Power Rangers Super Megaforce #2.11 “Love is in the Air” Review

Summary: A delightfully silly episode completes a Shakespearean tragedy with a problematic ending that exposes this season’s biggest flaw.

If you have not seen this episode yet and don’t wish to be spoiled, don’t continue reading. It’s not like we’re MEGAFORCEing you to, or anything.

Recap

Invidious, the butler on the Armada’s mothership, realizes that his childhood crush Levira is on the ship, too. Afraid to ask her out, he spikes her drink with a love potion. It backfires when she sees Jake on her video feed before looking at Invidious, and she sends her minions to kidnap him. Invidious realizes Jake is the object of her affections and vows to destroy him; the lovestruck Levira, in turn, protects Jake. Eventually, Jake is able to break the love spell by convincing Invidious to simply ask Levira out–but that backfires, because when Invidious does and the spell is broken, they both decide to destroy the Rangers. The Rangers are able to defeat Invidious, though, and when he escapes to the ship, Levira has turned him down due to his defeat. Back on Earth, Emma convinces Jake to heed his own advice and ask out Gia, but he is interrupted when Noah shows them a video of Jake’s soccer tricks that have gone viral.

Review

Well, that sure was…something.

In all fairness, “Love is in the Air” is in the same vein of the previous installment, “The Perfect Storm,” in that it’s strictly a light, comedic episode with little to offer. That review ended up digging way deeper than usual into subtext that probably wasn’t there (but could be!), while “Love is in the Air” appears to be fairly direct about the lesson at the end. That lesson is ostensibly that it’s better to be honest and up front with people, especially when it comes to the seemingly impossible unrequited crushes we’ve all experienced. Jake saves the day by figuring out what he needs to hear himself, and heeds his own advice to improve his personal plight. It’s simple, but effective.

Except, that’s not what happens at all. In true Super Megaforce form, the episode immediately undermines its own message by having Jake get accidentally cockblocked by Noah, and ends the episode, again, without any progression on the Jake/Gia storyline. It’s in line with the mixed messages of “Blue Saber Saga” or Troy’s subplot in “Spirit of the Tiger,” with a potentially smart or interesting lesson that gets undermined or is left unresolved by episode’s end. As it stands, this would have been a nice tie between the Ranger plot and character development, something previous seasons have done so well but Super Megaforce has failed at outside of “Power of Six.” But it all gets undone at the expense of a joke, which only happens to apparently drag out the crush until series’ end. That’s counterintuitive considering the interesting story possibilities of seeing Jake and Gia actually go on a date, which is certainly not out of the realm of kids’ shows–including Power Rangers–to explore. But instead, we’re just going to keep spinning the wheels on a running gag that was D.O.A.

So, what is this episode actually about, then, if not to get Jake to that point? Because that’s really the only beef with “Love is in the Air,” which is otherwise a delightful episode marred by its unsatisfying conclusion. This is best shown by Invidious, Levira’s secret admirer, who’s the most memorable monster we’ve had thus far, if nothing else because he’s got unique motivation and circumstances. There’s a complete arc for him, going from his passive crush, to actively pursuing his goal and failing at it out of blind devotion, to learning how to overcome his previous mistakes. Invidious honestly has more of a character arc in this single episode than most Megaforce Rangers (sans Noah and maybe Jake) have had over the entire series.

But what’s really striking is that Invidious, this one-off villain who will probably disappear after this week, actually works as a fairly solid classical tragic hero. The term “hero” is used loosely here, of course, given that he’s still a typical Power Rangers monster–so unsubtle that he’s “literally burning with jealousy.” But if one were to isolate him from the Ranger storyline, fixating on his status as a character out for love on the ship of a grand conquering kingdom, Invidious is in a position not unlike the heroes of lore (though, notably, not the man on top in this situation like Macbeth or Oedpius.) But one could argue that his arc does follow in line with Aristotle’s rules of tragedy, albeit roughly, and only as well as it could in the context of Power Rangers.

To distill how Aristotle defines a true tragedy to its most basic sense, the big tentpoles are the frailty, reversal, recognition, and catharsis. Invidious’s “frailty,” or tragic flaw, is his utter blind devotion to Levira. The “reversal”–where the opposite of what was planned or hoped for by the protagonist takes place–happens when the love potion makes Levira fall in love with Jake. The “recognition”–the point when the protagonist recognizes the truth of a situation, discovers another character’s identity, or comes to a realization about himself–could be a couple of points: when Invidious realizes that Jake is the object of Levira’s affections, or more likely, when Jake makes him realize he could have just asked Levira out the entire time. The “catharsis”–which is supposed to arouse the audience’s pity and fear and subsequently purge them of the emotions, which is happens when they witness some disastrous and moving change in the fortunes of the protagonist–happens when Invidious is defeated by the Rangers and rejected by Levira. But the most telling piece of the puzzle is best explained in the cliffnotes of Aristotle’s essay on Tragedy that I’ve been quoting (which, much as it’ll anger my old college professors, I figure is okay to cite considering this is a Power Rangers review and not a dissertation):

“It is true that the hero frequently takes a step that initiates the events of the tragedy and, owing to his own ignorance or poor judgment, acts in such a way as to bring about his own downfall. In a more sophisticated philosophical sense though, the hero’s fate, despite its immediate cause in his finite act, comes about because of the nature of the cosmic moral order and the role played by chance or destiny in human affairs.”

