Oh show.

Demetria figures out he's from Eltar. Justin goes to check out the spaceship again, but doesn't tell anybody else because he promised Nico he wouldn't. Justin... SAVE THE WORLD vs break your promise to Nico? SAVE THE WORLD, SON! Nico is there camping out trying to find the alien. He brought him cookies, awww!

They get attacked by Piranhatrons and Rygog plants a detonator on the ship. Justin breaks free and all the Piranhatrons let Nico go to attack Justin, who tells him to run away. Nico doesn't have to be told twice and books it out there while everything swarms on Justin. He gets enough time to use his communicator to call for help when he's held down. Luckily the Phantom Ranger is there to save the day, get rid of the detonator, and stop his ship from exploding, all while Justin manages to morph mid-fight... which is the only interesting part of this fight scene.

Phantom rescues Nico, saves his ship yet again, and boards it to fly away home. Nico suspects the Blue Ranger is Justin (well, he looks at him suspiciously anyway) because Justin talks around him and golly, Nico is smart enough to figure out the voices. Nico tries to tell the story to other people, but everybody doubts him. Except Justin, who lets his little boyfriend feel all important.

And we end with Cassie missing the Phantom Menace Ranger. *eyeroll* (she should totally be mooning over TJ, not Mr. Invisible)

3 fish. It was... meh.

Episode 225 - Stitch Witchery

So Ashley should be on Project Runway.

No, seriously, that is pretty much what I got out of this episode. Why doesn't this fic exist?

Anyway, it opens in design class, when someone compliments Ashley on the design. Ashley assumes that she's talking about the yellow coat (of course) that she's currently working on, but instead she's complimenting the actually kinda cute jacket that Ashley's wearing. (It's not the most inventive coat ever, but it's not entirely offensive. People who know more about fashion than I do, feel free to argue with me.)

Cassie shows up and mocks Ashley gently, proving that once again Pink and Yellow are always BFF, even though they've known each other for like 5 minutes. Ashley is concerned about the coat and worries about her fashion sense. She also thinks its a pretty tacky, but a random woman in a limo shows up and wants to buy the design. Of course, she's secretly a monster, but Ashley doesn't know this.

The design is put into production, and the other Rangers go and see them being sold. TJ and Cassie link arms and skip over and they are the most adorable ever, and why aren't they making out? They all try on the jackets (and these Divatox produced ones are fugly. They instantly turn into jerks.

Ashley gets summoned to the Power Chamber because nobody else is responding due to them being jerks. She fights by herself and is awesome, and then she goes to find her friends. (Why she doesn't go get the Rangers before she goes to fight? Well. That would be using logic. The other Rangers start mocking Ashley's design (dude, why are you wearing them if you hate them?) and Justin even throws in a "NOT!" and Ashley is upset to the point of tears and she needs all the hugs.

So even the Blue Senturian has on a jacket which makes him a jerk, and Ashley has to go convince her team to strip, and apparently in the few days they've been Rangers she's learned how to get them to take off their clothes. (We are going to pretend I'm not including Justin in that, because ewww.) I'm going to try hard not to be annoyed at Ashley telling Justin that his is a girl's jacket, but most tween boys would probably freak at that, so I will not be grumpy about it. Then everyone is nice again and they apologize to Ashley.

The Rangers summon Zords and they fight the Blue Senturian, but sadly they don't destroy him. TJ removes the jacket, and then they see the real monster, and blah blah blah fight scene I so don't care.

Everyone tells Ashley that yeah, her original jacket was ugly, but at least they're honest? And they're pretty nice about it, and then there are hugs. Yay!

Meanwhile, Bulk and Skull have been invisible for the whole episode. They spend their time playing ridiculous pranks and pretending to be magicians. They turn visible at the end and Bulk promptly ends up covered in milkshake. Lt. Stone is super glad to see them. Yay! He doesn't seem very concerned about where they were or where the monkeys disappeared to, but it's BULK AND SKULL. BACK. Yay!

