Power Rangers Samurai, Episode 11 – Unexpected Arrival

A strange man arrives in town with fishing gear (“FINALLY! I HAVE ARRIVED!!!!!!!!”) and is excited to have everyone get a golden load of him.

The gap sensor goes off and the Rangers go check it out, but there’s nothing there. Jayden feels a gust of wind and senses something close by. When they get home, an arrow flies in with the message: “See you soon.”

That night, Jayden is writing Japanese kanji (for whatever reason) and again senses a presence in the room. He gets defensive as the Rangers come to see what’s up. After almost decapitating Emily, Jayden goes through the house swinging at the air and the others think he’s going crazy.

He goes to the bathroom and splashes water on his face and suddenly the presence is gone.

Next day, the Rangers go check out the gap sensor again and they pass a fish seller. Emily notices the writing on his flyers match the writing on the arrow message and they confront the guy.

He realizes who they are and says they can’t ruin his big moment so he knocks his cooler of ice over, they do a pratfall and speeds off.

Mentor/Ji/whatever calls to tell them Jayden has gone off to Spring Valley on some kind of lead on the presence. Kevin and Mia go to Jayden while Mike and Emily follow fish guy.

The Nighlok continues watching Jayden through the mirror and OO AH OO Octoroo hopes he can catch Jayden using the sealing spell so they know how to get Xandred free.

When the picture in the mirror fogs up, the Nighlok decides to head above ground to see why he’s disappeared from view. But Jayden pops up out of the water and tells the Nighlok that he knew he could hide in the water. Mia and Kevin arrive and realize the water above ground is more pure than the water of the Sanzu, therefore it can counteract the Nighloks’ spells.

They call Mike and Emily who have now lost the fish guy. They join the other three Rangers, but the Nighlok is too powerful for them.

Suddenly, the fish guy appears and hurls anchovies at the Nighlok. Mike has short term memory loss and has no idea who the guy is, but the guy prepares for his “golden” moment.

He whips out a Samurai morpher and morphs into the Gold Samurai Ranger. He’s disappointed the Rangers are speechless and aren’t more awed by him.

Though Emily thinks he’s very sparkly.

None of the Rangers ever heard of a sixth, Gold Ranger before, even Jayden.
The Nighlok calls in Moogers and fish guy takes care of them with incredible speed.

He continues to take on the Moogers and trips himself up from time to time. Jayden goes to help him out and fish guy comments that he’s better than he remembered.

The Nighlok embiggens and the Rangers zord up, but his power of invisibility gets the better of them. Time for more golden moments as fish guy summons his own Octozord (with the text code 666 no less!). He goes into Mega Mode too and turns into some Gold Zeo Ranger hybrid to help out the Rangers.

They finish the Nighlok off together and demorph.
They meet the Gold Ranger who also demorphs and as soon as he sees him, Jayden smiles from ear to ear.

The guy tells them he came to town after hearing about all the Nighlok attacks and wanted to help. He says he’s on their side… right Jay?

Jayden: “Is it really you Antonio!?” *huge grin*

Jayden flashes back to two Aussie/Kiwi kids playing together. Though it turns out it’s Jayden and Antonio when they were kids… with accents. Jayden had given Antonio the Octozord origami (sorry, “folding zord”) when he went away with his father.

Jayden can’t believe it. Believe it, Antonio says, he’s ready for some action!
He walks over to Jayden with a look in his eyes… they both smile at each other… and they begin sparring.

The other Rangers enjoy the show.

Episode Thoughts
Well… best part about this episode… NO BULK AND SPIKE! Hallelujah!

But that didn’t really help much though. A typical Samurai episode; stiff acting, laughable line deliveries, raining puns. Not any more or less painful than normal.

Though the arrival of another pun dropper is certainly not something to get excited about, no matter what the Nickelodeon hype department tells you.

Then there were some odd cuts though, like Mike running to cut off fish guy… then not, or his selective memory, or Emily regressing to a five year old.

And yeah, I’ll ignore that strange, more-than-bromance vibe Jayden and Antonio were channeling before unleashing their pent up energy on each other at the end. (With the other Rangers getting an equal thrill out of watching them.)

Oh and Mike?
“Seriously, if someone doesn’t tell me who this guy is, I think I’m gonna lose it.”
Green dude, I’ve been saying the same thing about whether or not Power Rangers Samurai is going to get any better or whether it’ll keep wallowing in Xandred’s regurgitated sake medicine.

Sentai or Power Rangers?: Power Ran… nah, Sentai.
Corresponding Shinkenger Episode: Act 17 – The Sushi Samurai
They do get bonus points though for finally writing some original material at least, even if it was still limited. However, it is strange to realize that they are rewriting scenes that can be directly translated without trouble, yet have no problems leaving in directly translated scenes that make no sense whatsoever in the context of Power Rangers Samurai.

And they’re infusing fresh material, yet they keep Kotoha’s “He’s so sparkly” line which didn’t work in Shinkenger either. If it didn’t work in a Shinkenger episode that was, for the majority of it, frantic and slapstick, it’s not going to work on PRS with its faux-overdramatic-ness.

Though Jayden almost chopping Emily’s head off was the first genuinely funny moment on the series in 11 episodes.

The most interesting tweak, I guess we can more appropriately call them, was to include the flashback to Jayden and Antonio’s childhood now instead of next episode as they did in Shinkenger. Though we’ll have to wait and see what PRS will do next episode, the flashback in this episode basically gives the whole backstory already.

Jayden and Antonio were great friends and Antonio had to go away so Jayden gives him the squid Octozord. Definitely less interesting than Shinkenger’s backstory. But what else is new.

And keeping those kids’ accents? Really? Couldn’t have redubbed or autotuned or whatever their voices like they do to Rene Naufahu’s voice?


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