Season 9, Episode 18: Trust and Triumph

"Trust and Triumph"
Episode 18
Air Date: June 2nd, 2001

Wes and Jen have had an uneasy relationship this season so far.  Clearly Jen sees a lot of potential, even good in him as she even said he is a great ranger but clearly her judgement is being affected by how much Wes looks like...you know...her supposedly dead fiance and all.  The thing is Jen puts a lot of pressure on the team, especially Wes because of that fact.  She can't help but constantly see Alex instead of seeing Wes that it's no wonder she gives him a hard time after he isn't able to hold up his part of her plan to arrest Nadira.  It leads to an intense scene, well acted by both Jason Faunt and Erin Cahill as Wes makes some good points about why Jen doesn't trust her.  Jen is hard nut to crack, unable to trust people because she's not willing to open up.  Meanwhile, a new released mutant named Turtlecon is showing Ransik his alternate dimension as he plans to trap the rangers there.  During his attack, Turtlecon succeeds in trapping all 5 rangers there as they awake in a strange beach where they are confronted by evil counterparts.  Sigh....this just makes me miss the Psycho Rangers!!! :(  Anyway, the rangers decide to defend themselves but the evil rangers are clearly too much for them as they beat the crap out of them.  I really enjoy the Sentai footage of Wes' fight as he and his counterpart trade blows on top of water.  After blasting each other with their V-Weapons, the rangers notice a giant crack in the dimension and quickly head for it.  As their evil counterparts run after them, Jen and Wes manage to make it out but the rest remain trapped thanks to Turtlecon stopping them in time.

As Jen and Wes try to contact the others, they head back to the Clock tower where Circuit tells them they each have to fire their weapons on each side of the dimension's opening at the exact same time to free them; meaning one of them will have to go back there.  I love how Circuit has to keep reminding them they need to complete trust each other and work together. LOL We get it writers! But honestly, what follows, is a touching moment between both of them as Jen tells something very personal to Wes when he gets nervous about their mission.  Apparently, Jen doubted she could be a good officer for Time Force....until she met Alex.  He immediately saw something in her that she didn't as he help improve her training.  She eventually gained her badge and trusted him ever since.  Before Wes can confront Jen though, Circuit gives them the coordinates for the gate to the other dimension.  As Jen enters, she gets trapped once again in the other dimension.  Meanwhile, the other 3 rangers morph again to fight off the evil rangers but get their asses handed to them.  When Jen heads for the coordinates, her evil counterpart comes to stop her while Wes in the real world ready to fire.  While time quickly runs out, Jen manages to get to her V-Weapon and fire at the exact location just as Wes does too.

After destroying Turtlecon's dimension, all 5 rangers reunite in the real world to defeat him; ultimately leading to a zord battle as usual.  As Time Force Megazord Mode Red confronts Turtlecon, he creates a duplicate of the megazord.  Wow! O_O  As the duplicate meagzord attacks, the Time Shadow arrives just in time to take care of Turtlecon.  The rangers then used Mode Blue to destroy the duplicate and then form the Shadow Force Megazord to finish off Turtlecon.  The episode concludes with Wes teaching Jen some old fashioned target practice as she gets a quick flash of how much Wes reminds her of Alex. But it's different now as Jen begins to trust Wes completely; ending the episode nicely.  Wonderful episode overall.  I think I enjoyed it WAY more for the great development between Wes and Jen than for the actual plot.  Really well done characterization and character exploration! :)

Final Morph: A-