1.20 Green with Evil Part IV: Eclipsing Megazord

Season 1, Episode 20
"Green with Evil Part IV: Eclipsing Megazord"
Writer: Gindy McKay and Stewart St. John
Director: Robert Hughes

Episode Summary:
Goldar is still destroying Angel Grove as per the end of the last episode and Rita is still planning on creating a solar eclipse to drain Megazord of its power and the Green Ranger will still be the one to destroy Megazord after all of this is done.  So the first nearly five minutes of the episode are simply recapping (and re-showing that Megazord eclipse footage for the third time) without any new action.  The Rangers attempt to morph but sparks come out of their morphers instead - turns out Alpha's computer usage is causing an inter-dimensional power surge that keeps the Rangers from morphing.  So we can't morph, we can't use the Zords yet, and the Command Center is basically broken - Mercury must be in retrograde.

Billy realizes he can connect these negative electrodes here and these postive electrodes there and voila we have power in the morphing grid again!  Our heroes morph and battle Scorpina while Squatt and Baboo dance a jig behind her.  We find out Zordon is in sector Q-9 and as Alpha tries to recover him, the Green Ranger enters the Command Center again to take out Alpha and send Zordon to a dimension where he'll never be recovered (bwahahaha!).  He commits the bad guy faux pas of talking too much and while he's telling Zordon exactly where he'll be sending him and that evil will triumph, Alpha's backup power kicks in and he captures the Green Ranger.  By far making him the most useful good guy in this saga.

Bulk and Skull try to escape Angel Grove on a bus only to have giant Goldar pick it up and dangle it over the Rangers heads.  If the Rangers try to save them, they'll drop the bus.  If they don't try to save them, they'll drop the bus.  What to do?  Let's get some Dinozord power in there, that's what!  Megazord saves Bulk and Skull and then goes after Goldar and by now a giant Scorpina as well (by the way, Scorpina loses all beauty when she grows) - Rita then conducts her spell and drains Megazord of its power.  She then brings in her beloved Green Ranger (teleporting him out of the Command Center) to finish off Megazord.  Giant Green Ranger does the job and the Zords all retreat into a fiery pit as the Rangers watch a part of themselves die. 

Back in the Command Center, Kimberly and the others decidedly give up since they can't use their Zords, Zordon's gone, and Rita has three major bad guys that can kick their butt at any time - they've deduced that they don't stand a chance.  Jason refuses to accept this from his teammates and Alpha agrees.  Zordon would never accept that.  But then Zack states "Zordon's not here" - BOOYAH!  Alpha tells the Rangers he locked on to some of the bio-something-or-other from the Green Ranger when he captured him earlier and the computer is trying to find an identity match to the DNA.  Guess what?  It's totally Tommy. The other Rangers can't believe it and Kimberly most of all is shocked that such a d-bag can be the Green Ranger.

Facts:
-First line - Zack "Goldar's blowing the world to bits!"
-Last line - Kim "I don't believe it, Tommy?"
-First on-scrren - All
-Megazord runs on solar power

Observations:
Rita is finally employing something the Rangers never do - strategy.  Seriously, she has a damn good battle strategy.  I fight the Rangers to either distract them or weaken them but pull back before I finish them to psych them out.  I take out their computers and advisor and most power weapons.  I taunt their humanity by challenging their compassion for Bulk and Skull.  Then finally I let it all loose and unleash my strongest warrior (Goldar), my most skilled fighter (Green Ranger), and my most sinister and evil henchwoman (Scorpina) AT THE SAME TIME IN GIANT FORM!  Maybe it's because she's had four episodes to bring this plan to fruition, but you have to give her credit for a well thought out plan that actually works.  We won't see this kind of ingenuity from the Rangers (then again, they're teenagers and not a centuries old witch).

This episode has more action to it than the last and actually starts to give some answers.  Tommy is our evil Green Ranger and all of his behaviour makes sense.  What I'm not understanding is how they didn't see this coming before.  He started out a nice guy and then turned into this jerk who is the last person Jason sees before he disappears (and then lies about it).  And also, Jason's fought Tommy in an exhibition match in Part I and fights him again in this episode and you can't identify his fighting style?  He does the same tornado kick in every episode how can you not pick up on it by now??  And his little "keeyah" sound??

Anyway, I'm realizing now that Alpha is a lot more useful than I gave him credit for when I first watched this show.  He single-handedly captures the Green Ranger (nobody else can lay a finger on him) and figures out his identity.  He finds Zordon even if just for a second (Billy's been tinkering with the computers for four episodes now and can't even do that).  Additionally, he gives a pep talk that trumps Jason's (the supposed leader).  While his "ai yi yi yi yi" might get annoying from time to time, I'm learning to look past that and to the part of him that is really helping this team progress the plot in this five-part mini-series.