Season 18, Episode 16: Team Spirit

 

"Team Spirit"

Episode 16

Air Date: May 21st, 2011

Of course, when an episode looks half way decent, Samurai can't help but spoil the potential tension and exciting takes with some tawdry resolution that makes no sense but whatever! But the episode does start off promisingly as while the rangers are preparing to surprise Emily with a birthday party, a new Nighlok named Splitface (Heard MUCH worse! :P)  arrives in the city and begins stealing the spirits of the civilians of the city.  All 6 rangers are unfortunately no match for the monster, especially since he can split himself into various pieces that can attack them quickly.  Hence the name of course! During the fight, he manages to suck out Emily's spirit and tells the rangers they have no way of stopping it since in 24 hours, the spirits will be gone forever as he waits in the Netherworld until that happens aka causing so much pain and sorrow that the Sanzu river will finally flood the Earth.  Once again, great plan and the fact the rangers can't get to him is a plus, leaving them helpless to save their fellow teammate.  Ummmmm, clearly Mike loves Emily more than the others (Seriously, like the monster just hurt his girlfriend) and wants to go after him by trying to lead him out of the Netherworld.  Unfortunately the only way to enter the Netherworld is by becoming a Nighlok thanks to Deker showing up out of no where to sigh....once again, tease his fight with Jayden but saying he isn't ready, blah, blah, blah.  Like I said, he reveals to the rangers that they would have to sacrifice their humanity to become a Nighlok to enter the Netherworld; foreshadowing a bit of his backstory since he is half human. Honestly, it's a really devastating realization and the fact that Jayden, Mike, Kevin and Mia are willing to sacrifice their humanity to get Emily's spirit back was probably the strongest moment of drama and emotion from the show so far this season.

But of course, instead of building on this exceptional idea of ultimate sacrifice, Antonio comes out of nowhere with some random idea of using the claw zord to lure Splitface back to their world.  He gets the team to use as much symbol power as possible to make the Claw zord more powerful aka grow as well......which some how is able to bring Splitface back! How you say??? Well apparently, Antonio marked Splitface during their last fight with him....if that was true than why the hell didn't he tell the team as soon as possible instead of waiting for the last minute??!!! Emily's life was at stake you fantastico ranting fool!!! -_-  Ewww anyway, the rangers morph and begin fighting the monster again, who can't even split apart anymore thanks to Antonio's marking, oh give me break! Anyway, the rangers manage to destroy him but he just grows, leading them to have to call on their zords as usual.  Unfortunately, without Emily there, they can't form the Samurai Megazord, so Antonio uses the Claw Zord and unleashes its battle mode to fight  Splitface.  When he is overpowered and out numbered by the giant Moogers as well, Jayden, Mike and Kevin call on the auxiliary zords to form the Battle Wing to help him in the fight as Antonio manages to destroy Splitface once and for all.

Now Emily can have her party! Yay!!!! Ewwwwww, this would have been a MUCH< MUCH better episode if the writers actually took a risk with the show and made the story a lot more serious...or at least make sense.  The moment of rangers almost sacrificing themselves had too much potential but the writers just squander the quality of the show with more nonsensical resolutions and plot twists out of nowhere. Ewwwww!!! Next episode! -_-

Final Morph: C-