Season 11, Episode 36: Down and Dirty

"Down and Dirty"
Episode 36
Air Date: October 18th, 2003

For an penultimate episode of a series, "Down and Dirty" feels more like a one off with some plot movement but a main plot that's very inconsequential to the overall character development of the characters it is primarily.  So Blake and Hunter have beef all of a sudden because Blake beat him in a motorcross race??? I mean, yeah, I know the writers were trying to highlight they are siblings and it IS realistic given how siblings would fight over the most random things sometimes for the most stupid reasons...I get it! But this is the episode leading into the finale of the season, this is where the majority of the main storylines of the show should be being brought to close...but outside the villains, this feels like just another day in the lives of the Ninja Storm Rangers and it doesn't make for the best episode. Honestly, the episode is more interesting and better when focusing on the villain side of things...but that also because Marah and Kapri apparently have been "faking" being stupid and incompetent the whole time when they force Shimazu to join forces with them when Vexacus is on a warpath to get rid of every other general.  I mean, I find this hard to buy...so they were acting the whole time and have been planning to takeover the world on their own for a while.  Then what about "All About Beevil" when Marah was kicked off the ship??? O_o  Was this before that?  Did she prove herself again to continue her secret evil plan with Kapri???  It would have been really nice to see you know, a nice foreshadowing for this is in earlier episodes to make this you know...MORE believable???  But whatever...they were evil all along!!! *GASP* O_O

So what are their plan you say? Well, after freezing and freeing Shimazu, we see the girls have built three megazords to have a pilot for each of them.  Funny how one of the megazords looks like an overgrown pink Beevil because I'm sure there's a Sentai explanation but ehhh, it's cute I guess! Anyway, Kapri lures the rangers out with her zord; forcing them to arrive and form both the Storm Megazord and Thunder Megazord.  Turns out, Kapri isn't bad and manages to even get the Wind Rangers to accidentally fire at Blake and Hunter.  Lol! As soon as the rangers are in deep trouble, Cam sends out the Samurai Star Megazord with two drone zords that look just like it. And just in time two, Shimazu and Marah arrive to surprise attack the rangers.  With both clones Samurai Star zords attached to both the Storm and Thunder Megazords, Cam goes after Kapri while the other rangers fight off Marah and Shimazu.  After destroying both Shimazu and Marah's zords, turns out there is some electromagnetic after effect that happens to both megazords...which doesn't even last too long so what was even the point of that? -_-

Soon the rangers form the Hurricane Megazord while Tori summons the Mammothzord so they can combine and finish off Marah as well as Shimazu.  Meanwhile, Vexacus tells Lothor of his nieces' plan and how they've been faking it the whole time (That didn't sound right at all! O_o) but tells Vexacus that they are family and he won't destroy them...hmmmmm....to Vexacus' annoyance and frustration.  As Shimazu and Marah recover, Kapri and Marah take the time to reveal more parts of their plan...which includes destroying Shimazu! Ummmm....O_o...ok...and Vexacus shows up out of the blue to reveal that the three have been working together all along and are trying to overthrow Lothor....wait what??? O_o  I'm just like.....??? Oh and there's some plot point about Dustin giving up racing for free-styling and Kelly fully supports him??? Ok...I'm just like this is all so random and coming during the episode before the season officially concludes...I don't know.  "Down and Dirty" is great in one end that the plot is really kicking up a notch but it's doing it in a way these new villain machinations are coming out of no where as the expense of the rangers being nicely positioned for their final battle but whatever!  I'll give it a pass for the multiple zord fights being fun and impressive with the various formations making an appearance...but other than that....it's FINALE TIME!!! :)

Final Morph: B+