Recap: Power Rangers Ninja Steel, Episode 8 – "You're messing with the wrong cowboy, pardner!"

Recap: Power Rangers Ninja Steel, Episode 8 – Gold Rush

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It’s been weeks since the Gold Ranger has arrived on Earth and he has been defeating every Galaxy Warriors challenger sent to capture him. The Rangers have tried to catch him, but always miss him by seconds. Galvanax is increasingly annoyed, but Madam Odius assures him that the next monster will do the trick. Ripcon instead offers to capture the Gold Ranger himself. Galvanax reminds him to bring the Gold Ranger in alive so he can find out who let him onto the ship.

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Meanwhile, the Rangers are in line to meet country music superstar Levi Weston.

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Sarah and Hayley are very excited, but Preston and Calvin are fans too. They’re all dressed up in cowboy outfits because Levi will choose his biggest fan to get backstage passes. Even Victor and Monty are into Levi as they are dressed in a horse costume. Brody, however, doesn’t see what the big deal is about Levi.

Tom, Levi’s assistant, reminds all the people in line about the rules: No photos, no screaming and no shaking hands to spread fan germs. Brody thinks, aloud, that the rules are crazy. Tom is about to kick him out of line, but Levi says it’s alright.

Suddenly, Ripcon arrives with Kudabots and attacks. Brody saves Levi from Ripcon’s attack as the others morph. Ripcon demands to know the Gold Ranger’s location, but he sees the Gold Power Star fall out of a briefcase Tom stumbles with.

Tom runs off as the Rangers stop Ripcon from chasing after him.

Brody takes Levi to safety. Levi thanks Brody and offers him a job as his bodyguard while he’s in town for the concert. Brody says no way at first, but decides to accept the offer as long as he gets the others some backstage passes and he treats Levi like a normal person, not according to the silly rules.

Levi agrees and expects him in the afternoon. But first, Brody heads to the beach where the others are fighting Ripcon. Brody slices Ripcon’s horn. Madam Odius picks it up and tells him to focus on the Gold Ranger. They leave.

Ripcon finds Tom the assistant and captures him, thinking he is the Gold Ranger. Ripcon grabs the Gold Power Star and interrogates him. Ripcon believes it was Madam Odius who held the Gold Ranger captive.

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Downtown, Brody takes Levi to have some delicious local burgers. They run into a mom and hungry son who’s van can’t start. While Brody quickly fixes it, Levi befriends the boy and gives him Brody’s burger.

Brody sees Levi in a new light now and likes that he’s actually a normal dude. Levi says he actually can’t stand when people treat him like he’s something special. He liked Brody treating him like a normal guy. And asking him to be his bodyguard was mainly just so they could be friends.

Just then, Calvin calls Brody about the Kudabot activity where Ripcon is holding Tom. Calvin excuses himself, but Levi follows.

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The five Rangers arrive at the warehouse and morph, but Ripcon quickly traps them in a net. Brody is able to shoot at Ripcon’s hand to release the Gold Power Star and then frees Tom from the chains. He tells Tom to morph, but Tom has no idea what the hell they’re talking about. He runs away.

But as Ripcon approaches the Rangers to take their Power Stars as well, someone arrives and shoots at Ripcon. It’s Levi!

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“You’re messing with the wrong cowboy, partner!”

Levi picks up the Power Star and morphs!

“Let’s get this party started!”

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Levi fights Ripcon and shows what he can do. After a Rock Star Blast, the six Rangers team up to drive Ripcon away. Cosmo Royale then summons a gigantified Skullgator.

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The Rangers, including Levi, hop into the Megazord. Sarah says she and Mick were able to make new Power Stars using Alien Rangers technique her holoclone technology, a Ninja Clone Star!

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Four Megazords attack the Skullgator and allows them get the upper hand. Brody takes RoboRed Zord for a Ninja Storm Sky Sprint before he lets Levi deliver the Master Slash Final Attack. The Rangers excitedly welcome their new teammate.