Fish: 3.5 Evil jackets? Really?

Fic we want: So, Tracy Lynn Cruz totally confirmed at Morphicon that Ashley continues in fashion. Where is the Ashley as a guest judge on Project Runway fic?

Episode 226- The Wheel of Fate

Divatox finds a treasure map! It leads them to circa 90's model vehicles, Lightning Cruiser and Storm Blaster. Vehicles that are supposed to be thousands of years old and sentient. Divatox wants them. She sends a monster to go collect them but, with his target in sight, gets tired and takes a break. This releases the vehicles and they head straight to Earth. Are we surprised? Not really.

Elgar and the monster try to get in, but the cars won't work for them! Not properly, anyway. Clearly they're looking for the Power Rangers. These are smart cars. They find TJ and Justin first and a chase ensues because TJ and Justin have no clue why the cars are chasing them. They are confused because there are no drivers, but get distracted by Elgar. He manages to kidnap Justin and TJ figures out the car is sentient. Because TJ is smart. It takes a bit of work, but he tames the car until it will drive him to where Justin is.

Meanwhile, Bulk and Skull are visible again. Instead of giving them jobs at the Juice Bar, Lt. Stone gets his cousin to give them construction jobs. They get to turn signs to direct traffic. This... is probably not going to go over well.

TJ and the sentient car flies right past them (literally flies!) and they are so stunned they fall into wet cement. I knew this wouldn't end well.

The others finally notice Justin is missing and TJ says he's looking for him. Cassie is totally impressed with the super awesome car and wants to make out in it. TJ is more worried about Justin and will explain the car thing later. They find Justin in an abandoned warehouse surrounded by Piranhatrons.

Justin manages to rescue HIMSELF, and the car too. TJ just gets the hang of the controls to his own car. Meanwhile, Divatox is mad and makes her own sentient car to give to Elgar and the monster. They go after Justin/Storm Blaster and TJ/Lighting Cruiser. A boring driving fight ensues in which the other rangers help beat the bad guys on foot. Bored now. Moving on?

Bulk and Skull end up stuck in cement. And get fired. The end.

3 fish. It wasn't really fishy, it was just REALLY boring.

Episode 224 - Passing the Torch - Part 2

After an actual decent cliffhanger (Seriously, why wasn't THIS the cliffhanger episode instead of the boring one?) the three park Rangers morph (and Tanya gets to say it, which is seriously so awesome) and Adam temporarily defeats the monster by throwing water on him.

Cassie and TJ have come to Kat's rescue and they are so ridiculously awesome, I can't even stand it. The other Rangers show up and get the rest of the Pirahnatrons out of the way, and convince TJ and Cassie to leave, while TJ practically has a fangasm and Cassie is all concerned about Kat.

Meanwhile, Tommy is all tied up and suspended (and I approve so hard), while Mama D opens up the Vortex of Eternal Doom and Sorrow. UM, HOW AWESOME IS MAMA D? I love that she's clearly the head of the family and when Divatox is all "I think I hear Dad in there" she's just all "He asked for it." I would frankly read millions of words about the crazy awesome of Mama D. (And seriously, I love that all the villains in power this season are women. Rita was great, but we never saw her MOM.) So Divatox leaves Tommy suspended over the Vortex with rats chewing through the ropes. Oh, honey, no, haven't you ever read the villain handbook? Don't just leave him there to swing, just THROW HIM IN.

Dimitria is telling the other Rangers some nonsense about time running out and their most important mission ever, and nope, still can't find Tommy. They go fight the monster that's apparently recharged since Adam threw water on it.

TJ is telling Cassie about how he wanted to be a Ranger when he was a kid, and our brains start to hurt from timeline issues. We eventually decided that he was either a) talking about from when the Aquitians were there or b) meant when he was a kid he wanted to be a superhero and then just changed it to Power Rangers when he was like 12. Cassie wanted to be Tina Turner instead. TJ discovers a trail of slime, and assumes it leads to Tommy, but Cassie is all "Nope, bus. Sorry." Of course, she promptly comes back to kick some ass and save him, because she is awesome, and her parents told her never to leave a friend behind, and they're friends now, right? I SHIP THEM SO HARD.

