Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 2, Episode 8: The Power Stealer

Last time we sat down with the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Tommy was going through some serious stuff.  His powers were running low because Lord Zedd was targeting him.  He felt hopeless.  His friends were comforting him.  There was also a Robo Goat trying to take a powerful sword and use it against the Earth.  There were fights all over the place and an emotional hook that was unmatched in any episode that wasn’t in a multi-part arc.

This episode, there might be follow-up to the Tommy storyline.  It would be nice to see more of the struggle with his powers.  Right now, that’s the one throughline that has been playing out.  II hope this episode continues to have some sort of meaning to the overall story, instead of being a self-contained and meaningless.  The show needs to grow and evolve, with a storyline that builds to something significant.  Having episodes that keep the story at a standstill is boring.  The story needs to move forward.  Will this episode do that?  The title certainly makes it seem that way.  Let’s delve into…

Season 2, Episode 8: The Power Stealer

The students at Angel Grove High School were once again cleaing their community.  This seems to be a common theme in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.  This episode saw them at the park picking up garbage and painting over graffiti.  A news crew followed the students to report on how much they cared about their city and their park.

Bulk and Skull thought that the news crew would be an ingenious way to enact their plan to unmask the Power Rangers.  When putties attacked the people in the park, Bulk correctly deduced that the news camera captured the Power Rangers arriving to save the day.  He stole the video tape to show everyone who the Power Rangers are.  Billy and Zack switched out the tape before anything was revealed.

The main group, meanwhile, were the leaders of the clean-up crew.  Zack and Tommy interviewed for the news report to let the people of Angel Grove know how great it was to take care of the community.  Tommy, Kimberly, and Jason were at the park when the putties attacked and told the news crew to get people to safety.

There were a few fights in the episode.  The first, which I have mentioned multiple times, was the fight against the putties in the park.  This fight was crucial to how the episode played out as it was done in front of a recording camera.  It was your standard putty fight, with the twist of Tommy being kidnapped by the Octophant.  This led to the Power Rangers going all martial arts on the monster to try and get him back.  Jason and Billy were the only two to make it out of the fight.  Billy realized the monster was vain, so they went into the final battle with a mirror shield.  Jason distracted the monster while Billy freed their friends.  Then they Zorded up, fought one of the least action filled big fights the show has had, and ended the episode.

This episode continued the story of Tommy’s power loss.  The previous episode ended with him knowing that he was going to lose his powers.  Jason and Kimberly were there to comfort him.  This episode had Billy sending Tommy back to the Command Centre during the final battle because of his weakened powers, and had Kimberly sharing her fears about his power loss with the rest of the group.  This one simple story thread is making the episodes more enjoyable than the self-contained standalone episodes that I have grown used to.

There weren’t many strange things to happen this episode.  It was a fairly straight episode with a solid story.  The only notable thing really was that Billy was the person with the mirror solution.  A few episodes back, there was a monster that shapeshifted into the different Power Rangers but was weakened when it saw its own reflection.  Kimberly had provided a mirror to fight it.  Yet the mirror was blue and had the triceratops on it.  It was a Blue Ranger mirror.  This episode continued that Blue Ranger mirror theme, as he gave Jason the mirror to fight off the monster.  The mirror was a shield done up in the colours of the Blue Ranger.  So, that’s something interesting.

That does it for this episode.  The next one up is The Beetle Invasion.  It looks like the monster is going to be some sort of beetle.  So many of the monsters in this show are based on animals.  I want to see some more strange things like the Pumpkin Rapper.  Anyway, I’ll see you next time for a bug filled episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.