How About That Thing?

Not going to lie, Lord Zedd definitely proved himself worthy of being the new villain in the early going. After his debut, a lot of his plots in those early episodes consisted of one of two plans with recurring motifs:

A. Turn the rangers against each other. Whether it be through deception, or mind control, if the rangers can’t function as a team, they’re ripe for the picking.

B. Focus exclusively on weakening the green ranger.

In the case of B, he actually succeeded. Granted, he had to play the long game, and he wasted some monsters in the process, but when you stop and think about it, he actually did eliminate the green ranger in a way.

The loss of the green ranger hit the team pretty hard. So much so, in fact, that Jason, Zack, and Trini’s voices changed when they were in ranger form!

I joke, but it doesn’t take someone with superhuman hearing to notice that when in ranger form, Jason sounds like a whole different person, Trini makes different “hiya” noises when fighting, and Zack… Actually, the guy doing the black ranger’s voice is probably the best of the new voices. Or at least, they’re the least worst.

We’ll get into that a little more another time. Right now, though, let’s focus on the topic at hand.

So yeah, while Zedd may not have been winning in the short term, he’d definitely earned a victory in the long run. And then, the “White Light” two-parter happened.

The episode begins with the gang finding out Tommy is coming back home after being gone for so long, and deciding to throw a surprise party. Lord Zedd, meanwhile, finds out about this party, and vows to ruin everything by kidnapping Tommy. And then there’s Bulk and Skull.

After basically a dozen or so episodes, Bulk and Skull are still on this whole discovering the power rangers’ secret identities kick. In their defense, some of their ideas have actually been better than you’d think from a couple of Dumdum McMorons like those two. Like hijacking a news camera and filming the latest putty patrol invasion. Or recording the voices of the power rangers, then matching them with the voices of everyone they know. The ideas always backfire in some way, or the rangers themselves sabotage their efforts for obvious reasons… And, of course, there are the dumber ideas they have. But I digress.

Bulk and Skull are in the midst of developing their latest scheme. When suddenly…

Bulk and Skull notice it, as well as several of the rangers and their friends off on the other side of the park.

“Yo, man, are they dynamiting up there?” asks a friend.

No, cousin of Zack’s, but I could see how you got confused. Honestly, at this point, I’m surprised anybody even notices something like an explosion. I imagine they hear the explosion, and shrug.

“Saturday already, huh?” they say to themselves. “No worries: the power rangers have it all under control.”

Bulk and Skull are the first to hit the scene, and what do they find?

Yip. Somehow, through the infinite power of bullshit, Rita’s dumpster prison somehow managed to do a complete 180 in space, and return to Earth. If I didn’t watch Zedd vaporize her wand, I’d believe the first person who insists its magic. Whatever.

Bulk and Skull look the thing over, and Skull wonders what it is. Bulk decides that it’s the key to discovering the identities of the power rangers. They decide to take it to Skull’s dad’s workshop… All the while going “Ow ow ow ow!” as they burn themselves in the process. I’d comment on how loose and care free we’ve been with scientific facts in this last couple of minutes, but this is a series where a dude on the moon chucks grenades at his minions on Earth that make them grow upon exploding. Also, I live in 2025: the year where RFK Jr. told us that science doesn’t exist. But I digress.

Lord Zedd, completely oblivious to Rita’s return, summons the monster of the day. Kind of.

Nimrod: The Scarlet Sentinel is one of those weird monsters who has to be left on the charger before being unleashed on the unsuspecting public. In the meantime, it takes the form of the local sentinel statue in the park.

Between the kaboom they heard earlier, and now this, the rangers are beginning to think something suspicious might be going on.

Meanwhile…

“NO!” Exclaims Lord Zedd. “I need something to throw them off the trail. I GOT IT! I’ll send some putties down to pick a fight with them! That’ll prove that nothing suspicious is going on.”

The rangers do battle with putties, and dispatch them pretty effortlessly.

“Something suspicious is going on,” says Jason.

They teleport to the command center, only to find that the entire place is pitch black!

The lights are off, none of the control panels are beeping or booping, and strangest of all, Zordon and Alpha are long gone. In the immortal words of Lewis Black (no relation): “Something… Is askeeeew.”

But they don’t have time to dwell on it too long. Zedd takes Nimrod off the charger, and sends it into battle!

FUN FACT: “Nimrod” was actually an insult back in the 90s. Yet it was also the name of a mythological hunter. If you find that confusing… Yeah, I don’t blame you. Stuff like this no doubt was the foundation for the millennial generation’s love for irony.

The rangers fight Nimrod for all of one minute before Lord Zedd tosses a grenade their way. The ugly Megazord forms, and the battle resumes. However, it turns out Nimrod might have a rather unfair ace up its sleeve.

Meet AC and DC. Apparently, Nimrod can summon them whenever it feels like, and this fight just became unfair. The megazord gets its ugly metal ass handed to it, and the rangers beat a hasty retreat. Billy tells the others he’ll investigate the command center one last time and see if he can figure something out.

Part 1 ends with Billy discovering a secret doorway into the command center’s basement, and after accidentally falling down the stairs in a manner of speaking, he finds Zordon, Alpha, and… A third individual. Zordon reads off random techno-jargon (three fourths of which I’m pretty sure he’s making up), Alpha is pressing random buttons, and the third guy is mostly just floating there.

