Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Season 3, Episode 12: Stop the Hate Master, Part I


Previously in Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Rocky had to save everyone from the Centiback.  His uncle, his lab partner, and all his friends were turned into footballs.  Luckily, Ninjor was there to help and everything turned out fine.  Rocky saved the day, the Power Rangers took down the monster, and everyone lived happily ever after.

Now we’re getting into a two-parter episode.  That means that the stakes should be even higher.  There should be a tougher monster.  The Power Rangers should have to work together or lose Angel Grove and the world to Lord Zedd, Rita Repulsa, and Rito Revolto.  Those are some big stakes, and the only way we’ll know if they are the real stakes is to watch the episode.  So here’s…
Season 3, Episode 12: Stop the Hate Master, Part I
There was a club in Angel Grove that all the girls wanted to be a part of.  It was a popularity club.  They told Kimberly that she could be a part of the club, but they wouldn’t let Aisha in.  This didn’t sit right with Kimberly since Aisha was her best friend.  She questioned the group who said that Aisha wasn’t popular enough, and they said that the only reason Kimberly was let into the group in the first place was because she was a legacy.  Her mother had been in the group as a teen.  Kimberly was not a fan of that.

Lord Zedd took a cue from this club and decided that the best way to attack Earth would be to spread hate.  Finster gave him some hate seeds, which he threw to Earth.  He and Rita performed a spell, and the Hate Manster grew out of the seeds.  He fought the Power Rangers and made everyone except for Aisha hate each other.  Aisha cured them, but only for a moment.  They were put under the hate spell again and quit the Power Rangers team.

Bulk and Skull spent the episode trying to figure out who was vandalizing the Youth Centre walls with graffiti.  Bulk was outside watching as the paint was cleaned off the walls while Skull was hiding under tables inside trying to listen for any clues.  They didn’t find the source of the graffiti.

The fights were fairly entertaining throughout the episode.  The first one was a fight between the Power Rangers and the Tenga Warriors.  Aisha wasn’t there because she was visiting her grandmother and getting a necklace.  The Power Rangers used a few powers in that fight that hadn’t been seen yet on the show.  Billy and Adam teleported underground and pulled some of the Tenga Warriors down.  Tommy and Kimberly combined their hands into a makeshift laser gun and shot lasers at the Tenga Warriors.  It was an interesting fight.  The other one was the giant monster fight.  Right after the hate spell was broken on the Power Rangers, they got their Zords and went after the monster.  It was only the buildup though, as the hate spell was put on them again.  Aisha was unaffected, but the rest of the Power Rangers gave up on fighting and went their separate ways.  That was the whole battle.

The end credits showed some jokiness with Rito Revolto.  He was spying on Earth with a telescope and mentioned that he had sent a monster down to Earth.  If he didn’t get it back, Zedd would punish him.  That was the whole joke.
The first part of the Stop the Hate Master story was a strong episode with a solid cliff-hanger.  The hate of the girls’ club at school tied into the hate that Lord Zedd was spreading almost seamlessly.  The threat against the Power Rangers was pretty dire at the end with all but Aisha quitting the team.  The fights were fun and the story was filled with the right kind of twists.  The only thing that didn’t quite work was the Bulk and Skull storyline, which remained separate from everything else.

There were a few minor issues with this episode.  The Hate Master felt like a lesser rehash of Pumpkin Rapper.  This was especially apparent by the fact that the voice performer was the same for both monsters.  As soon as he came into existence, he began rapping.  The rhymes weren’t as melodic as those of the Pumpkin Rapper and felt more like a tired rewriting of an already used monster rather than some sort of new threat.  The new threat obviously came in the hate dust powers that took over the Power Rangers.  It was a new power on an old character type.  He also, at one point, referenced the music of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, which was strange.

There’s not too much to say about this episode since it was the beginning of a two-part story.  Ending on the Power Rangers in dire straits was a good touch, though it had been done before and to better effect.  The Ninja Quest storyline involved a cliffhanger where all the Zords were destroyed and the Power Rangers were left helpless.  That was more tragic than this one.  This was still good, and I’m looking forward to seeing what happens in Stop the Hate Master, Part II.  See you when that post goes up.

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