The End of the Power Rangers

Over the course of two weeks, I binged season 2 of Dino Fury and Cosmic Fury. Maybe that wasn’t the best way to do it, because I mostly felt empty. Even after 30 years, it’s hard to believe it’s over for the final time. I don’t know if I’ll watch the rebooted series when it comes out.

‭Thoughts on Dino Fury Season 2: I had compared Tarrick to Mr. Freeze in season 1, but Santaura is like Nora from the Harley Quinn series cranked up a notch. It would’ve been better if the Voids showed up in the episode with the wish charms so that Amelia’s wish technically came true even if she didn’t know it. Zayto is the first and only Ranger to die, be brought back to life, and then die again (Cosmic Fury). And as I’m writing this, his catchphrase “Cool, cool, coolio” hits different once I consider that Coolio is dead.

‭Cosmic Fury: People are complaining that Amelia shouldn’t have been the Red Ranger, that it could have been Izzy or anyone else. Well, if it could have been anyone, it was still her, so deal with it. Ten episodes was not enough time to fully flesh out this story, and I’m surprised it didn’t get a full season order. I also heard the actor playing Ollie had scheduling conflicts, so that’s why he was evil for most of it. I liked the father-son dynamic between him and Zedd. I liked the look of concern on Billy’s face when he found out that not only was Ollie evil, Amelia’s parents had been evil too. If the season had been longer, we probably would have seen Amelia start to crack under the pressure. Tarrick, while not a Ranger, still had his badass dad moments. Did not like/was confused by Zedd, Robo Rita, and Billy often referring to Rangers on a last-name basis. Heckyl’s debut as Dark Ranger did not last too long and ended in defeat, which sucked, but at least we got to see him at all. Him morphing again next to Billy looked great. Did not like them taking Squillia as a hostage and then killing her, which felt like an icky thing for the heroes to do. Mucus and Slyther being good didn’t have much buildup, but I’m glad they were in it because they seemed like such fan favorites. I hope they survived the vacuum of space. I couldn’t help but notice that two of the monsters were named after Joe Exotic and Tommy Wiseau, or that Zedd kept saying “sad” like Trump; that weirded me out in ways I can’t put into words. Dino and Cosmic Fury did quote memes and reference pop culture a lot, with Izzy being the main perpetrator, but as another reviewer pointed out, this show was probably written by Millennials/Gen Z.

‭Additional thoughts about Once & Always: It also felt too short. The one-year time-skip made the emotional development uncertain. All it took for Minh to forgive Billy was for Zack to tell her that Zordon was a father figure to them. I’m also unclear on when this takes place. Does Billy try to bring back Zordon before or after finding out that Aiyon spoke to him inside the Morphin Grid? I didn’t even think that was Zordon at first - I just thought it was the personification of the Morphin Grid itself. If the special takes place before Cosmic Fury, then it’s Minh in the cockpit with Billy and the series ends on a cliffhanger with Billy renewing his search for Zordon. If takes place after, then it’s Trini in the cockpit and Billy’s looking for remnants of the Z-Wave because he has confirmation Zordon’s consciousness survived. It’s probably the former since Once & Always released first, but the renewed search for Zordon should be explored even though there most likely won’t be any more content aside from Amy Jo Johnson’s Pink Ranger comics.

‭Side note: I recently saw a couple videos explaining Jennika and Venus in the new Ninja Turtles comics. Anyone criticizing these characters or their artist (who recently left) seems to have a “no girls allowed” stance when it comes to Turtles. These characters were created by men too. I may not be a fan of this particular universe, but I understand it better now and can appreciate what they were trying to do.