My expectations for Power Rangers reunions are low. Call it cynicism, old age, or 30 years of mostly subpar specials and team-ups. You don’t need RadBug 2 to jump over this low Juice Bar. That’s right, two cutesy references out of the way in one sentence of the first paragraph. How’s that for a pull-quote?? You already know this is gonna be a banger of a read.

Luckily, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always has more going for it than the majority of those aforementioned event episodes. And there’s a lot more to talk about than I’ll ever care to get to here. Now it’s time to over-analyze the shit out of this thing. So let’s go.

Tone

Right off the bat you’re hearing words that characters in these shows aren’t known for using. I’m sure it was at least a mild debate in the writer’s room whether or not to use “die” and “kill” instead of the traditional, G-rated “destroy” or “finish” (among a trillion other softball words) when talking about the Avada Kadavra-ing of Trini.

But hearing Rita Repulsa casually brag about murdering a Power Ranger, while a little jarring at first, also amps up the stakes in a way we haven’t seen fully realized before. Gracefully working the real-life passing of one of the show’s main cast members into the episode, while also respecting the severity of the situation and the weight that comes with all of that, couldn’t have been easy. If you think about it too hard, it kind of becomes a meta-commentary on the idea that we can’t shield kids from the concept of death forever.

Especially because Putties are murdering journalists on American soil, which even on its own is reason enough to get back into the colorful spandex.

So… Minh

Minh… Minh took me a minute. Okay so early on you see Trini get evaporated saving Billy’s life from Rita’s blasty cloud. Soon after, there’s a scene of Minh blaming Billy for what happened. I came to the conclusion that Minh was referring to the fact that Trini sacrificed herself for him. Which is REALLY cold, dude. She died defending one of her best friends and you’re gonna blame the survivor?? She didn’t exactly endear herself to me at first.

But then we get more context for what Minh actually meant, which was Billy pulling an oopsie trying to bring Zordon back and getting Robo Rita instead. In retrospect I get they were trying to do a boiler-plate sorta Mystery Box moment, but holy crap, it lead to Minh making one hell of a first impression on me, and I think that poisoned the well as far as my opinion goes. Maybe Minh could have teased the Robo Rita reveal with some small tweaks to her lines. I don’t know.

I’ve come around on her, though. She’s spunky. I have no doubt we’ll be seeing more of Minh in whatever crazy plans Hasbro/Netflix have for the future.

Though that scene where she plowed through all of those Putties and took so much delight in their wet clay remains splattered on the windshield of the new RadBug… I’m just worried about the poor girl and I hope she’s getting the support that she needs.

Billy Cranston, CEO

Billy comes in as the clear leader of the pack. Long gone are the days of running off to space with hot alien babes. Now he’s back in Angel Grove, running Cranston Technologies from the side of a fuckin’ mountain.

Underneath his company’s HQ, though, Billy’s keeping secrets. He has a new Command Center built as well as his own edition of Alpha (first 8, then 9). His mission? Bring back Zordon. Instead of Zordon though, he got Alpha 8 possessed by Rita, creating Robo Rita, inadvertently causing this whole situation to happen.

Other than missing the ol’ coot, I’m not certain why Billy and Alpha were trying so desperately to bring Zordon back. Just Power Ranger things, I suppose. For a thing so focused on Billy, I’m surprised he didn’t really take any lessons away from this kerfuffle other than “I’m mysteriously gonna go back to traveling space hmmm wonder if there’s some Cosmic Rangers out there :)” Let’s just hold off on reviving Zordon for a little while, perhaps.

Congressman Zack Taylor

Well… he did go to the Peace Conference. May as well spin that “situation” into a career in politics.

Uncle Zack is back. No mention of that conference, but he’s clearly been a busy dude. After Trini bites it, he takes over as Minh’s legal guardian, moving in with her and abandoning his civic duties for his old friend’s kid.

Jokes aside, it was either him or Billy, and ol’ Cranston is clearly too busy being a Tony Stark type to take care of some breeder’s spawn. And he was probably more active as a Ranger by this point anyway, which would also cut into his work time. That’s what I’m choosing to believe.

Beyond that? I don’t have a lot else to say about Zack. He’s still Zack, but Walter’s performance was easily the standout. Nothing against anyone else.

