Recap: Power Rangers Beast Morphers, Episode 16 – “Oh great, he sucks too.”

Recap: Power Rangers Beast Morphers, Episode 16 – Gorilla Art

In the middle of the night, Ravi secretly goes into the lab to paint Roxy in her pod. She is the only one he’s ever told about his art, especially when his mother would be pissed if she found out about it.

Suddenly, Smash appears and is wowed by Ravi’s talented work. Ravi responds by shutting him down and erasing his memory.

Ravi hides his art supplies before turning Smash back on. Smash is confused why he doesn’t remember what’s just happened. Ravi suggests he relax and do something fun.

After Ravi leaves, Smash has the strong urge to paint, so he gives it try on the lab table before deciding he needs a bigger canvas.

Next morning, the Burke Sibs are riding their bike in the park when they see Smash painting on the side of a building. They scramble to shoo all the onlookers away before they scold Smash for leaving GBHQ without permission.

Ben and Betty try to blast Smash’s painting off the wall with a firehose, but they instead get hurled backwards into the lake.

The Rangers arrive. Nate thinks someone must have reprogrammed Smash. But before they can figure it out, Turbotron flies in with Blaze and Roxy. The Rangers morph and they battle.

Turbotron tries to kidnap Smash, but Devon and Ravi are able to save him. Ravi takes Smash to an abandoned warehouse to wait for GB transport. But Turbotron follows.

Turbotron tries to suck and then blow Ravi away. But Smash steps in front of Turbotron’s turbines to protect Ravi. Ravi is able to shoot and destroy Turbotron with Smash’s help.

Over in the Cyber Dimension, Scrozzle has completed the Beast Powers upgrade. But just then, Vargoyle appears and demands Scrozzle return the Fury Cells he stole. But Scrozzle points to Blaze and Roxy as the ones who wasted them.

One punch and Vargoyle sends Blaze and Roxy flying into the wall.

Evox pops out amid all the commotion. Scrozzle explains Vargoyle is one of his early creations. But Vargoyle had used the Fury Cells to power himself up which then turned him against Scrozzle.

Evox wants Vargoyle to work for him. And if he can prove himself, Evox will give him the upgrade.

Vargoyle takes the deal. But Blaze and Roxy take issue with an interloper possibly getting the power they were promised. Evox corrects them and says he would reward his strongest servant and that is certainly not them.

Over at GBHQ, Smash apologizes to Ravi for causing all this trouble. Ravi decides to tell him everything, but the others interrupt when the walk into the lab.

Commander Shaw says they must find out why Smash is obsessed with art which is a waste of time for anyone in Grid Battleforce. Nate goes into Smash’s system and sees it has been corrupted. That means they can’t use the Wheeler Zord. Before she leaves, Commander Shaw tells them to hurry and fix it.

Nate sees someone tampered with Smash’s programming and Ravi admits everything.

Devon thinks Ravi painting is a joke. But Ravi says he is serious and shows them the painting of Roxy he’s been working on. They think it’s great.

But a Morph X tower is being attacked so they hurry over while Nate works on fixing Smash.

The Rangers morph when they encounter a hooded Vargoyle who pretends to be weak against them. Vargoyle calls Scrozzle for help to complete the charade and Scrozzle sends in a Turbodrone.

Devon leaves to meet up with Cruise to take on the Gigadrone. It is able to fly in the air so Devon calls Zoey to come help. But the Gigadrone just swats Zoey and Jax away.

Meanwhile, Nate has Smash back to normal and Smash hurries off to meet up with Ravi to help Devon finish off the Gigadrone.

That leaves Steel alone with Vargoyle who stops the charade and goes full power. Steel is forced to demorph and Vargoyle is about to finish him off for good. But Nate arrives for his bro.

Vargoyle leaves, having collected enough Morph X for Evox’s liking. Evox tells Scrozzle to give Vargoyle the power up.

Scrozzle warns Vargoyle not to fight too much or the Morph X will run out.

Vargoyle is upgraded and vows to kill the Rangers for Evox. Evox promises to share the Morphing Grid power once he gains control of it.

Blaze and Roxy are upset they weren’t chosen so they decide to work together to get rid of Vargoyle.

Meanwhile, the Rangers paint over Smash’s inoffensive mural at the park. Ravi apologizes for erasing Smash’s memory. But Smash says he wouldn’t have told anyone Ravi’s secret anyway. In fact, Smash has known about Ravi’s art for months. But he made sure to keep it a secret knowing Commander Shaw’s opinion on the arts.

Smash reminds Ravi that he is here to protect him.

Ravi admits how wrong he was not to trust his Buddy Roid Beast Bot. Ravi thanks Smash for always having his back and he hugs him.

Smash is surprised since Ravi’s never treated him nicely before. Anyway, Smash says Mama Shaw loves Ravi more than anything so maybe she’ll change her mind about art one day.

Ben and Betty spill soapy water on themselves.

Episode Thoughts

Another week, another chance to nitpick about Beast Morphers!

But seriously, this week it’s much more fair than other weeks. lol

I’ve harped on how horrible Beast Morphers has treated the Beast Bots. Instead of making each of them a fully developed character, they’ve simply been tools and military weapons the Rangers only care about when they need them.

In Go-Busters, the Buddy Roids played a bigger role in the story and in also helping to add to each of the Rangers’ characters as well. I guess that was partly because of Go-Busters‘ overall plot involving what the three Rangers went through as children. The Buddy Roids were essentially their second parents as they grew up.

Still, even without any of that backstory for the Beast Morphers Rangers (is that how you call them?), the Beast Bots could absolutely have been developed and used more than they have been. We’ve seen a random episode here and there where the Beast Bots have taken on an important part in the plot. But most of the time, the Beast Bots don’t even appear in episodes. (Or worse, they do appear in the episode but are treated like sh-t scrap metal.)

When really, Cruise, Smash and Jax should have just as much character development as Steel (who was technically a Buddy Roid in Go-Busters).

This episode was an example of a great story involving the Beast Bots. The episode did acknowledge Ravi didn’t trust Smash and he learned his lesson at the end.

But an episode like this for each of the Rangers where they take their Beast Bots for granted should’ve been an early season plot to establish the importance of them in the story and for the characters.

It’s been such a waste to not have the Beast Bots be full-fledged characters, fully sentient beings with their own thoughts and feelings who regard the Rangers are their friends. Again, similar to the way Nate loves his “bro” Steel.

With the Rangers themselves not being too engaging as characters (Ravi, I think, has been the most well-rounded though), perhaps having more interactions with the Beast Bots in random plots could’ve helped make them more interesting. Instead, we got filler after filler of forgettable episodes that neither moved the plot forward or helped the characters grow.

But the New Zealand footage looks nice!

Meanwhile, other than the big episode where Evox almost gained a physical body, the villains have been mostly incompetent as well. So this episode also showed just how much they’ve been irrelevant as Vargoyle’s entrance gave them a much needed shot of adrenaline. Having them fail over and over while Evox’s endgame isn’t the direst situation has grown tired over 16 episodes so far.

Anyway, overall, this was a better episode than the fillers we’ve gotten since the return from the break. But it also highlighted how much potential has been wasted this season.