Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 2, Episode 5: Putty on the Brain

Previously in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Lord Zedd was defeated again.  This being only his second defeat, it’s not too big of a deal.  He still has time to defeat the Power Rangers.  In his second outing, he turned a baboon costume into a monster that could take on the form of any Power Ranger.  The problem was that it would lose its disguise if it saw its own reflection.  The Power Rangers used this weakness to defeat it.

What will Lord Zedd try out in this episode?  It’s looking like he’s going to use putties to do his dirty work.  I’m fine with that.  I like the putty fights more than the Zord fights anyway.  It’s nice to see the Zords every once in a while, but the putty fights feel more varied.  They are exciting because they have different settings and different combinations of moves.  I’m excited to see what the putties do in this episode.

Season 2, Episode 5: Putty on the Brain

There were a few bits and pieces of high school storyline sprinkled throughout this episode.  Billy and Zack were working on some sort of experiment and needed dark glasses to protect their eyes.  Bulk and Skull were feeding the class iguana.  That’s about it for real high school storyline.

Why were Bulk and Skull feeding the iguana?  They were found by Miss Applebee while searching the school for the Power Rangers.  It’s nice to see that this story is a continuing part of the season.  This time around, the pair have a tape recorder and are trying to match the voices of their peers to the voices of the Power Rangers.  At the end of the episode, they also try to get the iguana to sniff out the Power Rangers.  The first plan isn’t so bad.  The second one is terrible.  They don’t find out who the Power Rangers are.

Lord Zedd’s plan for the episode (spoiler alert: it failed) was to get the dark glasses to change Billy and Zack’s sight.  They saw the other Power Rangers as putties.  They could not distinguish between their friends and their enemies.  Then Lord Zedd created a monster from the class iguana.  His plan was to tear the team apart from the inside then use this destruction as a distraction while his monster attacked Angel Grove.  It’s a pretty good plan that didn’t work.

The Power Rangers had to deal with the repercussions of Lord Zedd’s plan.  After Zack and Billy tried to fight Kimberly, Jason, and Tommy in the school hallway, they tried to find a way to break the spell.  When Angel Grove got attacked, their temporary plan was to morph because when they suited up, Billy and Zack no longer saw them as putties.  They ended up fighting the iguana monster and defeating it.  Then they solved the sight problem without Billy or Trini’s scientific expertise.

The fights in the episode ranged from good to meh.  As I expected, I enjoyed the putty fighting.  I like watching the American actors doing their martial arts, especially on playgrounds.  The first big putty fight was on a playground.  An added layer to the fight was the possibility that Billy and Zack could end up attacking one of their friends, not knowing which putties were them.  A later putty fight had the Power Rangers in their suits.  It wasn’t as good as the earlier fight, but tried some new things.  The Power Rangers jumped super high, flipped on and off boulders, and there were some bigger falls than usual.  When the iguana monster showed up, there was a fun little fight where Zack and Billy used an ice gun against the monster’s fire breath.  But it was followed by a short, unexciting fight between the Mega ThunderZord and the giant monster.

There wasn’t a whole lot of change brought about in Putty on the Brain.  The episode was fairly self-contained, only adding one minor thing to the Power Rangers’ arsenal.  The ThunderZords had a quick moment in their battle mode.  I don’t believe that had been shown previously.  They had appeared and immediately joined into the Mega ThunderZord in any of their previous appearances.  The battle mode version didn’t really do anything.  It flew around for a bit before changing into the Mega ThunderZord.  But we know it exists, and that’s something.

In the episode, a few weird things stood out.  During the final battle section, Tommy said that he had to stay behind and get recharged.  We never saw him get recharged and he never joined the fight.  Why even mention getting recharged?  Why not just say he didn’t have enough power?  Earlier in the episode, when the iguana was being fed by Bulk and Skull, they buried it in Cheerios.  I don’t know if that’s animal cruelty or not.  It was buried in food, so maybe it liked that.  But the standout weird thing was the power that the glasses had.  Billy and Zack saw the rest of the Power Rangers as putties, but they didn’t see each other as putties.  You might think that the power was only meant for the two of them, so it wasn’t going to make either of them look that way.  However, Bulk and Skull put on the glasses and began to see Billy and Zack as putties.  How come Billy and Zack didn’t see each other that way?  It makes no sense.

The next episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is called Bloom of Doom.  I’m not entirely sure what the episode will be.  It’ll have something to do with flowers.  The title makes it seem that way, at least.  It doesn’t have a Part I attached to it, so the episode will probably be self-contained once again.  I’ll let you know more about it next time, when you come back to read about more Power Rangers fun.