Season 26, Episode 10: Thrills and Drills

"Thrills and Drills"

Episode 10

Air Date: September 21st, 2019

WOW! O_O  You know it's not often an episode of Power Rangers can be a genuine comedic one without the unintentional cheesiness and corniness that it usually exudes throughout its run as a kid's franchise! But "Thrills and Drills" actually manages to tell a solid story in terms of the villains' latest plans and the rangers racing against time to stop them.....while also dealing with a human story so trivial and everyday that you might think is might just make the episode look so dumb and filler.  But shockingly, it's anything BUT! The writers manage to make Ravi's tooth ache dilemma rather endearing and dare I say really hilarious at times like Dino Charge's episode "The Tooth Hurts"; only here it doesn't take focus away from the seriousness of the story but only gives it some added levity when it needs it. :)  I like how they incorporated even Nate's fear of spiders into the episode by having him face his fear during a mission so that Ravi could learn to face his fear as well.  Not to mention, the jokes were more hits than misses with even Ben and Betty used to great effect during a hilarious visual gag at the dentist.  Also, the group dynamic is even incorporating some natural humor like when Steel mentions an octopus when it comes to Nate's fear of spiders and Ravi having to correct him.  LOL  By the end of the episode, it's a lesson Ravi learns for himself without needing to be mentored into realizing it and even the coda on the episode is played more realistically than some wink to the camera lesson of the day moment.

On the villain side of things, once again, they come up with a pretty good plan! Not only are Roxy and Blaze competing to be upgraded by Evox but Scrozzle comes up with a plan to force the two against each other when it comes to duplicating all 3 of their Beast powers and rewarding the one who gets all three with those powers.  We also get some nice change in location which is also nice! I loved the underground scene of Ravi, Nate and Steel investigating  which leads to them running into Roxy and a Drilltron as they try to drill underneath a Morph X tower to get it without the rangers knowing.  It's a smart plan and leads to a pretty good fight that starts in the sewers before going above ground.  I also enjoyed the twist with the Gigadrone battle as it fires at the rangers from underneath the city.  It made for a cool final megazord battle as opposed to the usual.  I love seeing the Beast X Megazord in action and its ability to x-ray through the ground as well as managing to destroy said Gigadrone from underneath the city with said ability. :)

Overall, "Thrills and Drills" is lighthearted and fun without being lightweight and forgettable as episodes like this tend to be.  The writers are showing the show can still be vastly entertaining even when the story isn't so heavy and the character interactions as well as humor make up for it by getting genuine laughs out of the viewers.  The villains manage to get one of Rangers' powers as now Blaze will be given an opportunity to prove himself despite Roxy's near failure.  Not bad as usual for this show. :)

Final Morph: A