Recap: Power Rangers Ninja Steel, Episode 20 – “It looks weak, like it’s… dying!” and Check-in Review

Recap: Power Rangers Ninja Steel, Episode 20 – Galvanax Rise

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Cosmo Royale welcomes everyone to the season finale of Galaxy Warriors and gives a quick recap of the last episode. Galvanax has severy scrap of Ninja Steel except the Power Stars.

The Rangers arrive and morph. They take on Basher Bots, but while they do, Galvanax powers up the magnet and first yanks off Preston and Sarah’s Power Stars. They are forced to demorph. Galvanax moves on to Calvin, Hayley and Levi.

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Basher Bots take the five Rangers up to the ship as Galvanax and Brody exchange fire. Brody is able to shoot the magnet and destroy it.

“Now I will destroy you, just like I destroyed your father!”

Mick arrives and hands Brody the only other Star they have left, the Mega Morph Cycle Star. Brody and Mick hop onto the cycle and leave.

Up on the ship, Cosmo Royale has the other Rangers tied up and on stage. Victor and Monty, meanwhile, are excited to help the “weird fox woman” build another magnet which they think will be used to defeat Galvanax. They think they’ll become as famous as the Power Rangers.

Madame Odius comes in to check on the progress. Monty asks for more alien slop, but she knocks the bowl out of his hand and says he can drown in it as long as they finish the magnet. Victor mentions the magnet will be destroying Galvanax, but Madame Odius surprises them by admitting it’ll kill the Rangers too.

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Victor and Monty now regret everything they’ve done and decide to dress up as Kudabots to escape the ship.

Brody and Mick are at the cliffs. Brody is eager to do anything to save his friends, but Mick says their options are limited without any Stars or Ninja Steel. Redbot calls to say the Ninja Steel asteroid is close enough to Earth for them to reach with the Astro Zord. But they can’t use the Astro Zord without a star. Mick says they can melt down the Morph Cycle Star to make a new one.

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But Galvanax arrives and demands Brody hand over his Power Star or his friends will be killed right in front of him.

Brody and Mick know if Galvanax has all the Power Stars, he will rule the universe.

Brody remembers what his father did ten years ago and decides that he must do the same thing. He asks Mick for his father’s sword so he can destroy his Power Star. Brody tosses the Power Star in the air and slices right through, causing it to break into three pieces.

A huge explosion throws everyone back. Brody and Mick are nowhere to be found. But the Ninja Nexus Prism pops up. The three Power Star pieces are inside of it and they turn into three full Red Power Stars.

The Prism spins and two of the Power Stars come hurtling out, hitting Galvanax and the Kudabots. The Rangers are able to get each other untied as the Power Stars turn into two Red Rangers.

One of the Red Rangers is Brody and he’s fine. He says the Prism protected him. And…

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Mick who is now also a Ranger.

Galvanax gets up and charges toward them, but the Prism again spins and releases the last Power Star. It shoots at Galvanax and the Galaxy Warriors belt with the other Power Stars go flying. The Rangers collect their Stars as another Red Ranger appears…

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It’s Papa Romero!

Brody and Levi reunite with their father who has been in the Prism this whole time.

“You don’t ever mess with ninjas.”

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The Rangers morph and battle Galvanax. But Galvanax decides to melt down all the Stars he has and drink the Ninja Steel.

“Red, silver, white, Ninja Strike!”

Brody, Mick and Hayley deliver the attack at Galvanax, but he just swats it away and responds with a barrage of blasts.

Galvanax uses his Claws of Darkness to attack all the Rangers and send them flying. Brody steps up against Galvanax, then Papa Romero. But Galvanax is too powerful. He then tells Cosmo Royale to Gigantify him.

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Meanwhile on the ship, Victor and Monty are trying to find a way off the ship. Monty seems to have had too much slop, but Victor drags him to the Galaxy Warriors stage. Cosmo Royale is upset that they are interrupting the show and asks what they’re doing here.

Monty steps up and pretends to be a robot saying they would like to help Galvanax on Earth. But Cosmo Royale remembers Kudabots don’t speak. Monty suddenly lets out a huge, green fart. Cosmo Royale knows Kudabots don’t fart either.

Cosmo Royale knocks Victor and Monty’s Kudaheads off, revealing their identities. Madame Odius arrives and Basher Bots try to recapture the prisoners. But Monty can’t help but fart some more and the totally noxious gas fills the stage.

“That’s disgusting! I think I’m gonna faint.”

Victor hits the button and he and Monty are transported back to Earth.

Madame Odius orders the Mega Mag be activated. It begins to attract the Ninja Steel inside Galvanax as well as the Rangers’ Power Stars.

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The Rangers try as hard as they can to hold on to their Power Stars, but Galvanax is struggle as the Ninja Steel is being pulled out of him. Madame Odius reveals she was the real traitor.

Suddenly, the Ninja Steel-filled asteroid comes flying overhead, attracted by the Mega Mag. The asteroid slams into the ship and it goes flying into space, releasing Galvanax and the Power Stars.

Galvanax can now turn his attention back to the Rangers. Suddenly, the Prism starts spinning like crazy. Brody says it looks like them when they do their Ninja Star Morph attack. Hayley suggests they try it and maybe the Prism will join them.

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The Rangers all spin themselves silly and with the Prism, fly into the air to attack Galvanax with a Ninja Nexus Morph attack.

That does the trick and Galvanax explodes.

The Prism crashes down into a rock. Papa Romero says the attack on Galvanax must have drained all its energy.