Meanwhile, in Angel Grove, Adam and Tanya (morphed) tell Carlos and Ashley to get all the kids to safety. For some reason the Youth Center has cots set up in it. I guess in case the battle extends into the night or something? Maybe this is how the Youth Center makes its money - it gets a stipend from the city for being a monster shelter.

TJ and Cassie then go rescue Tommy!!!! Because they are awesome and wonderful and I love them. (Suddenly, Cassie is totally going "... why did my bus ticket just magically change itself to Angel Grove?") Tommy thanks them and then goes and morphs and the Rangers all beat the monster and seriously, the Zord fight is not the important thing about this episode.

Because back at the Power Chamber time is running out. We're assuming this is the countdown until the first of the Rangers has to leave for college or something. But more importantly, Zordon and the REAL Alpha are there to see them off!

Tommy passes his power to TJ, Kat passes hers to Cassie, Tanya to Ashley, and Adam to Carlos.

You know us. We're usually not the best with power transfers, as in usually we spend the whole recap complaining about it. But this time we were all "YAY IT'S TJ AND CASSIE DAY!!!!!!" And it isn't because we don't love the characters who were leaving - hi, Adam is my FAVORITE EVER and Tanya is in my top 5. But the dynamic of the Turbo team really just didn't work. And besides, Tommy has to go off and race cars and then get a PhD in 7 years so we can get the DT team, and Kat can go do that ballet thing, while Adam and Tanya get married and Tanya becomes super famous and Adam opens a dojo with Rocky.

So basically - YAY NEW TEAM. And I am going to thoroughly enjoy my season of Carlos/Ashley before Andros comes along.

Fish: 2! This is a good sign for the rest of the season, right?

Fic we want: Conversations with the senior rangers explaining the situation to the new team.

Episode 223- Passing the Torch Part 1

Now THIS would have been a great summer cliffhanger!

Divatox is dreaming. She gets a vision from her mother, head of the family, who lays on the guilt super thick and convinces Divatox to kidnap Tommy. Apparently she thinks without Tommy the team will fall apart. Frankly, I don't think any of them have been paying attention. Without Tommy, Adam will still lead and make all the decisions. Tanya will still have all the answers. Justin will still fix everything. And Kat will still be creepily maternal.

We meet Cassie, who is singing loudly on a bus. People from the back are heckling and TJ, sitting across from her, gets her attention and tells her she might want to quiet down a bit. She apologizes and explained how she wants to be a singer and sometimes gets carried away. TJ knows how that feels. So she's going to Stone Canyon to break into the music industry. TJ is going to Angel Grove to break into professional baseball. HOW CUTE ARE THEY? I LOVE THEM SO.

Meanwhile, Justin, Adam, and Tanya are camping. Tanya comments on Tommy being born late. It is awesome. Adam and Tanya set up the hammock while trusting Justin to set up the campfire. Good on them! He's 12. He's capable. No need to coddle the boy.

Tommy and Kat are driving to the campsite in Tommy's truck. Kat is amazed that Tommy was actually on time for a change. Everybody mocks him (in a 'we love you anyway' way) and I love it. They get attacked by Piranhatrons and Kat makes it pretty far away from the truck before it explodes. Tommy is closer and there is Dramatic Lunge. He hits his head on the ground, but luckily there isn't anything in there to damage (at least that hasn't already been pretty severely damaged).

Back at the campsite, Justin hears a noise and heads off in search of the source. He is confronted with a flame monster who wants to set the world on fire. This monster even manages to interrupt the morphing sequence. He kicks the key out of Justin's hand mid-morph. AWESOME! Adam and Tanya come running to Justin's cries and manage to get their keys knocked away as well.

