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Wow, not wasting any time this episode, we're starting off on the moon. Rita and Goldar form a plan that involves our monster-of-the-week, the Twin Man, transforming a group of Putties into exact duplicates of the Rangers, in order to ruin their reputations. I'm not sure if this is petty Rita or serious Rita this week. It could really go either way. The evil Rangers are sent to Earth, which look exactly like the real Rangers, except they're wearing black sunglasses so they're OBVIOUSLY evil!
We move to the school where the evil Rangers are walking through with various tools, indicating that they're up to no good. Naturally, Bulk and Skull show up as they start to mess around with a drinking fountain. Evil Kim agrees to a date proposed by Skull, and evil Billy tosses a nerd around, which naturally confuse the hell out of our comedic duo. After pulling the top off of the fountain, they pour some sort of soap into it and put it back together. Rita gloats about how everything is going exactly as planned.
Later...oh no, Principal Douchelan is back. Of course, he's the one to turn on the fountain, getting sprayed with white goopy stuff. Evil Jason promises that this is just the beginning, then lowers his glasses as his eyes glow EVILLY red. Douchelan sees them and assigns them detention. The evil Rangers walk off just as the real Rangers walk in, and of course, Douchelan assumes they're the same. We cut to the detention classroom, where the group is told to stay for the rest of the day along with Bulk and Skull. I don't know the time period of this episode, but I'm assuming it's the end of the day, as there's no way any normal school would make students miss class for detention. Then again, considering who apparently runs the place...
Bulk tells Jason to move out of his seat. Which leads to this humourous moment:
Jason: Do I see your name written on it?
Bulk: Yeah. *pushes Jason's book out of the way* See? B-U-U-L-K.
Trini: It's not even spelled right.
OK, this episode has won my heart already.
Of course, Skull gets shot down by Kim when he mentions the "date". We then get a funny sight gag as Bulk opens his lunchbox and pulls out enough food to feed a small country. Yeah, I know, it's a fat joke, but the reaction on Kim's face makes it work. Skull begs for food from Bulk like a lost puppy and gets a pop can for his troubles. The group starts to wonder what's going on, which leads to another great moment.
Zack: Skull thinks he has a date with Kimberly.
Billy: Not even Skull is that mentally deficient.
Skull: *opens pop can, pop sprays into his face*
Then, to add onto this onslaught of comedy gold, Skull tries to spray some on Kimberly after she laughs at him, but she moves out of the way and it hits Bulk. Bulk responds by throwing a pie in Skull's face. Skull's response?
Skull: ...gee Bulk...this is better than mom makes. Thanks for sharing.
I know I've devoted a lot of space to this one section, but it has just been great all the way through.
We cut to the moon as the second phase of the plan is revealed. We see the evil Rangers, now morphed, arrive downtown and immediately start to cause havoc. Not just simple things like wreck property, but they actually start firing their Blade Blasters on innocent civilians. I have to admit, Rita's plan is really well done so far.
Back in school, the Rangers are still wondering just how they wound up in this mess. Bulk continues to prove how expertly trained he is at goofing off by pulling out a TV from his "Detention Survival Kit" to watch cartoons. That's just awesome. Naturally, it's interrupted by a special news report, which informs our heroes of the fake Rangers' attack. Bulk and Skull, of course, approve. The Rangers try to figure out a way to get down there and stop them, one of which is sneaking out while Douchelan is distracted. This doesn't work, of course. So they decide to just morph and teleport out of there, but there's the issue of revealing themselves to Bulk and Skull. Zack gets the two to close their eyes and ears and count backwards from 10 as a "magic trick". They do so, and have trouble counting, which allows the Rangers to morph and head down to the battlefield.
They meet up with the evil Rangers and Scorpina (and by the way, Bulk and Skull have now given up counting and realized the Rangers are gone), and they start to fight. I have to admit, just seeing the Rangers fight their similarly coloured counterparts is just plain, old-fashioned cool. Of course, the viewers can't tell which is which, so they don't know who to root for. This presents a new problem when a Pink Ranger calls to Trini for help. She helps her...and it's the evil Kim, of course. The real Kim takes her out, however, and the pink Putty is the first to go. And I love Rita's small "uh-oh" here. After her, the yellow Putty is next. Billy takes out the blue one next as Rita gets more and more aggravated that she's losing again.
After another gag with Bulk and Skull looking for the group, Zack takes out the black Putty. Jason takes out the red Putty with a Rider Kick (because that's how it's done, of course), which turns out to not be a Putty but instead the Twin Man monster-of-the-week. And now that I got a good look at him, he looks pretty awesome. That whole metallic diamond theme is just cool. He starts to beat down the Rangers with some weird mirror trick, but the Rangers get the upper hand with that Blade Blaster stand-on-the-shoulders formation thing. Then they form the Power Blaster and end Twin Man. The citizens of Angel Grove show up and instantly forgive the Rangers of all wrongdoing. Rita, naturally, is livid and gets another headache, the poor girl.
Back at school, Bulk and Skull give up on finding the Rangers, and decide to report to Douchelan that they skipped detention. They leave to do so, which allows the Rangers to teleport in and act as though nothing happened. I do like the one line here.
Douchelan: Alright, but if they're in there, you'll be doing detention when you're 50!
Skull: So what's another two years?
God, I love these guys.
Naturally, Douchelan sees the Rangers in their seats and Bulk and Skull get more detention. The Rangers leave while Bulk keeps asking how they did it. Eventually, the two just shrug their shoulders and the episode ends.
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Again, we have an episode I actually remember from my youth. What's weird is, I remember it less than the Polluticorn episode, besides Bulk's sight gag and the Rangers having to leave without revealing themselves to Bulk and Skull. Why is it I remember the shitty episode more over the good one? But once I saw the whole thing, memories came rushing back, and this episode is just as cool now as it was then. The comedy was spot on, probably because Bulk and Skull got so much time to shine, and the fights were entertaining as hell. After all, what isn't cool about having Rangers fight their evil counterparts? The monster-of-the-week was pretty cool too, but he didn't get much screen time. The only downside I can think of, apart from that, is no MegaZord. It's a minor thing, though, and you won't even be bothered by it. Overall, an excellent episode that is a huge step up from the previous one. Highly recommended.
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I think the fact that this picture of Twin Man is from the Sentai counterpart rather than the actual show should indicate how little screen time he got.
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