“It looks weak, like it’s… dying!”

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Mick says he doesn’t know how to fix it. Even worse, the Power Stars have now turned into dust. They’re gone. Mick says without the Prism, Ninja Steel is too unstable to exist. That means all their weapons and zords are no more.

But it’s okay. Mick adds that the Prism came to Earth to have them save evil. Which they did. Galvanax is destroyed and evil is “gone from the universe,” Papa Romero proclaims.

Back at school, Victor and Monty speak to the media about their alien ordeal. But Monty does not want anyone to know about his farting.

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Over in the forest, Papa Romero gets a recap of the season so far. But Mick gets a notification that his Uber Galaxy ride is here.

Mick is heading back to the Lion Galaxy to see his parents again after all this time. They say their goodbyes. Mick says they will always be Rangers to him.

Mick leaves and they decide to sing.

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But up in space, in the wreckage of the Galaxy Warriors ship, Madame Odius digs herself out of the rubble and says this is far from over.

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Episode Thoughts

Well then. An interesting finale. I think it was a suitable midseason finale. (And, stubbornly or not, I still refuse to distinguish the Super and non-Super seasons of a Saban Brands Ranger team as separate.)

It wasn’t as epic (despite however many times Brody says so) or exciting as it could have been, but it was just an okay “final battle” with Galvanax. A lot of interesting choices made throughout the episode in terms of storytelling.

First of all, the farting stuff was just inexplicable. Like, seriously. It wasn’t just a passing fart joke, it was a legitimate part of the plot. I just can’t. It feels cheap and gross. Especially when that scene with Victor and Monty was inserted right in the middle of what was rising tension. Horrible.

The Prism has really been a deus ex machina type of deal all season long. It tosses out anything the Rangers ever need and pops in whenever the Rangers need it. So it’s hard to truly build excitement when you know things are going to conveniently get resolved as soon as the big spinning Prism pops in.

The ending of the episode with the Rangers thinking everything’s done and finished is definitely reminiscent of Dino Charge‘s midseason finale. You know, the one where they didn’t go and check the wreckage of the ship to see if everyone was actually dead or not? Here at least, the Galaxy Warriors ship got blasted far into space. (Whereas Sledge’s ship crashed just outside of town.)

Anyway, I haven’t compared this season’s episodes to Ninninger. But I just had to go back and watch the last three episodes. Considering Ninja Steel took most of the Ninninger finale (episodes 45-47, skipping about 25 episodes worth of stuff) and used it here at Episode 20, I wanted to see how it compared.

Kibaoni Gengetsu didn’t show up until the 40s in Ninninger of course. So it certainly works that they made Galvanax the main villain for this first half of the season and finished him off now.

It’s apples to oranges, but Ninninger‘s finale obviously was much more exciting and emotional. Just a lot of different things coming to a head in those last episodes. Here on Ninja Steel, it almost felt like just a regular episode fighting a MOTW.

Now I did like the big Mega Mag magnet idea. The scene of the Rangers getting pulled in while Galvanax was also getting yanked at was great. And the asteroid getting pulled towards the ship and then crashing into it was very clever and exciting.

I was amused seeing the “Red, silver, white” attack since I definitely remembered (even before the rewatch) that it was a father and children attack in Ninninger. lol

Anyway, overall I thought this was an okay episode. It felt a little anticlimactic. But that might be because of the half-season as a whole…

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Check-in Review

After the near-disastrous collapse of the Super half of Dino Charge, Ninja Steel started off as a very refreshing change of pace. It was a new team, new villains; a clean slate.

And the season began very well. Exciting stories with fun characters. But somewhere along the way, things slowed down. And after the hiatus, while many of the episodes were enjoyable, they didn’t really seem to be building into an exciting midseason climax.

For me, I guess that affected my thoughts going into this finale (which is really one week late). A lot of things happened, but you just didn’t get a sense of real excitement and tension.

The last few episodes felt too much like filler except for final scene of Episode 19. And Galvanax was even absent for much of the episodes, his presence definitely not felt.

Strangely (and confusingly) enough, I still feel like this was a solid finale to what could easily have been a 20-episode season. Like, 20 episodes for Ninja Steel and done. I think Ninja Steel was able to fit a solid enough story into 20 episodes better than Megaforce did with Goseiger‘s footage.

The finale certainly wrapped up a lot of what the first season focused on: Galaxy Warriors, Galvanax, finding Ninja Steel, the return of Papa Romero and Aiden. There was a lot of finality and conclusion in the episode, even if it wasn’t in the most thrilling and exciting way. (They definitely left out a lot of useable action and fight footage from Ninninger‘s final episodes.)

So if things had been just a little tighter, we wouldn’t even need the Super half of the season next year. It would’ve been a good 20-episode season and done.

Because of it, it should be interesting to see how they proceed next year. I know there are apparently big things planned for the second half of Ninja Steel which seem to diverge even more from Ninninger‘s story and even from this first half of the season too.

I think Ninja Steel was just unfairly scrutinized and put down because of the movie (which I admit, I personally am not a fan of). It’s definitely hard to air in the shadow of the perceived “darker” take on the franchise in the form of the movie (and the continued Mighty Morphin nostalgia from die-hard and casual(/90s) fans alike).

Overall, I think this first half of Ninja Steel has been fine. Perfectly on par with middling seasons and a comparable season to many Disney Era teams as well. I certainly don’t hate it as much as other people seem to. It had its flaws and missed opportunities, but was still mostly fun to watch. Next year should definitely be even more interesting with plenty more to discuss.

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