1.24 The Spit Flower

Season 1, Episode 24
"The Spit Flower"
Writer: Peggy Nicoll
Director: David Blyth

Episode Summary:

We open with Kimberly working on a scale model of her float representing world peace for a parade.  I think it's supposed to be akin to the Rose Bowl parade since she's using a lot of flowers and tells Tommy that after the parade they're going to recycle the flowers by turning them into potpourri.  Rita sees this through her telescope and is driven mad by the idea of world peace, which luckily for her hasn't happened yet.  She sends putties down to trash Kimberly's float leaving her devastated and Jason (arriving too late) declares Rita's a "real witch" but you and I, dear viewer, know he meant another word that rhymes with witch.

The group takes Kimberly to lunch to make her feel better while Tommy has "stuff to take care of" since he can never be in the same place with the other Rangers at the same time.  Rita creates a monster called the Spit Flower monster that turns every plant in its path into a human-eating monster.  After a short fight, Rita makes her monster grow.  Zordon calls Tommy to join the fight so they can form MegaDragonzord - but oh no, that's not enough!  They regroup and Zordon holds Tommy behind in case the Rangers fail.  Kimberly shoots an arrow in the Spit Flower's mouth (apparently his weak spot) and the Rangers form their Power Blaster with their weapons and the good guys win.  Tommy then asks for Alpha's help in a project in his garage (I bet it's Kimberly's float!).


We end at Ernie's with the teens watching the parade on television.  Apparently Kimberly did not want to see the parade due to her grieving the loss of her float but they convince her to anyway.  Tommy forces her to stare at the screen and we see HER FLOAT!  She gives Tommy a hug and the romance continues.  Zack does a magic trick and Bulk and Skull run away.


Facts:


-First line: Kim - "Thanks a million, Ernie."
-Focus: Kimberly
-Last line: Zack - "The hand is quicker than the eye."
-Zack's shows us his first magic trick


Observations:


All things considered, this episode really isn't that bad.  There's nothing amazingly special about it, but we get to see Kimberly's acting chops and some light-hearted comedy with the team trying to pick up Kimberly's spirits.  We also see the high school boy in Tommy as he tries to find ways to get Kimberly's affection as he carries a book in front of him (jk).  All in all, it's really sweet.  Also, we see (again) that the teens really are good role models for the kids watching at home.  Kimberly created a world peace float and her friends helped her put it back together when the putties destroyed it.  Quite the heart-warming display of teamwork.

A lot of episodes get caught up in one character or the action (sometimes glossing over the semblance of a plot at all) and especially in later seasons we forget why Zordon picked these teens.  Their friendship makes them a strong group and given that they're all so "different" from each other, episodes like this show us that they do care about each other and that they are in fact friends.  I appreciate the character development episodes, they're a lot easier to watch than the bland (read: stupid) plot episodes.

I can see my obvious bias in that any episode about Kimberly will automatically be an awesome one for me and that might not be the case for others.  I can see that unless you're a Tommy or Kimberly fan, these last few episodes have really left you feeling slighted.  Zack's getting some more screen-time and we see his other interests (i.e. magic and his catch-phrase "the hand is quicker than the eye") which is quite different from my observations from the pre-Tommy world.  We're seeing a lot less of Billy and Trini (after watching the Zyuranger counterpart episode, Trini really got screwed with the Shellshock episode) and I'm not entirely sure this trend will change anytime soon.