How About That Thing?

It’s May, and around these parts, that means one thing. Yes, my friends, it’s May the Power Protect You Month. Yes sir, we’re doing it again. One whole month talking about Power Rangers episodes… Or in this month’s case, Power Rangers related topics.

Last year, we talked a lot about season 2, and how, upon retrospect, it was actually kind of a trainwreck. It had a good start, introducing the menacing Lord Zedd and promising significantly higher stakes… Only to introduce the white ranger, and basically go back to the status quo… To reintroducing Rita Repulsa as Lord Zedd’s wife, and basically turning him into a comedy relief of his former self. Somewhere in the middle, Trini, Jason, and Zack got replaced with Aisha, Rocky, and Adam. In-universe, it had something to do with a world peace lecture thing, but behind the scenes, it was because Austin St. James, Thui Trang, and Walter Jones wanted more money. Oh, and Bulk and Skull were there, too. Mostly trying to find out who the power rangers really were.

Suffice to say, season 2 was kind of a mess. And yet, somehow, season 3 ended up being WORSE, upon retrospect.

Whew boy, guys, season 3. Lord Zedd getting married to Rita Repulsa had already lowered the bar after raising it yay high. You wonder how it could possibly get any worse? Well, I got two words for you: Rito Revolto.

Rito Revolto, as the name might imply, is Rita Repulsa’s brother. I forget off hand if he’s the LITTLE brother or the BIG brother, but that’s beside the point. At the beginning of season 3, he shows up at Zedd’s palace completely at random, and already makes himself a pest.

When Lord Zedd showed up in season 2, he was menacing, he was awe-inspiring, and you just knew the knob got cranked to eleven. With the arrival of Rito, the knob got cranked back down to, like, four or five. While Zedd was confident, intelligent, and powerful, Rito is a bumbling idiot who literally can’t remember how to exit the castle he just entered. In a way, Rito was kind of like the anti-Zedd.

Also, for some reason, he has effects on his voice in the first three or four episodes, but they quickly get dropped afterward. Your guess is as good as mine

In his first appearance, Zedd sends him, and four other monsters down to Earth.

The rangers show up, and before someone can so much as throw a punch, Rita and Zedd debut their new method of making their monster grow.

We see the two cross their staffs, which results in Zedd’s beige lightning, and Rita’s red magical energy to turn… Blue? Whatever. Clearly, they had to come up with something, since the stalk footage from Kakuranger didn’t include an explosion. In universe… I don’t know, maybe Zedd ran out of grenades? Maybe he threw out his shoulder? Maybe it gave him something to do, now that Finster is making the monsters again?

In any case, Rito gets big, the zords form, and we has fight. Only for Zedd and Rita to make all the OTHER monsters grow. It then becomes five on two. The battle is on, and… To everybody’s astonishment… Rito wins! The Thunder Megazord and The Tigerzord alike are blown to bits in a very graphic sequence I didn’t think we’d ever see. Not to mention that the rangers lose their powers in the process. The heroes survive, and retreat to the command center… Somehow. Without their powers, they can’t teleport, and we never really explained where that flying car from season 1 went… But whatever.

Is Rito Revolto some sort of idiot savant? IE, a moron at life, but a genius on the battlefield? Well, no, not really. It turns out Rito showed up at the right place at the right time. Also, as Goldar is more than happy to point out, he had four other guys helping him, so… Yeah. That too.

More importantly, though, is that while Rito was crash-landing on the moon, Zordon and Alpha were in the midst of fixing malfunctioning equipment. Things like the spectrometer they use to monitor Zedd’s activity, and the panel that regulates the zords’ power are all malfunctioning for one reason or another. I’m guessing either that the latest update to the software resulted in a glitch, or years of using duct tape to fix everything finally caught up to Alpha5. All I know for certain is that with the zords destroyed, the command center is darkened, and sparks are shooting out of at least one panel. It seems like the rangers are beaten once and for all… But they end up going on a voyage that gives them new powers that I’ll get into next week.

On top of totaling the rangers’ old zords, Rito delivers a gift to Rita and Zedd.

These are known as tengas. Rita describes them as some of the most powerful warriors in the universe… And in a way, she’s not completely wrong.

Again, we’ll get into it next week, but the tengas are a major step up from the putty patrol. The epic debate of whose putties were more menacing can be put to rest, because in my opinion, the tengas blow them all out of the water. At NO point in the series do the rangers ever fight the tengas in their civilian forms. That right there is a testament to how much stronger the tenga warriors truly are. Sure, they’re kind of a flock of hurr-durrs, and they get knocked around just as much as either version of The Putty Patrol when the rangers assume their new forms… But again, the rangers still have to assume those new forms before they can even ATTEMPT to fight the tengas. So at least in terms of grunt-level enemies, this is an upgrade.

Also, I’ll take crow cawing over the noises the putties make any day.

The rangers get their powers back, they get new zords, and have their rematch with Rito. However, the other four guys that were part of Zedd’s assault aren’t there this time. Maybe the monster’s union would only let them work so many hours before they started docking their pay? I don’t know why, but it seems like kind of a big oversight on Zedd’s part to forget about those other four guys.

The fight goes just about as badly for Rito as you expect. The thing that surprised me, though, is the fact that Rito actually explodes in this fight. He doesn’t take the finish, and isn’t all “Argh! You haven’t heard the last of me!”. He actually hits the ground, and explodes! Rita’s brother is dead!

Oh wait, never mind.

Whenever Rito explodes, he just turns into this ghostly skull thing. Then he returns home, reforms into Rito, and where Zedd bitches him out for being just as much of a bungler as he thought he’d be.

And that ends up being the lot of Rito Revolto from that point onward. He’s not just a bungler, but he’s such a bungler that Goldar of all people actually ends up more competent by comparison. Hell, if Squat and Baboo hadn’t been reduced to basically being sentient lawn gnomes at this point, THEY probably would get more shit done successfully than Rito.

All that being said… I don’t hate the guy. Granted, he’s not my FAVORITE addition to the villains cast, but what can I say? As much of a bungler as he is, even I have to admit, he’s not without his charm.

If Rita was the ambitious one who wanted to conquer all that she saw, Rito was the dimwit who really didn’t have any ambitions. He probably moved in with Rita and Zedd because daddy finally got sick of his shit, and kicked him out of the basement after years of sponging off of him, and coasting through life on nothing but his good looks and charm. Every family with more than two kids apparently has THAT sibling, I’ve come to understand.

Was he a great addition to the cast? No. Was he a GOOD addition to the cast? At first, he seemed fine. But then, you realize he’s going to be in EVERY episode from this point onward. And it only gets more and more embarrassing from there.

At the same time, is this the moment the show jumped the shark? Also no. I’m skipping ahead a little, but THAT moment wouldn’t come until they went Turbo.

That being said, buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.