Season 22, Episode 8: Double Ranger, Double Danger

"Double Ranger, Double Danger"

Episode 8

Air Date: April 4th, 2015

As a mid-season finale for the first season, "Double Ranger, Double Danger" has the tough task of managing to move the story forward as well as personal character story arcs and leaving kids anticipating the return of the show's second half.  And it's once again a very superbly done outing.  Poisandra and Fury have been at each other's throats with Poisandra trying to get the rangers out of the way as quickly as possible for her and Sledge to get married while Fury is all too eager to win Sledge's favoritism as Poisandra tries to make him look so incompetent when looking for the energems.  Despite Poisandra's incessant nagging, she actually once again comes up with a rather brilliant plan.  This time, using one of Sledge's bounties, Duplicon, to make clones of the rangers to trick them into getting their hands on the E Tracer.  Meanwhile, we get some plot progress with Tyler searching for his father as well as learning what he thinks of each of his teammates so far.  Clearly the writers making it well....clear that he has a thing for Shelby! Ooooooo, I already ship for sure! Unfortunately, when the team's search for the gold energem is interrupted by a nearby alien signature, Tyler quick hides the E tracer in the Jeep but the clone rangers reveal themselves and fool Tyler into taking them along instead of the actual rangers.  I love how the scene is played for laughs but builds to a suspenseful reveal when Tyler realizes his jeep has been sabotaged and the fake rangers reveal themselves to be Vivix in disguise.  

But before Tyler can get the E Tracer back from them, Poisanda arrives with Duplicon who knocks Tyler done a hill and he blacks out.  Ummmm ouch! O_O  As the rangers try to regroup at their base, Keeper sends them out to track another alien signature in the city in hopes of getting the E Tracer back while he and Kendall try to find Tyler.  Meanwhile, Fury is upset that Poisandra's plan actually worked while Duplicon makes more duplicate rangers to send out to destroy the real ones.  So Poisandra doesn't one up with beating the rangers and finding an energem, he decides to go after the Red Ranger and capture him to bring to Sledge.  Soon Tyler wakes up and summons his Dino Cycle in an awesome sequence when he morphs and rides off to go after Sledge's forces.  Back in the city, the rangers run into clones....or rather their clones hilarious run toward them.  I just find it puzzling how Chase was able to get those daises into the rangers belt buckles without them noticing and how he knew the duplicate rangers would show up morphed but the fight scene for the most part is still entertaining, especially the rangers accidentally hitting or hit by the wrong ranger. lol  Meanwhile, while Tyler is close to finding the other rangers but Fury attacks him and forces him to demorph.  What follows is a very intense and well choreographed unmorphed fight between Fury and Tyler, especially when Tyler discovers Fury in fact met his father and may know what happened to him.

Some pretty solid acting by Brennan Mejia as Tyler grows more bada$$ and agitated over what Fury may have done to his father.  Unfortunately, the rest of the team is in trouble dealing with Duplicon and while trying to contact Tyler for help, Fury gains the upper hand and almost destroys him....if not for some glowing gold energy trying to escape from him; causing him pain.  With the rangers in trouble, Tyler decides to head out instead to finally help them as he morphs and summons his Dino Steel so the rangers can use the Dino Spike to defeat Duplicon.  But it goes as well as you'd expect when Sledge makes Duplicon grow and the rangers call on the Dino Charge Megazord to fight him.  Once again, the rangers use the Tri-Ankylo formation to destroy him....but not before using a surprisingly hilarious Sentai gag of the megazord releasing dinosaur gas aka farts to stun both Duplicon and a Vivizord.  Who would have thought it could work??! Ha!  But even after destroying the monster, Poisandra and Wrench are close to finding the gold energem, Fury intervenes and steals the E Tracer from them to find the energem himself.  The rangers, not wanting the Fury to get away with the E Tracer, regrettably ask Chase to aim at it and destroy it; despite them needing it to find the other gems.  Unfortunately, Fury manages to salvage the gold dino charger; meaning he still can use from energy from it to find the Ptera zord.

So things aren't looking good for the rangers but the episode does wrap up with them at least stopping the villains this time as well as Tyler mentioning the bizarre moment of something fighting its way out of Fury.  Also, Shelby finds the present Tyler's dad gave to him, clearly showing the two falling for each other.  I just love how clueless Koda is while everyone else gets it.  Yoshi is doing such an incredible job with the character and very solid writing overall.  "Double Ranger, Double Danger" isn't perfect but man is it hard not to thoroughly enjoy these episodes that feature so much effort in the acting, action and story(ies) of the season.  Everything is just moving at such a smooth, well written pace with very little to complain about...at least...sigh...so far! :(

Final Morph: A