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We start at the Angel Grove Juice Bar, where Jason is trying to break the local bench pressing record with Ernie spotting him. Kimberly comes over to cheer Jason on and we get a few humourous moments where Ernie keeps forgetting what number Jason is on.
We cut to the moon where Rita gets the idea to separate Jason from the other Rangers and beat him alone, and since he serves as the leader, the other Rangers will go down much easier when he's gone. This is Rita's best plan to date, and as we'll soon see, has the potential to work much better than expected. We're off to a good start already.
We cut back to the Juice Bar where Jason is just a few presses away from breaking the record. However, the people watching are distracted by Kimberly blowing a giant gum bubble, and Zach crashing into her, getting gum on both of them. As such, Jason fails to break the record after being just one press away. This part is just dumb. Jason's on the verge of breaking a record, although whether it's local or national is never explained, and the witnesses are distracted by GUM?! I fear for the intelligent people of Angel Grove.
We move back to the moon where Rita and Goldar go over the plan again. Finster suggests using King Sphinx as the monster this time around, a grey muscle-bound sphinx monster who can use his wings to summon giant gusts of wind to separate the Rangers.
We move back to the Bar where Zach apologizes to both Jason and Kimberly for the skateboard incident. They both forgive him, but Jason is still depressed that he didn't break the record, worried that people will call him a quitter. Bulk and Skull enter the area and we learn that the record was originally set by Bulk. We get some goofiness with the two which ends with Bulk splitting his pants. Afterwards, Kimberly tries to explain to Jason that it's OK to ask for help from friends, but Jason still wishes he could've beat the record on his own. Zordon calls them and tells them that the Putties are attacking the children's theater and they need to go fight them. They morph and head to the theater.
The three fight off the Putties for a bit with Squat and Baboo watching. King Sphinx eventually shows up and uses his wind powers to send Kimberly and Zach back to the Juice Bar. He and Jason fight for a bit before Sphinx teleports them to another location. They fight some more, both fairly even, all while Sphinx taunts Jason by saying he's nothing without his friends. Goldar soon shows up and joins the fight. Rita then uses her wand to make both monsters grow, making things even worse for Jason.
We cut to what we assume is Billy's house as Kimberly and Zach fill in Trini and Billy on the situation. They try to contact Jason and fail, and teleport to the Command Center for help.
Zordon shows them Jason fighting the two monsters alone, and says that they need to use the Power Crystals to help him out, which are an extension of their powers and can be used to gain better control of the DinoZords. I'll talk about the inconsistency issue with the Crystals at the end of the review. The four summon their own Crystals and Alpha teleports them to Jason's location. Jason gets them and uses them to bring the others to his location, and they quickly summon the DinoZords. They use the Crystals as control sticks and soon for the MegaZord's tank mode.
They fire everything at Goldar and King Sphinx, but it doesn't do anything and the two retaliate. They change to the true MegaZord and start to put up a better fight, beating the crap out of the two monsters. Goldar starts to gain the upper hand, but in a weird moment, they briefly switch back to tank mode to attack him before switching back. The MegaZord then zaps them with a head lazer, which sadly isn't seen much after this moment. Sphinx starts to gain some ground by summoning his wind again, and the Rangers decide to bring down the Power Sword. They actually get to use it this time, defeating King Sphinx with it. Goldar retreats again before they can kill him, however. Rita, of course, is pissed, especially since they had gotten fairly close to winning this time.
We cut back to the Juice Bar where Jason is trying to break the record again, this time with more people watching. With the other four Rangers behind him and Trini counting off, Jason successfully breaks the record. The group cheers and Jason thanks them for supporting him. Ernie comes in with a cake to celebrate, which leads to a funny moment where Ernie reveals he got it at the last minute, and as such, the icing reads "Happy Birthday Mom". Bulk and Skull enter and Bulk vows to get his record back. The group offers him some cake, and as he moves to get it, he trips over some weights and falls face-first into it. The group laughs and the episode comes to a close.
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This episode was done much better than the previous one, though that isn't saying much. The message here isn't as blatant as the previous two episodes, as cases can be made for "believing in yourself" and "trusting your friends", which I like, as viewers can walk away with different outlooks from each other. Rita's plan this time was much better, and Jason's conflict with his self-confidence helped that along, giving the issue he was having much more importance.
King Sphinx is considered by many to be the most memorable monster-of-the-week of the first season, and for good reason. His look was simplistic, yet cool and evil all the same. The fact that he was used in Rita's smartest plan to that point and was on par with Jason in terms of fighting ability added to that. In fact, I remember owning one of those vinyl toys of King Sphinx as a kid, due to his popularity. Bulk and Skull's segments were funnier than the previous episode, but didn't detract from the rest of the episode, giving this one a happy balance between comedy and drama.
However, the one issue I have with this episode is with the Power Crystals. It's never explicitly stated just what it is they do, we just assume it has to do with the DinoZords, since we later see them use the Crystals to control the Zords. The question here is why? Why are they even needed. The Rangers had no issue controlling the Zords in the previous three episodes and even formed the MegaZord, so why need the Crystals? The truth is that in the Sentai, they got the Crystals early on, and they needed them to form the MegaZord. But since they formed the MegaZord in the first episode, we had a bit of a plothole. I guess that would be why we didn't see the MegaZord again until now, but one still wonders what the point was.
Overall, a good episode which gave us both a memorable monster and some character development for Jason, but the Power Crystals bit was out of place. Hopefully we'll continue to see good episodes like this as we continue with the series.
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King Sphinx, the one monster everyone remembers.
The Power Coins in the Power Morphers.
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