Recap: Power Rangers Ninja Steel, Episode 13 – “Once they touch my evil baton…”

Recap: Power Rangers Ninja Steel, Episode 13 – Ace and the Race

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The Rangers are competing in the Lake Sunshine Fun-athalon. Preston, Sarah and Hayley are on one team while Brody, Levi and Calvin are on one team.

Calvin fanboys over Ace and his awesome car as he and his crew arrive for the Fun-athalon too. He heads over to say Hi. Ace offers to show him the new engine he rebuilt himself, but Calvin notices an oil leak. Ace says maybe Calvin can take a crack at it and Calvin is all too excited to be able to work on such an awesome car.

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Ace suggests they push the car to the school workshop. But Ace and his friends hop in, leaving Calvin to push it himself.

Meanwhile, Shoespike morphs into a Fun-athlete who will turn the Rangers into trophies with his big, evil baton.

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With Brody and Levi short a team member, Bob Shoespike steps up and offers to fill in. They step aside for a team huddle and Shoespike gets them to touch his baton. Brody and Levi suddenly turn very competitive.

The teams head to the Starting Line, including Victor who will be running as a one-man team.

GUNSHOT!

And they’re off! Shoespike gives everyone a headstart and reaches Brody. Sarah passes off the baton to Preston. But as they are running, Brody catches up and pushes Preston into the bushes.

Levi also pushes another runner, into the water this time, and crosses the finish line first. Brody and Levi rub it in Hayley(who came in 2nd)’s face.

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Hayley, Preston and Sarah ask Brody and Levi why they’re being huge jerks. They just repeat that they are winners and Preston, Sarah and Hayley are losers.

Just then, Shoespike turns Preston, Sarah and Hayley into trophies. As does everyone else, including last place Victor.

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Shoespike reveals his true form and says the people will return to normal only if Brody and Levi beat him. Brody and Levi’s competitiveness spell continues as Shoespike challenges them to a three-legged race. If he wins, they hand over their Power Stars. If they win, their friends are turned back to humans.

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Over at the school, Calvin is just about done fixing the oil leak and asks Ace (who calls him “Melvin”) to help top off the oil. Calvin spills a little bit of oil on Ace who says he hates it when he gets oil on his hands. Well, that’s interesting. Calvin asks how he rebuilt the engine himself then.

“Very carefully.”

Turns out Ace actually didn’t do any of the work himself. He says that’s not a big deal and that his only mistake was he paid for the work instead of letting a dweeb like Calvin do it for free.

“You’re nothing but a fraud!”

Calvin regrets ever looking up to the douchebag.

Ace and his crew leaves, but the car falls apart when he doesn’t listen to Calvin’s warning.

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Mick thought Ace was Calvin’s friend, but Calvin says friendship is a two-way street. Real friends are there for each other, not just themselves. Mick reminds Calvin about his real friends. The ones he left hanging at the Fun-athalon.

Calvin hurries back to the park and finds Brody, Levi, Shoespike and a Basherbot stretching before their big race. He is surprised when the three trophies start talking to him.

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Calvin steps up and they make it a four-legged Race. But Shoespike cheats and actually uses two dummy Basherbots. The guys are not working well together, but Calvin suggests he stand in the middle and lead.

Calvin is able to get them in sync are close behind Shoespike, despite traps and obstacles.

“Oh my golly-gosh!”

It’s a photo finish and Calvin, Levi and Brody manage to cross the finish line first. The spell over Brody and Levi is lifted and the others back to normal.

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The Rangers morph and take on Basherbots before real brothers Brody and Levi take care of Shoespike.

A Gigantify has been approved for Shoespike and he emiggens.

“Looks like I’m making gainz!!!!!!”

Brody says he and Levi will handle him themselves, but the others eventually join them to form the Ninja Fusion Zord to finish off Shoespike for good.

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Back at the Fun-athalon, Sarah makes sure everyone’s back from being trophies. Calvin apologizes for ditching them and says he should’ve known who his true friends were.

Victor steps on his mermaid girlfriend.

Episode Thoughts

Okay, this was actually a really fun episode. I enjoyed it. Lots of fun (and funny) lines and moments. The only moment I didn’t like was when Brody said that line about “The only one who can call me ‘brother’ is this guy.” Or something like that. I rolled my eyes. lol

Everything else though was just fun fluff. Such an interesting way to use that Ninninger footage. The Ninninger episode, if I remember correctly, was about Kinji feeling too much like an outsider not being a full-blooded member of the Igasaki family. But it was Nagi who helped Kinji and Takaharu, I guess, work as a team or something.

The “know who your true friends are” lesson aspect of the episode’s plot was pretty flimsy. But as a whole episode with no one Ranger as the focus, it was fine and enjoyable.

Brody and Levi being jerks to Sarah, Hayley and especially Preston was kind of amusing. Brody and Levi under the spell were definitely being huge jerks and even mean. But Sarah, Hayley and Preston’s “WTF is wrong with you?” reactions were funny. They weren’t angry so much as they were confused.

Calvin’s little sideplot with Ace was a simple way to remind us Calvin loves cars and that the command shop is actually a working workshop. Mick’s mentoring though needs to be a little more subtle than it was here.

Cosmo Royale’s face again! OMGWHY.
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And they played the Samurai instrumental theme again during the Megazord finisher and really it appears they’re just using it and tacking on the hook of the Ninja Steel theme instead of using the Ninja Steel theme fully itself. Granted, they’re both “Go Go”-based

It’s just a shame considering the theme song is one of the few ninja-ish things about the season and they apparently want to avoid it. Very strange.

And again, I really enjoy Calvin and Hayley actually acting like a real dating couple. It’s very refreshing to have such a realistic depiction of an everyday high school couple on Power Rangers.

A fun and enjoyable episode.

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