Season 18, Episode 12: Jayden's Challenge

 

"Jayden's Challenge"

Episode 12

Air Date: April 10th, 2011

Sooooo last episode left us on this whole dramatic cliffhanger that saw Jayden leaving because of the unfortunate event of his team getting hurt while protecting him. Not to mention, the immense burden of having the only symbol power strong enough to seal Master Xandred for good. You would THINK the writers would build on this by truly getting deep into Jayden's psyche, not to mention past with his father before taking on the mantle of Red Ranger...but in typical Samurai fashion, this is all glanced over and made non-sensical in the first place.  I love it how Jayden leaves but just decides to stick around the city (Once again, having no name! Errrgghhhh! -_-) instead of I don't know, truly going away and isolating himself.  I honestly don't get the point of him leaving when he spends most the episode in the city just moping around and dwelling in self pity.  Oh and don't get me on that scene with that little boy he confronts at the playground.  You know what's really pathetic??? I know the acting this season so far has been clearly one of the worst but it's an entirely new low when a 3-4 year old can give a more convincing performance than your entire main cast! WOW!!! Seriously, who is this little boy and how embarrassing it must have been for Alex Heartman to act opposite a pre-school age child and being outperformed by him in a matter of a minute or two???!!! I just....YIKES!!! And honestly, this sudden bond he builds with a kid goes virtually nowhere and just reminds Jayden of when his father use to make him paper airplanes as a kid to get him to smile and accept his destiny as his successor, blah, blah, blah.  But where's the explanation of why Jayden is so hard on himself to gets things right and be this stoic leader.  These flashbacks are so empty and hollow they feel more like padding for the episode instead an integral part of the story moving forward. No progression what so ever! -_-

Oh and what are the rangers doing, moping about Jayden and Kevin some how figures out a way to combine the Battle Wing with the Samurai Megazord. This really doesn't feel like conflict and even Mentor Ji doesn't take this hard.  Treating Jayden's leaving as a temporary inconvenience than the fact the leader of the team just abandoned them when they need him especially since he's the only one with the power to seal their Big Bad this season!!! -_- Carry on without Jayden, yeah, I understand you want to keep the rest of the rangers motivated and focused on the mission but this would have been a great time for some genuine wisdom to encourage the team, maybe even have them do some symbol training to combine their powers to maybe seal Xandred.  Doesn't matter if they failed! Would have been much better than them meandering this whole episode until the next Nighlok attack. Sighhhh...anyway, the monster of the day is Robtish again, who Master Xandred sends back out to finish off the Red Ranger, especially now since he's alone.  Great job Jay making yourself an easy target and easily overwhelmed without your team.  Not the smartest team leader we've had, but not the worst yet.  Oh Megaforce!!! :_( But it's the other four rangers having to come in and fighting alongside Jayden that saves him...now suddenly he just realizes their a team and need to do this together when rangers won't shut up even during a civilian fight with their spin swords!!! Seriously, we get a cool looks unmorphed fight with weapons and we get more puns/horrific one liners of inspiration when all we want to see is the damn action.  For the love of God, stop.  TALKING!!! O_o

Anyway, the rangers morph, manage to work as a team and destroy Robitsh....until he grows and summons a horde of flying Moogers who kick the crap out of the rangers in their Samurai.  Clearly outnumbered and overpowered, they decide to use Kevin's new megazord formation with the Battle Wing to create the Battle Wing Megazord....yeah.  More like clusterf$%& megazord at this point but hey it gets the job down and the Sentai footage is awesome seeing the megzord fly after the flying Moogers and destroying them one by one.  Seriously, how did they achieve that!!? O_o  Those Japanese are freakin' magicians with their effects work sometimes! O_O  So the rangers then defeat Robtish once and for all; leading to an ending where Jayden leaving was barely an issues apparently as he realizes what he did was wrong and Mentor Ji just allows the rangers too have fun until their next battle.....I just........*HEADDESK*  At least we got a cool, even awesome scene of Deker being confronted by some Moogers, then Master Xandred in the Netherworld.  Turns out he is half human and that's why he has a human form and can move between Earth and the Netherworld without being dried out like other Nightlok.  Nice bit of build up on his character, building intrigue on how that's even possible but a minor moment of interest in yet another mediocre episode of this season that seems to be moving forward because it has to but nothing is really going on of real importance.  Hmmm! O_O

Final Morph: C-