Season 17, Episode 17: Prisoners

"Prisoners"

Episode 18

Air Date: July 11th, 2009

Wow, I really found this episode painfully unnecessary despite it being an arc episode with essential plot movement as well as story development.  Honestly, RPM has been the most serialized season to date since the urgency of protecting Corinth from Venjix and Dillon's mysterious past were the focal points of every episode thus far even when focusing on other characters and their development.  The plot is constantly moving but "Prisoners" feels like the plot was more running in circles than moving forward.  For one, Gem and Gemma mention the Grinder factory and how they are going to blow it up despite Scott's orders, especially when they reveal that Dillon has a sister based on their time within the factory; talking to a strange girl who was very nice but also blind.  What I'm saying it, the two do this twice, first by going at the beginning, then after leaving that note for Dr. K about going on a super special mission.  And yet, we never see Gem and Gemma at the factory but rather coming back out of nowhere to help the rangers with Venjix's latest creation aka Sawbot Generation 15.  Its just really puzzling and makes no sense.  No I'm not gonna say it's the idiocy of the characters cause I actually really LIKE Gem and Gemma! Sorry! lol It's definitely the writing here, which doesn't know what to do with the episode besides give us some tidbits to advance the plot but literally doing nothing to move the rangers forward to stopping Venjix.

Dillon's discovery of his sister is nice but his solo mission that turns out to be him and Ziggy heading to the factory doesn't really do much in developing Dillon or make any progress with the revelation.  Suddenly, Summer comes out of nowhere to help the two with a pack of Grinders and their plan to infiltrate the factory to find information on his sister just doesn't seem well thought out, which of course, goes back to Dillon being extremely irresponsible for disregarding Scott's orders but then, that's just Dillon: Do what I need to do now, follow orders later.  Once again, a very Cyclops/Wolverine parallel between the two that can be entertaining but here, clearly Scott was right to wait on the factory mission.  Tho it does lead to some nice bits like Ziggy hilariously distracting the Grinders in the factory with shadow puppets! HA! But ultimately, it's all for nothing as Dillon finds out his sister was there but not her name do to the Grinders blasting the console he was reading.  Yeah, since he's becoming a machine, Dillon can apparently read digital coding...hmmmm. O_o

Back in Corinth, Scott and Flynn are the only rangers left to defend the city, which is also dumb considering they should have known they were leaving the city with much less defense than usual. -_-  But the three arrive in time (Apparently, they can just come and go into the wasteland now??? O_o) to morph and aid the others.  Also, this Bot was made to be a very serious threat by Dr. K since it was learning the rangers' moves and outfighting them....yet because Dillon found its weakness in the console, they can destroy it like it was nothing???  Such a quick and rather pointless threat/zord battle if you ask me.  But the end of the episode does give the episode a bit of merit as Summer and Dr. K discover that the rangers will have to go back to the factory since it's housing a Doomsday machine that is powerful enough to blast through Corinth's shields and annihilate the city.  Ok, an awesome set up but still, it makes "Prisoners" all the more redundant despite Dillon finding out he has a sister and learning more about the Grinders, how their created and the human slaves forced to manufacture said Grinders in the factory.  Much Ado About Nothing Much??? :P

Final Morph: D+