Season 26, Episode 7: A Friend Indeed

 

"A Friend Indeed"

Episode 7

Air Date: April 20th, 2019

Man, it's always nice when an episode of Power Rangers can be genuinely emotional and sweet without going overboard with the ham-fisted lessons that it tries to deliver to its viewers.  I thought "A Friend Indeed" was going to be a retread of something that was already explored during "Ninja Steel" via "My Friend, Red Bot".  The fact that the robots or in this case, the Beast Bots can't have emotions and should just obey their orders seemed like we'd have to learn this lesson all over again....but luckily, "A Friend Indeed" explores the flaws and faults of the rangers' judgement of the robotic assistants.  I like how we see the Beast Bots from both perspectives with having their distinct personalities and then being completely emotionless, obedient tools for the rangers to exploit as they want.  It shows that while the Beast Bots maybe a bit too overly friendly and annoying at times, their distinctive personalities are actually an asset to their programming instead of a hinderance from actually getting things done for the rangers.  I also makes sense that Nate would program them as such as well as wanting them to be more than just artificial programs to help the rangers.  He wants to Beast Bots to be friends with the rangers aka build a trusting bond, even relationship with them like how he wants a brother in real life.  He immediately doesn't understand why the rangers wouldn't appreciate them even with their occasional mistakes, which the rangers quickly learn that their Beast Bots aren't so prone to making mistakes and just care about the rangers by not just doing exactly what they ask.

It gives the impact of the story some needed depth and layers.  Even if we haven't seen the relationship between the rangers and their respective Beast Bots too often since they debut in episode 2, "A Friend Indeed" does a more than adequate of job of warranting why they are essential to the team and why the rangers should lighten up on how they were programmed.  Meanwhile, the villains not only come up with a decent plan per usual but are even instrumental in showing the rangers how solely robotic assistant that just do what their told has just as many errors to it than their usually personality fueled comrades.  I loved the idea of stealing their memories to get information on how to work the rangers' zords.  Also, the rangers coming up with plan to set a trap via Jax was also spot on.  I really do enjoy the element of the Beast Bots on the team, especially the great voice acting that being done for them.  Jax's voice actor did such a terrific job conveying the emotions of the jackrabbit robot, especially the moment when he gets his feelings hurt by Zoey and makes her realize she's the one that made the mistake.  Then the reveal of the surprise party Smash, Cruz and Jax had planned for them....all done so naturally and packing a hell of nice punch to the feels. Wow! :_(

Also, I thoroughly enjoyed the inclusion of Nate's hologram competent of the rangers' Beast Blasters and how it was actually used in the final confrontation between the rangers and monster in getting those memory discs back of their Beast Bots.  But not just that as apparently Scrozzle is using the parts he stole from last episode as a means of creating a Cybergate that will apparently have enough power to help Evox crossover into our world for good and infect the Morphin' Grid once and for all! Oh boy! O_O All and All, "A Friend Indeed" does a superb job overall of really selling the moral dilemma here between the conflicted, irritated rangers and the underutilized Beast Bots so far who are given a surprisingly genuine amount of depth in a story that shows just how awesome their component to the team actually in the grand scheme of helping the rangers. :)

Final Morph: A