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Recap: Power Rangers Dino Fury, Episode 18 – Crossed Wires
Fern catches up to her girlfriend Izzy after school and offers to help her study for her electronics test. Izzy says she’s fine and thanks her for the offer with a kiss. Izzy leaves for hurdles training and the other Rangers arrive to pick Izzy up. Ollie also offers to give Izzy some tips, but she says she’ll be fine.
Solon alerts the Rangers to the park where people are sprawled all over the ground like they’re dead. Papa Garcia arrives and he also falls asleep on the ground. Zayto, Ollie and Amelia leave to take care of a just arrived Sporix Beast on the other side of the city.
Izzy, Javi and Aiyon find some kind of device that is what caused people to drop dead asleep. They tell the others who also find the same device. Ollie is able to deactivate the device at their location with a simple disconnection of the circuits. He calls Izzy and says it’s just like her electronics class, so it should be easy.
A Stone Brother Sporix Beast appears and Zayto, Ollie and Amelia morph to fight it.
Meanwhile, Izzy has trouble trying to figure out the circuit board of the device. She pulls out the wrong thing and the device overloads, shooting at Javi and Aiyon who fall asleep. The other people, however, wake up. Izzy teleports the boys back to the command center.
Zayto, Ollie and Amelia defeat the Sporix Beast and secure the blob. They head back to the command chamber where Izzy explains she had no idea what she was doing with the device. She apologizes and admits that the pressure of doing well in school made her lie. She has no clue about electronics.
Ollie says she should’ve let him help her study. If she did, then her brother and friend wouldn’t be unconscious now.
Izzy apologizes again.
Solon calls Ollie over with an idea on how to reverse the device’s melatonin-like powers. It will take a lot of work though and wonders if Izzy can help. Ollie says she would not be of much help since a year of studying the textbook resulted in two Power Rangers being down for the count. Solon says maybe a hands-on approach will be better for her learning.
Ollie calls Izzy over and patiently begins the electronics lesson.
Over in Area 62, Mucus excitedly tells Void Knight about what happened at the park. But Void Knight tells Mucus and the other two Stone Brothers to shut up while he concentrates. He is completing a Mega Sleep Bong Bomb which the Stone Brothers can use to avenge their brother’s death.
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When they detonate the Sleep Bomb, everyone in the city will fall asleep and they will be free to collect all the Sporix blobs that they want and need.
Down in the command chamber, Izzy finishes helping Ollie with the device and when they try it out, Javi and Aiyon wake up.
An alarm sounds and the Rangers head out to meet the two Stone Brothers who have planted the Sleep Bomb. While the others fight the Sporix and Hengemen, Ollie rushes over to deactivate the bomb. But another hidden device shoots him and he falls asleep.
That means it is up to Izzy to save the day. While she works on it, Zayto, Amelia, Javi and Aiyon hop into their zords to keep the embiggened Stone Brothers occupied. The Stone Brothers combine and the Megazords combine too into the Fusion Ultrazord.
The Rangers kill the remaining two Stone Brothers and Izzy deactivates the bomb with two seconds to spare.
Unfortunately, Mucus takes the two Sporix blobs and leaves.
The next day, Izzy aces the electronics test and credits Ollie for helping her. Just then, Pop Pop falls into a pile of leaves and Izzy offers to fix his blower.
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Episode Thoughts
Better plot, better character moments. Definitely a much better episode all around this time compared to the last two.
Izzy struggling to learn something and feeling so pressured that she is afraid to ask for or accept help is a relatable feeling. And of all the Lessons of the Week modern Power Rangers has trotted out, this is one of the more realistic ones. And more importantly, one of the more well executed ones as well.
And it wasn’t just about Izzy being hesitant to ask for help, but Ollie being a bit judgmental about how she might learn. Solon being the voice of reason is very awesome and I loved seeing that. Both Izzy and Ollie learned a lesson this episode and both were valid and grounded in reality.
When it comes to character moments, other than Izzy and Ollie learning to be more open and willing to understand others, we get more direct mention of Izzy and Fern being in a romantic relationship (including a kiss on the cheek!). Plus Aiyon not being a cocky jerk and instead having that amusing fish out of water “humans are weird” moment.
These are the kinds of moments that help support any kind of story or episode plot. And I think overall, this might be one of the stronger and more complete episodes of the season. Fun, enjoyable and a pair of actually good lessons for the kiddies (and adults) to learn from.