Part 2 begins the same way part 1 ends. Billy returns to the others, and reports what he saw. Before they can dwell on it for too long, though, Zordon calls the rangers to the command center.

The rangers arrive, and Zordon delivers the biggest bombshell of the season by introducing them to their newest member: the white ranger.

“So yeah, it turns out we actually had a SEVENTH power ranger just sort of lying around in the basement. We kind of forgot all about him, since he got buried under all of those thunderzords we had to dust off, and since Tommy can’t use the green ranger powers anymore, why not give him a whole new set of powers?

Okay, so maybe Zordon’s explanation is a lot more grandiose and more meaningful… But upon rewatching, this was kind of how it felt. There wasn’t even any buildup to this or anything, near as I can remember. Just this episode.

“As long as we’re dusting off basement stuff, here’s Saba.”

Again, there’s no buildup, no origin… Just “here you go.”

Saba, in short, is basically a sentient keyfop for the white ranger’s Tigerzord. That’s right: the white ranger also gets his own zord in the form of the tigerzord.

The Thunder Megazord may be ugly as sin (No, I’m not letting it go!), but The tigerzord? As Gen-Z likes to say, chef’s kiss. Especially when it enters battle mode.

Not going to lie, the tigerzord is probably the coolest of all the Mighty Morphin’ era zords. And yes, that includes the ones that come after it. Maybe it’s the white tiger motif, maybe it’s the paint job, or maybe it’s the laserbolt it can fire from its chest. I’ve always loved The Tigerzord.

Nimrod eventually returns to pick up where it left off, and the white ranger gets to take his new powers and zord out for a spin. Meanwhile, the others have to fight off a group of putties heading Bulk and Skull’s way. They never say at any point that Lord Zedd is aware of, or even interested in Rita’s presence on Earth, which makes this particular putty battle feel really unnecessary.

The zord battle actually goes pretty smoothly. Nimrod is checked at every possible point during the battle. Victory is at hand. This debut will go down in history as the most triumphant…

Oh. Right. Forgot about those other guys.

To the tigerzord’s credit, it holds out longer than the Thunder Megazord did… Though that’s not saying a WHOLE lot, in the grand scheme of things.

Eventually, the other rangers show up, and the thunder zords provide backup. Also, we see the formation of the Mega Tigerzord!

As you’d expect, this new formation ends up destroying all three monsters effortlessly. And a good thing, too. That thing looks like the live action equivalent of a joke I once saw on Newgrounds.

“OH NO! We can’t move! The design is too detailed!”

Meanwhile, through a moment of dumb luck, Bulk and Skull open Rita’s dumpster. And for some reason, they’re absolutely shocked that this thing from outer space has an alien inside it. Like, really? You yourselves said it contained the key to discovering the power rangers’ secret identities. What better key than the witch they used to fight on a weekly basis before skellyman showed up and totally outclassed her like that one asshole who ended up getting my drumset in junior high?

“Oh great,” says Rita, “Just what I need. The human versions of Squat and Baboo.”

Well… I mean she’s not wrong.

Unfortunately, her freedom is short lived.

Rita is stuffed in the dumpster, and sent off into space once again. Tommy gets his surprise party, and the episode ends. And from this point onward, the white ranger is part of the team. And… I have thoughts.

On one hand, the white ranger felt kind of… forced. Yeah, I know they had to include the white ranger in order for the stock footage to make sense, but there really wasn’t any buildup to it or anything, near as I can tell. One minute, we’re back to five rangers with no real plans to add another sixth ranger, and the next, BOOM! We have a sixth ranger now. Because shut up and enjoy the majesty of Tigerzord.

Also, while I loved Jason David Frank as much as the next guy, I remember hearing years later that the original plan was that the white ranger was going to be someone completely new to the show entirely. I forget what his character name would’ve ended up being, but basically, he’s the guy who played Ryan Steel in VR Troopers. Not sure where the story would’ve gone if they went that route… Although I have a feeling it was going to be the story they used for the gold ranger in Zeo years later, upon reflection.

Still, I can’t help but feel like there would’ve been a lot of potential for story there, what with the rangers not only having to make peace with the fact Tommy is no longer a ranger, but then this new guy shows up on top of it all, and we have to play nice with him and be friends with him because Zordon says so. Fuck this new guy! Who the hell even is this new guy anyway!?

But instead, we went with Tommy. Which… I don’t want to say it sucks, but it definitely felt like a good example of why you never give the pen to the audience.

“Oh, he can’t be the GREEN ranger anymore? Well then, let’s just give him a different color, then. Let’s see. How about white?”

Of course, I say all this, knowing full well I ended up liking the white ranger almost MORE than the green ranger. I mean seriously, look at that design! It’s pretty impressive if you ask me.

Also, the tigerzord is pretty badass, as I already mentioned.

Overall, it’s not the worst episode ever. Part 2 kind of falls apart in spots, but at this point, that’s pretty much par for the course with these guys. Part 1 always feels so epic, but then part 2 comes along, and you can just see the point where the writing staff all look at each other and say: “Well, fuck, now what do we do?” They’ve done worse two-parters than this, but I still see a bit of that in here.

Regardless, it could’ve been worse. It could’ve been another clip show like that hole Nightmare Island episode.