TJ and Cassie are at the bus stop taking the 15 minute break before heading off to Angel Grove and Stone Canyon. TJ notices hte smoke and assumes there is trouble over the hill. He runs off to investigate and Cassie tries to convince the bus driver that TJ will be right back. The bus driver drives off. Cassie stays behind.

She finds TJ and they discover Kat, fighting for her life against the Piranhatrons. They immediately jump in to help. HOW MUCH DO I LOVE THEM???? Together, they manage to beat back all the Piranhatrons, but not before some weird goopy thing takes Tommy while Kat screams his name a whole lot. He ends up all tied up in a cave somewhere.

TO BE CONTINUED!

Now see, wasn't that a better cliffhanger? And we got OODLES of unmorphed fighting! I swear 80% of this episode was fighting and there was not a single morphing sequence to be had. :D

2 fish! OMG it's a low fish episode from Turbo!!!!

Episode 222 - Honey I Shrunk the Rangers - Part 2

We are BACK. Sorry about that whole hiatus thing, but I'm done with the semester and I had a pretty amazing time at No Pink Spandex Live seeing DAVID YOST and also some familiar people from this blog, and we are returning to our old schedule. :D

So. After the most ridiculous cliffhanger ever (and I totally remember watching and being VERY ANNOYED about the whole no new episodes until September thing) we open with the Rangers in a box, and realizing that they're being turned into insects, or at least they all have wings.

Adam figures out a plan. Step one - cut a hole in the box. They escape and cut a hole in some pipe and Divatox shrinks some pirahnatrons to chase after them. There's an extended fight scene, and they go down a slide and somehow they end up in Divatox's closet, and they talk a lot about wanting to come out of it.

We fully encourage this.

Anyway, there's some more fight scenes and honestly, be more boring, episode, I DARE you. Oh, and now they have antennae and not just wings. Somehow they come up with the idea of launching some torpedoes to make themselves grow, and there's a long scene of them clinging to the torpedoes. The torpedoes explode and everyone is returned to normal. I'm not sure why it also de-bugified them, but I'll just blame it on the fish.

Then I guess it also made the stupid fly monster grow and there's a fight scene. Oh, and since Bulk and Skull were exposed to the torpedo that somehow returned them to human form, but now they're INVISIBLE.

Eh, at least they aren't monkeys anymore?

Fish: 4. The science made no sense, and also it was wicked boring. Oh, Turbo, it's good to be back.

ALSO: David Yost totally justified our fish scale, since one of the episodes he really remembers is the one where Billy is afraid of fish. Also, he let us know that Billy totally divorces the fish. We are awesome.

Episode 221- Honey, I Shrunk the Rangers Part 1

Today on Power Rangers: The worst cliffhanger EVER!

So apparently this was the two parter that aired at the break for summer. Part 1 aired in May. The show went on hiatus until September when part 2 aired. I don't remember watching this first run, but if this was my teaser to come back and see what happens next? I totally wouldn't have bothered.

So Angel Grove is apparently very, very, VERY dirty. The city is hosting a Clean Up Day to pick up all the litter, which feels very familiar. Piranhatrons attack. Small Children cling to Adam in fear. The Blue Senturion rescues them, only to later be attacked by a fly-sized fly monster that wreaks havoc on his systems. Meanwhile, Chimp!Bulk and Skull steal Lt. Stone's car and Justin chases after it, with Lt. Stone following behind in a little girl's bike (who charged him $50 to borrow it).

Tanya is the first to figure out the fly is bugging the Blue Senturion. They get the fly out and he goes back to normal. The fly manages to shrink them all, which has totally happened before, and it was way better then, and they get captured by Elgar. He gives the Tiny!Rangers to Divatox in a silver and black gift box. And THIS is the cliffhanger. *is bored now*

The most interesting thing about this episode is the discussion TSB and I had about how sad it is we don't see Raymond anymore. We really liked Raymond! We figure it's summer so he's either off at some Jewish day camp or the Super Awesome Genius camp. Or maybe he just started college early. Either way, we miss Raymond!

4 fish. It really says something when the most interesting thing about an episode is what DIDN'T happen in it.