Invidious’s actions destroy his chances with Levira worse than if he’d done nothing at all. But what’s even more tragic is that, by his nature of being a monster, he had no chance in the first place. In the Power Rangers universe, only the absolute most good characters are allowed to survive in the long run, and usually that only happens when they defect to the Rangers’ side and/or turn human. The universe was never going to let Invidious get what he wanted because he was a monster on the wrong side, no matter how much he claimed to be “a lover, not a fighter.”

The points that don’t quite match up are that Invidious isn’t exactly from a position of power like most tragic heroes–he’s a butler, after all. But he’s a butler on the mothership of an invading Armada that has taken over a big chunk of the galaxy, so you could argue his position of power in the context of Earth. And the catharsis isn’t perfect on the outset; it would probably fit typical Shakespearean tragedies for Invidious to be slayed by the Rangers in battle, still pursuing his blind devotion to someone who only said she loved him because it would help her destroy her enemies. But at the same time, having him survive is such a subversion in the context of Power Rangers that it’s even more piercing to see Invidious finally get what he wants thanks to the Rangers, only to have it violently ripped away from him, also thanks to the Rangers. It’s not something the series does often, and his survival and subsequent rejection is an even worse punishment than being destroyed. It may not exactly be the catharsis we’re supposed to feel based on Aristotle’s breakdown–though it’s still a surprising fit–but it’s a catharsis to have some slight justification for why we sat through this episode.

Because the alternative–that this is supposed to be character development for Jake–is decidedly unsatisfying. It’s cute seeing Levira spinning Jake around as they get shot at, and there are cool Legendary transformations into the Rangers of Mighty Morphin and Turbo, both of which have great fight sequences. And the cast is clearly having lots of fun with the ridiculousness. It came together much better than the whiplash of “The Perfect Storm,” and is not boring in the least. And just the sheer surrealism of a giant monster being coached by colorful spandex-clad heroes asking a human-size monster on a date makes this episode memorable. There’s plenty of fun in this episode, perhaps the one thing Super Megaforce has excelled at, and it mostly works because of that.

But it’s also the best example of what this season has failed at profoundly: having a point. And like the best tragedies, it’s that tragic flaw–this season’s utter reliance on pure nostalgia, and thus its inability to do anything when it’s not being nostalgic–that makes it disappointing, no matter how fun it may be.

Odds & Ends

• I’ll always maintain that the best of Power Rangers‘ many love potion episodes are Mighty Morphin‘s “Beauty and the Beast,” strictly for Amy Jo Johnson’s Rita Repulsa voice; and Ninja Storm‘s “I Love Lothor,” which is a tour de force of meta comedy.
• The instamorph Jake does as he spins around the pole is a pretty cool stunt.
• There’s an abnormal amount of padding this week, with stock footage of every Ranger turning the key for Super Mega Mode, and all the individual Super Megaforce transformations.
• I definitely got chills from each Ranger saying the names of the Mighty Morphin weapons, just as they would when making the original Power Blaster.
• What was with the obviously dubbed Sentai footage of the old woman with Invidious in the garbage? It’s so rare to see it these days that it definitely stands out.
• The Rangers yelling “HER?” gave me serious Arrested Development flashbacks.
• “Alien/human love triangle? Gross! Now that’s one for the books!” Y’know, this season gets really weirdly xenophobic sometimes. Not to get on a soapbox about this, but it goes against all the things Power Rangers has taught over the years about tolerance (I know, he’s talking specifically about evil alien monsters, but still!) Plus, there have totally been alien/human love triangles in Power Rangers before. And it’s especially mean-spirited given that they now have an alien on the team. Wish Orion was around to comment on it.
• Speaking of…where was Orion?
• The Rangers’ commentary on the Levira/Invidious situation is spot-on. “Well, that backfired!”
• Come on, guys, if you were going to emulate the Turbo Megazord’s signature move, you could have totally called it a Legendary Spin-Out.
• Frustrating as the ending is, it’s worth noting how much this cast has improved even with the limited material. Gia’s reaction to everyone pushing Jake to ask her out is fabulous, but it’s way overshadowed by Troy doing…whatever the hell he’s doing with his face. I don’t know what’s up with Andrew Gray, but it seems like he got tired of doing the stoic stuff and decided to leap over to the opposite side of the spectrum and is overacting his pants off. Which, on any other TV show would be downright horrible, but he’s actually fitting into Power Rangers-style overacting perfectly all-the-sudden. Good on you, Gray. You’re still probably not a very good actor, but at least you’re getting this show down!
• The more-gorgeous-than-usual screencaps this time around are thanks to Rangercrew, which in addition to being a generally awesome hub for Power Rangers discussion and info, also has a great catalog of images that luckily got uploaded before the review went up this time around.
• “He’s the monster…I mean the man of my dreams!”