Recap: Power Rangers Megaforce, Episode 9 – “Your environmental threat will be removed forever!”

Recap: Power Rangers Megaforce, Episode 9 – Prince Takes Knight

Megaforce 9

The Rangers are at Ernie’s talking about Robo Knight. Everyone but Jake thinks he’s pretty cool. Troy tells them he’s been having dreams and Robo Knight is in them.

Noah says dreams can foretell future. Jake snaps at him. (The frack is his problem?)

Megaforce 9

Troy tells them there was a big battle in his dreams, but they were too fuzzy so he didn’t tell them.

Megaforce 9

Up on the ship, Vrak suggests to Admiral Malkor that instead of defeating Robo Knight, they should get him on their side. Okay says Malkor. Vrak morphs into his “Earth armor” and summons his monster, Psycho Tick to help drain Robo Knight of his energy to reprogram him.

Psycho Dick Tick attacks a theme park and the Rangers get the call. They morph and head over, but are no match for the monster. That’s when Robo Knight arrives, but asserts that he works alone and only to defeat the monster. He concentrates on Psycho Tick, but leaves humans out in the open, forcing the Rangers to quickly protect the people and get them to safety.

“I’ve been hit!
I’m energy ticked!”

Psycho Tick captures Robo Knight and he and Vrak fly away.

Megaforce 9

The Rangers head down to Gosei’s lair. Tensou finds Robo Knight is still on Earth, but Jake says they should just let Vrak keep him. Gosei reasons that Robo Knight doesn’t understand that his mission is to not just protect Earth, but humans as well. And that is the Rangers’ mission, to win him over. We can’t give up on anyone who fights for the Earth, Troy says.

Megaforce 9

Robo Knight is in a cage and Vrak points out how his fuel cell is quickly draining of energy and will only speed up the more Robo Knight fights back and tries to escape.

Vrak sends Psycho Tick to keep the Rangers busy, so he starts sucking out all the energy in the city.

Megaforce 9

Having split up, the Rangers fight off Psycho Tick’s Loogies while Troy takes on Vrak.

Thinking the Loogies have things under control, Psycho Tick returns to the quarry where he interrupts Vrak just as he’s about to finish off Troy. That gives the other Rangers time to join the fun.

Gia and a reluctant Jake try to convince Robo Knight they’re on the same team, that they’re the good guys.

Megaforce 9

The Rangers become helpless, but muster up the resolve to say they will never give up. Robo Knight is slightly inspired by them and reverses the power drain to regain all his energy back into his power cell. He breaks free from the cage.

“I am a protector of the earth. You and all threats to the environment will be eliminated! Prepare for destruction!”

Robo Knight attacks and finishes off Psycho Tick’s first life. Vrak summons his Zombats to embiggen him.

Megaforce 9

The Rangers get ready to summon their Megamechazord Zords, but Robo Knight says he’ll handle this on his own.

Megaforce 9

He gets three new cards and uses them to summon the Knight Brothers, Sea Lion and Sky Lion Mechazords. He then morphs into his Lion Zord form and uses the Gosei Ground Card to form the Gosei Grand Megazord.

Megaforce 9

“Your environmental threat will be removed forever!”

The Rangers excitedly watch Robo Knight finish off embiggened Psycho Tick.

Up on the ship, Admiral Malkor is angry and tells Vrak Robo Knight is a problem that he must solve.

Robo Knight is on the roof. Sentry Mode, activate!

The Rangers go see him and compliment him on a great job. They could accomplish so much together. But Robo Knight says he’ll continue to work alone to be more efficient and to minimize errors and “defeat the bad guys.”

Megaforce 9

Robo Knight flies away. Jake thinks Robo Knight likes Gia. Don’t be silly, she says, though he is kind of studly.

Jake’s still pretty cold about Robo Knight, but the others say at least they’re making progress and that he’s open to learning… unlike some people… Jake!

They all head to Ernie’s to celebrate their Mega Win! Jake’s treat.

Megaforce 9

Episode Thoughts
Well, it started off kinda iffy, but it ended okay. Though I think the episode was pretty much carried by that great unmorphed fight scene and Gia leading the charge. Otherwise, everything else would’ve just come together for a rather blah episode.

Horribly robotic acting. And not just from Robo Knight. I mean seriously. I think we’ve seen enough episodes to say that the Samurai Rangers weren’t this flat and emotionless. I mean come on.

An underground lair for a command center seems to be fine on paper, but the location seems to be more prohibitive than cool. The Rangers never need to really be there. It’s not like it’s near where they usually hang out. And Gosei and Tensou continue to be completely useless.

Speaking of useless, way to be detailed Troy. Your description of your dreams was very helpful.

Nice original footage of Vrak morphing into his still unexplained “Earth armor” though.

How different is Megaforce from Goseiger?
Corresponding Goseiger Episode: Epic 19 – Gosei Knight Will Not Allow It / Gosei Knight Will Not Be Forgiven

To continue harping on the troubles of Megaforce, let’s compare it to Goseiger of course.

One of the strangest parts of the episode was Jake snapping at Noah in the beginning. Like, dude. What’s your problem? PMS-ing or something?

Now that initial jerk-ish behavior is adapted from Agri in Goseiger where he doesn’t feel like they need to team up with Gosei Knight. But that’s part of Agri’s character. He’s a headstrong, confident, but sometimes cocky guy. Jake isn’t like that. He’s just a simple, lovesick kid.

The Goseiger episode itself had more going on. “Psycho Tick” actually captured people and hoped to use Gosei Knight’s drained power to turn them into Kappas (a Japanese folk monster) who would in turn infect other humans to help suck the Earth dry and kill it. We also got to see Makuin and Kinggon again, Makuin, twirling himself around of course.

Agri is hard on himself after he fails to protect a young girl from capture thanks to Gosei Knight’s indifference to protecting humans. But after the girl’s parents put their belief and trust in the Goseigers, Agri in turn puts his belief in Gosei Knight and his sincere intentions to protect the Earth.

On Megaforce, Jake was still a stubborn jerk at the end. And really, for no reason at all. He was crabby the entire episode.

But then again, when your leader is just as much of a robot as –Robo- Knight, then I guess anyone would be crabby.

And speaking of, Robo Knight has just been a blur. He’s a robot, yes. But he really doesn’t have much of a character. (That doesn’t even make sense.) But they way they are presenting Robo Knight, it really doesn’t make sense. Saban seems to be attempting to use Gosei Knight’s character traits and possible backstory. But by making Robo Knight a mere robot, it completely defeats the purpose. Robo Knight is not some lone warrior fighting on his own like Gosei Knight. He’s just a programmed robot. And them trying to get Robo Knight to feel emotions and make friends like the Goseigers and Nozumu did with Gosei Knight just feels odd.

And what about Makuin and Kinggon? I’m starting to get the feeling that meshing together three distinct story arcs into one 20 episode season is going to start getting messy.

Overall a fair episode, but definitely nothing to get excited about. (Should I really be expecting more?)




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