Power Rangers Samurai, Episode 4 – Sticks and Stones

(Or is it Episode 6!?!)

The Rangers are sparring and Emily takes Mike down. Jayden and Jii observe how Emily is a great martial artist, but not so good at anything else.

Emily wants to help and brings Mike a bag of frozen peas to put on his butt, but he says it’s fine. Emily chases him around the room until she slips on another bag of peas and falls on her face. She puts herself down, saying she’s a clumsy disaster which annoys Mike.

On the Sanzu, Octoroo is welcoming Negatron up from the river and tells him to go hurl his insults at the humans. The river will fill up in no time.

Meanwhile, Mike surprises Emily in the kitchen while she’s gargling and ends up getting spit at. She apologizes profusely and starts up on herself again, wishing she was more like Mia and less like a klutz who makes everything worse. Mike tells her not to beat herself up, give herself a break.

Across town, Negatron stars hurling the insults which in turn hurls the person into walls and mirrors. Bulk and Spike get hurled across the way too (Yes!!!).

The Rangers arrive and Negatron dishes it out to them…
Mike had training wheels until he was ten.
Kevin is boring.
Mia is a bad cook.
Jayden’s a liar and keeping a secret. (Not an insult, so much as foreshadowing!)

Last up is Emily… “Airhead!” Nothing. “Clumsy fool!” Nope. “Klutz. Dimwit. Whiner!”
Nothing seems to be working on her and she fights him back until he has to retreat back into the crevices.

Back at home, the Rangers are down thinking about the insults and how true they were. They all cheer each other up, but wonder why Emily was immune. She explains she was teased as a kid, but her sister had told her to just block it all out and not care what they said.

But Mike asks why she puts herself down if she ignores everyone else’s insults… unless that’s what she really thinks about herself.

The Nighlock didn’t hurt Emily, but maybe Mike went a little too far. He goes to her outside as she plays a flute. He apologizes, but she says he was right. She tells him about her childhood. She was bad at school, she couldn’t do anything right. Everyone picked on her and she’d cry all the time. But she’d always feel better when her older sister Serena would play the flute.

Serena became sick and it was time for Emily to take over for her sister as a Samurai Ranger. Not it was her sister crying and Emily vowed to be strong from now on.

Emily says maybe trying to fill her sister’s shoes are bringing back her insecurities, which she’ll have to take care of if she expects other people to stop putting her down too.

She apologizes again, but Mike says he should apologize. Here he is wanting to be stronger than Jayden, but then loses to Emily who is insecure about herself. What does that make him? But Emily says he’ll get better and she admires how he can be true to himself.

They get a call that Negatron is back and they head off.
The Rangers morph and Negatron goes for another round of insults. He calls Kevin “mentor’s little pet” and he goes flying. But Negatron wants to take care of business with just Emily. He calls the Moogers to keep everyone else busy as he tries to get Emily but again, she can easily block the insults out.

Mike comes to help as Emily hurls stones to fill Negatron’s mouth long enough to shut him up and finish him off.

The second life kicks in and they zord up to really finish him off.
But Emily collapses in the megazord, exhausted from taking a whole day of verbal beating. Mike takes her on his back as they walk back home. Mike and Mia complement her and she quietly smiles.

They hear an ice cream truck and Emily perks up as they all run for a treat.

Episode Thoughts
Oh thank goodness! Finally a good episode of Power Rangers Samurai. Definitely the strongest episode yet, if only for the mere fact that we finally get to MEET the Rangers and get to know them.

We learned more about Emily and even Mike in this one episode than we have in the previous three combined. And this is huge because as it has been confirmed this week, Nickelodeon indeed decided to not air the real first two episodes of PRS where we would have gotten to know the Rangers and really get a good introduction into this new world we’re jumping into.

Hopefully Nickelodeon doesn’t wait too long before the inevitable “hour-long Power Rangers movie event.”

Great to finally see a full morphing sequence for everyone too.

Sentai or Power Rangers?: Tie
Corresponding Shinkenger Episode: Act 6 – The Abusive King
Finally an interesting episode to compare to the original.

The Shinkenger episode, as Sentai will be, was definitely more stinging with its insults and less-Nickelodeon-y. (They sometimes call Ayakashis “assholes!”) The Ayakashi called a businessman a pervert and pointed out a (married?) couple about to break up.

Another interesting choice by Saban. In Shinkenger, the Ayakashi only said Takeru was a huge liar. But in Samurai, the Nighlok specifically mentioned Jayden was keeping a secret. Definitely a more overt bit of foreshadowing for Jayden.

Though the foreshadowing is kind of lost with the fact that we know nothing of his background to draw speculation from.

Also, in Shinkenger, Chiaki was also a little harder on Kotoha than Mike was on Emily, but that was more in line with Chiaki’s overall personality. Mike is more of a well-meaning jokester. Chiaki also had good intentions, but by this time, he was also still a little immature and needed to grow up.

And finally, in Shinkenger, I shipped Takeru-Kotoha but in Samurai, Hector David and Brittany Pirtle showed some very nice chemistry. But that could also be contributed to the fact that this is the most character we’ve seen from any of them so far.

I have to say, Hector David, Jr. is the best actor on the cast. He is much more natural and seemingly more comfortable. Let’s hope the rest of the Rangers settle in too.

And maybe it’s the music, but Shinkenger’s revelation of Kotoha taking over for her sick sister was a little more touching than how PRS attacked that scene, though they did a good job here too.

So overall, I enjoyed both episodes. An edge to Shinkenger overall for not being a toned version of some source material, but bonus points for Power Rangers for being the closest its been to getting it right.

Oh, and what in the world are they doing to Rene Naufahu’s voice!?!?! They need to stop digitally touching it because it sounds incredibly odd and out of place. Just stop.

Plus, #freePaulSchrier too.


Power Rangers is on DVD!
Want to own Power Rangers Samurai? The entire season available at
.

And you can finally own the first seven seasons of Power Rangers, from Mighty Morphin to Lost Galaxy by ordering now:

0 thoughts on “Power Rangers Samurai, Episode 4 – Sticks and Stones

  1. ela vai ficar com o mike tanto que o jaydan vai ficar com a lilaz que vai ser outra power rangers que vai querer ficar com o kevin depois com o jayden e nem tem como o jaidan ficar com a emily e so quem gosta da emiçly e o mike e o antonio >respondi a sua pergunta?

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