“Hey that’s not Kim”

I think Kat effectively doubled her overall screen time as MMPR Pink with this thing. For real, how much of that footage is there? It can’t be more than 5 minutes. Someone get me those numbers.

Nothing against her, though. It was cool that she got to yell Pterodactyl for the first time (for the uninitiated, the team was using “[Color] Ranger Power!” instead of dinosaur names to morph by the time she showed up). She even said the thing about “too much pink energy,” which is one of those silly bits that I’m pretty sure Zordon just made up strictly to discipline these children back in the day.

Catching up with Kat is nice, she’s just always gonna be Zeo Pink to me first and foremost. I think whoever edited the end credits was in a similar headspace, using her Turbo “turn to the camera and smile” shot instead of Mighty Morphin.

Rocky Just Wants To Eat Lunch

My man showed up to a distress call with a freshly reheated carton of noodles he was ready to eat for lunch. Rocky is presented not as the fearless Red Ranger a casual fan may be expecting, but as the laid-back goofball he’s meant to be.

He’s a firefighter, too! Rocky fighting fires would probably be like that scene in The Little Rascals. Remember when they try to put out the fire at the He-Man Woman Hater’s Club and the hose for some reason lifts them into the air while they’re blasting? That’s Rocky at work.

The Characters Actually Act Like Their Characters

This seems like a given, but if you’re a Power Rangers fan you’ve probably seen a handful of team-ups where returning Rangers just feel… off. The most recent – and probably best – example is Austin St. John’s return as Jason in Beast Morphers. That felt more like some guy showing up and pretending to be Jason, more than a returning veteran helping out some newbies.

Hell, Jason in Forever Red was also off, but at least he had some sort of personality. Even if it was a little cocky.

Here? Billy acts like Billy and says things like Billy. Same for everyone else. I don’t know how to describe it beyond that. If you know, you know.

Member-berries

References for the sake of references annoy the hell out of me for no real reason other than I guess I hate being pandered to like a child. I say this while watching a children’s show and I get that but it can just be a lot sometimes, y’know?

This brings me to RadBug2, a new version of a flying car that Billy built in the original show, for use when they’re in situations where teleporting isn’t an option. Except it almost always is an option. See, they used the original RadBug for a handful of episodes and then it disappeared shortly after Tommy turned good. It was left in the past for a reason. Unless this new version acts as some kind of mobile command center, they may as well have brought back Jetting instead. It’s equally as helpful in that it’s not.

I have no issue with callbacks in general. Just the silly dumb ones.

Dialogue That Made Me Lol [sometimes for the wrong reasons]

Active Rangers geeks will notice a few… Dino Fury-isms that will no doubt leave some sweaty nerds divided on whether or not this is a pro or a con. It’s filmed like Dino Fury. The dialogue is reminiscent of Dino Fury. As Alpha 9 put it…

And we knew it would be from the start, right? Same crew, same writers, all that.

But the thing manages to avoid a lot of Dino Fury’s weaker bits, such as all the business with the Morphin Masters. If you’re a casual and don’t know what that means, it’s fine. Think midichlorians. Don’t know what midichlorians are? Have fun outside, you fucking loser.

Speaking of Dino Fury-isms, for every good gag or clever line, there’s another that matches its cleverness with awkwardness or weird delivery. Is this any different from 30 years ago? Not really! Here’s some of my favorites!

Rocky trying to make conversation with Billy like he’s a coworker

The Future of Children of Zordon

So this is my first post in months. I’ve been doing other stuff and re-watching this show endlessly hasn’t exactly been a priority. Surprise surprise.

In the meantime, I’ve picked up some other hobbies, such as creating 3D shadowboxes of Pokemon and Digimon cards. If that’s up your alley, Insta and TikTok are probably the best places to find me.

The next article will be Lily (EVENTUALLY), and then there will be a super special entry after that. One that I kind of have to do. You’ll know when you see it. In the words of the Lightbringer, “it’ll be out when it’s out.”

Between this and running No Context PR, I’ve watched so much of this fuckin show the last 5 or so years it’s not easy to binge and stay sane anymore. But I’m here and I will get to it. Eventually. Slowly.

For now, I leave you with that last frame.