Season 23, Episode 1: When Evil Stirs

"When Evil Stirs"

Episode 1

Air Date: January 30th, 2016

Luckily, with Tzachor now gone, the second season premieres during this era DON'T have to be the same name as the SUPER title.  Not to mention, Dino Supercharge is the best title of these second seasons so that's also a plus there.  "When Evil Stirs" (Great title! :) wastes no time in showing us what the characters have been up too since we last saw them, but first we get a nice quick recap of Season 1's events via Tyler once again writing in his father's journal in the hopes of one day finding him.  Meanwhile, Shelby has been forced to study business instead of paleontology by her dad, Riley is still being farmboy, Chase is in New Zealand....doing Chase things while Ivan and Koda are still working at the museum's restaurant alongside Ms. Morgan by day and searching for the last two energems by night!  Unfortunately, even with Sledge now apparently gone, a new evil has arrived in the form of Snide, who was teased as a cliffhanger last season and makes his full appearance.  I gotta say, he makes an intimidating first impression and I love how he looks like a more advanced, deformed Zeltrax (Which I hear was actually a thing in the Sentai!??? O_o).  But as Sledge's forces recover from the crash, it seems there's more to Snide than meets the eye as he painfully transforms back into Heckyl.  Seems the two share the same body....Heckyl....Snide.....I wonder if this is some kind of clever reference to something?!??? O_o  Hmmmmm....  Tho I have to admit, Heckyl continues to be a joy to watch, immediately taking charge of Sledge's crew and captured monsters to make his own mission to get the energems from the rangers.  Of course, anyone who doesn't want to be apart of it gets horribly eviscerated and branded a potential failure.  Seriously, Heckyl REALLY reminds me of a superpowered Joker, over the top deranged temper and all!!! lol 

Also, it's really awesome to see how the two sides of the new main villain works with Snide being the temperamental brute and brawn ready to cause utter chaos to get things done while Heckyl, despite being more powerful, would rather use brain in coming up with a strategy to get closer to the rangers.  We quickly see Heckyl using more ingenuity by using his familiarity with Kendall so he can get a job working at the restaurant.  It's really clever and suspenseful; the first time we've ever seen a villain trying infiltrate a team of rangers by going undercover in an environment they regularly are around in.  Meanwhile, the other rangers are being attacked by some monster one by one until there is only Koda left as he discovers Ivan and Ms. Morgan encased in ice when they try to investigate.  Apparently, Ice Age is behind this......when did he get revived again?! O_o As he attacks Koda but Koda manages to escape as he begins freezing him.  With Koda the only one left, he heads back to the base...but luckily Tyler managed to escape Ice Age as well.  Where has been then??? Hiding??? O_o  But it makes for a heartwarming reunion and we learn Koda has an apparent phobia when it comes to ice since when he was bonded with his energem, he was also encased in ice for 100,000 years before Ms. Morgan and Chase discovered him during an expedition.  Seriously, we need a full backstory of how the team started coming together as even this is an impressive filling in on what made Chase and Koda join Ms. Morgan and Keeper before the others in the premiere.  So with this news, Tyler tries to talk Koda into facing his fears despite his extreme hesitation in fighting Ice Age again.

Luckily, Tyler manages to get to Koda fairly quickly as they confront Ice Age in the city and morph!  Only to get frozen like the others and taken by the Vivix to where the other frozen rangers are being held.  Ummmmm Tyler, what the hell kind of plan was that!??? O_O  But it turns out to be a set-up as when Snide arrives to destroy the rangers, it turns out Ice Age only froze their suits!???! Ummmmmm, they can just do that!??? How??? O_o "There's a simple explanation for....." AHHHHH! Moving on! *Hides*  Tyler and Koda soon reveal themselves by attacking Snide and Ice Age before using the Dino Blaze chargers to free their friends.  As all the rangers quickly reunite, they all discover Snide is now the new boss in town before Kendall takes the lead in all 7 rangers morphing.  It's an awesome fight as usual; especially getting to see the purple ranger in action alongside the team for the first time.  But during the fight, Snide must run away as switch between him and Heckyl begins so Heckyl isn't discovered to be an enemy of the rangers.  After all 7 rangers finish Ice Age off with their combined weapons, Heckyl arrives at the ship to order the magna beam......which now just fires into space before ricocheting off a satelitte to make the monster grow.  WOW!  Anyway, the rangers summon their zords and form the Plesio Charge Megazord Pachy-Rex formation to destroy Ice Age as well as a couple of grown foot soldiers in battle.  With now a new enemy running things, the rangers quickly regroup at the base as Prince Phillip also arrives as they now must find the last energems even faster before Snide can get his hands on them.  Overall, a very strong premiere as we get more Heckyl, who make for a very remarkable villain with Snide as his other half.  It's great and so new to see a villain using subterfuge as a plan to undo a team of rangers and we get some great development with Koda as well as more pieces of how he came to be discovered by Ms. Morgan.  Where ever the season goes from here, it sure makes for an awesome start. :)

 

Final Morph: A