1.13 Peace Love and Woe

Season 1 Episode 13
"Peace Love and Woe"
Writer: Julianne Klemm
Director: Robert Hughes

Episode Summary:
The teens are helping Ernie set up for the big dance this weekend.  They show their lack of faith in Billy's ability to find a date by offering him unsolicited advice.  He declares he's not going to the dance but working on his weather machine instead and when he least expects it bumps into love Marge.  Marge drops a heart-pendant and then proceeds to talk non-stop about it until we realize she's a nerd too!  Billy's too scared to ask her to the dance, so Marge performs the racy 90s action of asking the boy to the dance!  He accepts.

Rita sends a non-Finster-made monster, Madam Woe, to Angel Grove to kidnap Billy and she accidentally kidnaps Marge instead (she was a nerd wearing blue - they all look alike, honest mistake).  Zordon informs the teens that Madam Woe has an alternate dimension in the gem on her forehead and we need to combine the power coins to defeat her (when were you going to tell us we could do this, Zordy?).  Billy volunteers to take the combined power coins because he's obviously the best fighter and not at all emotionally involved in the situation.  Sigh.

Billy breaks Madam Woe's gem in hand-to-hand combat and we call on the Power Weapons to defeat her and send Marge home.  We end at the dance where Bulk offers money to Ernie for a cake he ruined earlier (which is damn decent of him, actually) and we end with Ernie dancing which is funny because fat people doing anything is hilarious! 

Facts:
-First line - Jason "Spinning, bottom fist, side"
-First on-screen ranger - Jason and Trini
-Last line - Jason "it's not time for cake yet, we've still got the sandwiches to serve."
-Focus character - Billy
-Kim has her first fight scene where she looks like a competent fighter
-Introduction of combined power coins

Observations:
I'm tired of the nerd stereotype that nerds have no game.  Look at any nerd-centric festival or convention and you will see they have a lot more game (given, with each other) than most of the rest of us have.  With this knowledge, it's no surprise Billy and Marge hit it off so well even though she over-enunciates EVERYTHING.  Also please note, this is the first episode in which a Ranger of any color gets a date.

This is one of our first episodes where we see that someone other than Jason can take the lead - which will definitely have an interesting effect on my results for this study.  While Kim and Trini have both killed monsters on their own before, they only take charge by default when Jason is not around.  Billy took charge of things and defeated Madam Woe on his own.

That said, Madam Woe is the first monster that actually looks kinda cool and doesn't have a stupid power.  She's also our first female monster.  Girl power indeed.