Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 3, Episode 9: Passing the Lantern

Last time we left off with Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Kimberly was going to move to Paris.  Her mom had fallen in love with a French artist, and they were going to move to his home.  Aisha swooped in and offered Kimberly a place to stay for the rest of the school year.  Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa used Kimberly’s nightmares of the move to attack Angel Grove.  It was a well done episode that gave Kimberly and Aisha more character depth.

Now we’re onto another standalone episode that I don’t know too much about.  There’s no clue in the title to who the episode might be about.  It has something to do with a lantern, though, so that is some sort of hint about the monster.  It won’t be too hard to find out what any of this means, as the episode is about to unfold.

Season 3, Episode 9: Passing the Lantern

Adam came to his friends with his newest possession, a paper lantern.  The lantern was given to him by his family.  There was a note attached to it, much like a fortune in a cookie, that was written in another language.  Adam wanted to find out what it meant because the message was supposed to be important.  Billy knew someone and took Adam to see the guy.

Lord Zedd thought this would be the perfect opportunity to strike and sent Rito Revolto to take Adam’s lantern.  Squatt and Baboo stole every lantern they could find.  Rito, in his fury at their buffoonery, tossed a lantern aside.  That happened to be Adam’s lantern.  The bad guys were already messing up their plan.  When Rita saw the lanterns, she said she knew which one was the right one, and they made a monster from it.

Bulk and Skull were informed that Adam’s lantern was missing.  They patrolled the park and found it quickly after Rito tossed it away.  They also found the three moon base bad guys, and started freaking out because there were magic aliens in front of them.  They would show up at the end of the episode to return the lantern to Adam and brag about dealing with the monsters in the park.

Through the fights in the episode, Adam learned about the meaning of the message on his lantern.  He had to face off against a lantern monster that he thought was his.  The loss of the lantern was devastating for him because it meant so much to his family.  It wasn’t the lantern that meant so much, though.  It was the message, which was to teach Adam that his strength and power came from within himself.

The first fight was between the gang and the Tenga Warriors.  This fight was a distraction so that Squatt and Baboo could steal the lanterns.  It was a fight that played into the wackier tone of season 3.  The Power Rangers, in their ninja outfits, were doing unrealistic moves for comedic purposes.  One of them was kicking while walking on their hands.  Two of them jumped over each other like leapfrogs.  It was a zany fight against the goofy minions that Zedd and Rita had.  The other fight was the more important one.  It was a little baffling, however.  First, the Power Rangers, in their season 2 costumes, went up against the lantern monster hand-to-hand.  They were getting beat until Adam figured out what the lantern’s message meant.  Then the lantern grew.  For some reason, Ninjor showed up without being called and fought alongside the Ninja Megazord.  They pretty quickly took out the monster and everyone went about their day.

The standalone episodes of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers can be a breath of fresh air from the longer stories because they let us get to know the characters better.  The bigger stories tend to be the ones that change the course of the series, while these smaller ones are the ones that build out the characters into fully formed people.  They are the reason the audience got to know Jason, Zack, Kimberly, Billy, and Tommy.  I guess Trini a little too, though she never felt like a full character.  These episodes are how Rocky, Adam, and Aisha became as beloved as the characters before them.  This episode wasn’t the strongest Adam story, but it was still a story about gaining confidence.  It was a good way to flesh out the character and a good lesson for the children that would have been watching it at the time.

Something that might not have been mentioned yet is that season 3 of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers brought about a new way of making the monsters grow.  In the first season, Rita Repulsa would throw her staff down to Earth, and some sort of magical power would make the monsters grow to a much bigger size.  Season 2 had Lord Zedd throwing some metal ball thing down to grow the monsters.  Both of those were gone by the time season 3 came around.  The third season had Rita and Zedd crossing their staffs.  A bolt of lighting-like something or other would fly out and enlarge the monsters.  So that’s new.

The other notable bit of this episode going forward was a mention of Kimberly practicing her gymnastics.  She wasn’t present in the first half of the episode.  Later in the third season, Amy Jo Johnson will be leaving the series.  It seems that, even this early on, they were setting up for her eventual exit as Kimberly went off to a gymnastics competition.  The beginning of the end of the character was near as soon as the season began, and they did a proper job of writing her out of the show.  She was the only original character to get a good, well done send off.  The seeds were being sown early so that it wouldn’t feel anywhere near as jarring as when Jason, Zack, and Trini left a season before.

Passing the Lantern was an interesting episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  It wasn’t the greatest half hour the show ever put out.  It did show a little bit more of Adam’s character.  The title was also an interesting marker for beginning Kimberly’s exit, though nobody would notice that until long after the fact.  There was some fun action.  Maybe there will be some more next time in the episode Wizard for a Day.  There’s only one way to find out.  See you soon for another Mighty Morphin Power Rangers post.