Ripcon gets back to the ship. Madam Odius accuses Ripcon of being the traitor.

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At the command shop, Mick and Redbot see another vision in the Prism, this time of a HUGE flying lion spaceship from the Lion Galaxy!

The Rangers arrives with Levi. Mick hands him a new Storm Star and Zord Star.

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Levi explains how he became the Gold Ranger. He had been alone for months working on his new album when suddenly the Prism flew up to him, “like it was alive.” He saw the glowing Gold Power Star, so he grabbed it. But that’s when Madam Odius and Kudabots appeared to take him prisoner. And while being held, Madam Odius messed with Levi’s mind and drove him insane trying to find out information on the Power Star’s powers. That is until the NinNin Astro Zord saved him.

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The Rangers again welcome their new teammate.

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Back at the resumed autograph signing, Victor is a literal huge fan and flies into the sky.

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Episode Thoughts

It was a solid debut episode for Levi, but a little messy debut for the Gold Ranger and its powers.

Like I mentioned after Episode 7, I hoped that Ripcon finding Levi just as he becomes the Gold Ranger would lead to some big tension. Ripcon suspecting Madam Odius and Madam Odius turning it back on Ripcon at the end was kinda meh and felt tacked on. Considering Madam Odius’ plan just completely failed, you’d think there’d be a more significant fallout scene or scenes. Instead, the Gold Ranger’s been going around fighting monsters for weeks! Kind of a missed opportunity. And it felt more hollow airing right after the cliffhanger of Episode 7.

As for the Prism flying off to look for Levi, it’s just another “Prism knows all!” kind of thing. Other than randomly popping out shurikens and previewing future episodes and toy reveals, the Prism just chooses whoever it wants to become a Ranger, I guess.

I enjoyed the Rangers using their training outfits in fights. I hope they use them lots more both in actual training scenes and out fighting monsters. It also allows for the amazing stunt people to do what they do best.

I noticed Levi shares Kinji Takigawa’s love for parties and partying. “Party night!” So after Yakumo-Preston and Kasumi-Sarah, it looks like Levi will be taking on some of Kinji’s personality (other than being a cowboy of course).

I doubt they’ll bring this over though:

And no that’s not a spoiler lol

But in the cockpit, the morphed Gold Ranger definitely seemed more like Kinji than Levi in terms of the way he was acting.

It was interesting to see the show use a Megazord battle from an episode where Kinji/Gold wasn’t even introduced yet. Of course, Mick only gives Levi his Zord Star at the end of the episode. But it’ll be interesting to see if there’s a reason they decided to use the footage this way. Probably no reason other than convenience. But who knows.

Speaking of Ninninger though, the rest of this episode was from Episode 7 of Ninninger where Kakuranger’s NinjaRed (MMAR) and Hurricanger’s HurricaneRed (Ninja Storm) appeared along with Akarenger to celebrate Sentai’s 40th Anniversary. No such celebration here on Ninja Steel, yet they still used the footage of Kakuranger and Hurrianger powers being used during the Megazord battle. They did switch out NinjaRed from the shuriken Brody used to clone the Megazord. But still, it was Gosei-esque and now Prism-esque to just explain it away as Sarah and Mick created it.

Then again, they’re selling Power Stars/Shurikens featuring past Ranger teams. So who knows if they’ll include that in show for the 25th anniversary. But here, it was just awkward.

And also speaking of awkward, why did they use the Dino Charge theme during the Megazord battle? It was so obvious and jarring. This is one of the problems of just recycling the same theme song and merely tweaking it year after year.

Anyway, this was an okay though flawed episode. But Levi seems like an interesting character. We’ll see how things play out for both the Rangers and the villains moving forward.

0 thoughts on “Recap: Power Rangers Ninja Steel, Episode 8 – "You're messing with the wrong cowboy, pardner!"

  1. I really wish they could bring back Jackie Marchand to work with Chip Lynn again. She did pretty well too with the Disney seasons on her own, but working with Lynn seemed to have worked wonders during their partnership T.T

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