Recap: Power Rangers Megaforce, Episode 18 – The Human Condition
Robo Knight observes kids playing at the park and notices a mother comforting her crying child after falling. Robo Knight goes to Troy who is training (and now a black belter apparently) and asks “What are tears?”
Despite giving a lecture about tears earlier in the season, Troy says to ask Emma since she knows a helluva lot more about tears. (Because she’s a girl, duh.) Robo Knight finds Emma taking pictures and asks why a mother hugs her child when it cries. Because she loves him and cares for him, she replies.
She turns and he’s gone. Robo Knight goes to ask Gia what love is. She tells him to ask Jake, he’ll tell him all about love. But when Robo Knight finds Jake at the soccer field, he decides he can learn nothing from him.
Robo Knight decides to find Noah at school. He passes Mr. Burley whose got a package containing a brand new telescope. Finding Noah in the lab, Robo Knight says he still has much to learn about humans and he has many questions. Noah mentions a lot has been written about humans, so Robo Knight goes to the library.
“No cell phones? Very well.” He gives the librarian his morpher.
Up in space, Malkor emerges from his cocoon now stronger than ever. His new powers must not be wasted, he says. He will finish off the Rangers while Vrak lands the ship in the middle of the city.
Robo Knight takes a couple of books and sits down to read.
Malkor arrives in the city and Tensou calls the Rangers. He introduces himself.
“How do you even spell that?”
“It spells doom!”
The Rangers morph and they fight. But Malkor is highly unimpressed and wonders how these noobs were able to kill all his soldiers.
Malkor knocks them around, but says they’re only a small part of the plan. He he will only be satisfied when the entire world will tremble at his feet.
Robo Knight is still at the library and can’t hear Tensou calling on his morpher. He notices a kid listening to loud music and walks over asking what the headphones are. The kid gives up the headphones, but later he is teaching Robo Knight the finer points of hip hop.
In more important news, the Rangers insert their Gosei Cards in to their morphers, but they can’t activate them. Instead, Malkor assumes their powers and sends them a couple of meteors before leaving.
Gosei assures the Rangers that he and Tensou have fixed their Morphers
Across the city, Malkor gives a message to Earth. The Rangers go find him.
“Turn around and face us!”
They try their Cards again, but Malkor just swats away their attacks then takes miniplanets to hurl them across the edge of the roof.
Vrak says he’s transported the Rangers and Malkor to another dimension where they can witness the destruction of Earth.
But Troy says it doesn’t matter where they go, because ingenuity and human will trump Malkor’s superpowers. “We’re Earth’s defenders and we never surrender!!!”
Malkor continues tossing them around the post-apocalyptic downtown. Troy gives a speech that they are fighting for everyone, the whole world! And they will never surrender.
“I TOLD YOU! WE WON’T SURRENDER!”
They won’t surrender and they attack some more.
“Our cause is just, that’s our real power. That’s why we’ll win!!!!!!!”
Mr. Burley sees Malkor’s ship approaching Earth through his new telescope.
The Rangers try a dynamic victory charge, but Malkor just sends it back to them. They try their other tricks and Malkor seems to be weakening. But he summons the Zombats and eats them, causing him to embiggen.
“That’s disgusting!”
Malkor orders Vrak to land the ship to crush the entire city and the Rangers hop into the Gosei Great Megazord.
The Rangers try to hurry and defeat Malkor before Vrak can land the ship. But Malkor vaporizes the Gosei headders. The Rangers will NOT SURRENDER!
Troy suggests they combine their power cards into one giant super card to launch all their zords at Malkor. They lob off his wings and they form the Hyper Gosei Great… Ultra Gosei Great Megazord. With a final victory charge, they attack both Malkor and the spaceship.
The Rangers go find Robo Knight who raps for them.
Episode Thoughts
Well, this episode started off well. The scenes of Robo Knight going to the Rangers with different questions about humanity were actually pretty fun.
Unfortunately, things went downhill from there. First, they were reasonably creative in how they got Robo Knight out of the big battle with Malkor. But what gets me about Robo Knight’s humanity angle is we haven’t seen enough to care about him wanting to learn. It was only last week and the kid where we really get a sense that Robo Knight has developed an interest in humans.
And the episode was supposed to be some big, epic battle. They are fighting against the big bad of the season. Or who was presented as the main villain. And yet, it all felt like a normal monster of the week. Malkor was dispatched pretty easily with no excitement and definitely no build up whatsoever.
How different is Megaforce from Goseiger?
Corresponding Goseiger Episodes: Epic 12 – The Miraculous Gosei Headder Great Assembly and Epic 15 – Countdown! The Life of the Earth
And again it’s all because of trying to cram 50 episodes worth of Sentai that was originally divided in 4 different arcs into 20 episodes of Power Rangers. And when it’s being handled by the team in charge of Power Rangers today, it makes it all worse.
The Goseiger episodes were much more dramatic and the face of with Monsdrake did not take up a mere 15 minutes of fighting. There was plenty build up in Goseiger of course with the added emotional connection with Nozumu used to full effect.
The climax of the Warstar saga involved sucking Earth’s oxygen, forcing people to almost suffocate to death while also having buildings and trains disintegrate. Needless to say a lot of people died. You’re not going to get anything as dire on Power Rangers, but this episode wasn’t even that exciting. There are never any risks or dangers involved during this Saban II Era and especially not in Megaforce.
There are only two episodes left and yet these last 18 episodes feel absolutely worthless. What happened in these 18 episodes? Nothing much. And here we are almost at the end of the season. And that is not necessarily a good thing.
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The first 18 seasons, from Mighty Morphin to RPM on four complete DVD sets!
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