1.2 High Five

Season 1 Episode 2
"High Five"
Writer: Steve Kramer
Director: Adrian Carr

Episode Summary: We open showing off Jason's amazing ability to climb a rope and Trini is concerned for his safety.  We are led to believe Trini is afraid of heights, however Ernie's Gym and Juice Bar suffered structural damage when Rita began wreaking havoc in the last episode.  Trini is just exercising caution since the rope is attached to the roof, srsly.  Billy arrives in his overalls and glasses and Jason sits on his head while coming down from the rope climb.  Wearing Jason as a boa, Billy swings back and forth comically while we, the audience, enjoy circus music.  We learn that Billy invented "communicators" which function as these devices that allow members of the team to communicate with each other regardless of their location.  Kim remarks that this is "so 90s."  Touché. 

The un-morphed rangers find out Billy's communicators tapped into the morphing grid (oops!) and they can teleport, too.  They encounter a group of Rita's Putties, Billy ends up on a rock formation which requires Trini to overcome her fear of heights to rescue him.  Rita's monster of the week, Bones, is a skeleton who transports the Rangers into a time-warp (has nothing to do with the plot) and Trini throws his head into a giant pit which destroys him.  Since we haven't used the Zords yet in this episode, Rita uses her magic wand to make a random monster grow.  He kind of looks like a medieval knight - but again, he has no relevance to the rest of the episode and disappears just as quickly as he shows up.  We end at Ernie's again and playful Zack scares Trini into climbing up the rope by wearing a skeleton mask (a la Bones).

Facts:
-First episode to focus on a specific character, Trini
-First line - "Okay Jas, let's see you do it." -Kimberly
-Last line - "ZACK!" - Kimberly
-Trini is afraid of heights and has a knack for tech language
-Kimberly first introduces the phrase "Morphinominal!" which she says twice in the episode
-Billy invents communicators and enables self-induced teleportation

Observations:  Bulk and Skull don't hit on Trini and Kim this time, but rather pick on Jason's climbing ability and call him "Monkey Man."  This prompts the sassy teenagers to encourage Bulk to climb a rope with no regard for his safety.  He's an overweight character with little upperbody strength, forcing him to climb a rope with no safety mat underneath caused him to hit his back on the floor when he fell.  So let's laugh at his failure?  Seriously?  Second, Zordon still has this weird English accent.  Third, what's with the random knight monster Rita throws into the mix?  Obviously it's for show-length and to have a chance to use the Zords in the episode (read: 30 minute toy commercial).  But it also shows how creative Saban is in incorporating the Japanese Sentai footage into the US format.  To the trained eye, we see two different episodes of Zyuranger used to bring us "High Five". 

Early Hypothesis: Also, what I'm noticing is that while Jason and Zack have the strength and martial arts training necessary to fight villains and Kim and Trini are both agile and can flip out of situations easily - the team really wouldn't be able to beat most of Rita's villains without Billy.  His communicators are carried throughout the entirety of the series - and at the time were kind of crazy since only Zack Morris had a cell phone.  He enables the rangers to choose when they teleport and allows them to coordinate from long distances.  Oh yeah, AND he knows martial arts (as we see in Episode 1), oh yeah, AND he's a trained gymnast (or, David Yost - the actor is).  Trini speaks tech, knows martial arts, and has the physical flexibility that Kimberly does (without the grace) - clearly she and Billy are the most valuble/undervalued members of the team.