Summary: The best story arc of the last two years concludes with great moments for Troy and Robo Knight, and all the emotion and momentum we’ve been missing from the show.
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
The Rangers struggle to find a way to take out Vrak’s drills, but are prevented by another assault. Emma tries to take down the drills with the Command Ship while the Rangers fight Robo Knight and Vrak, but to no avail. Robo Knight and Troy fight ferociously one-on-one while the other four deal with Vrak’s other monster. They mistakenly destroy the monster, causing it to turn into the third drill. Troy is finally about to get through to Robo Knight by accessing all the power within himself and channeling it into a superpowered punch that undoes the dark programming. It also means Robo Knight is very weak, though, and after realizing that the drills are ready to destroy the Earth, Robo Knight sneaks away to find Vrak in his lair. Robo Knight is unable to take out Vrak, but does rescue Orion and destroy Vrak’s base in the process. Meanwhile, the Rangers pull out all the stops to defeat Vrak and the drills. When Vrak causes an eclipse to power his drills, the Rangers decide to channel that power too, and use it to slice Vrak in half. When he’s defeated, the drills disintegrate. Upon returning to the Command Center, they see Robo Knight’s key—the link to his power—and it fades away, indicating that he has died. They find Orion on the beach, and realize that Robo Knight sacrificed his own life force to revive Orion, meaning Robo Knight’s power will be within the new Sixth Ranger from now on.
Review
With “Vrak is Back, Part Two,” this two-parter has established itself as the best storyline of the last two seasons. For all intents and purposes, this shouldn’t be the case. This was the result of held over source footage and dropped storylines from one of the blandest seasons in Power Rangers history, with almost no build-up or development leading up to it over the last 14 or so episodes. Like the last review mentioned, this two-parter strips the second season of all of its positives—no Legendary transformations, no Super Mega powers, no Vekar, almost no Orion. And yet part two continues part one’s momentum, stakes, and the most emotional resonance since perhaps before Samurai four years ago.
Part of that surely has to do with its placement in the series and the use of the source footage. Much of the action here is the real finale of Goseiger, meaning amped up effects and fight sequences for the big blowout of that Sentai series. Its placement a good four episodes before the finale kind of blindsides the audience with its audacity, then; the adapted footage for Robo Knight and Troy is brutal, moreso than any fight we’ve ever gotten, for example. That, in turns, means the American adaptation has to step it up when integrating these stellar fights, and boy does it do that.
Remember when Andrew Gray could barely emote a simple question, let alone an entire speech? While there are a still a couple of actors in the cast that outshine him, Gray is the winner for most overall growth. Even just from the season 2 premiere, Gray’s stiffness has slowly-but-surely fallen away, even if at times replaced by extreme overacting. Troy isn’t much of a character, but Gray finally has a grasp on how to make him human, and part two is his best performance by a mile. Much as last week skirted over it, this week hammers Troy’s relationship with and determination to save Robo Knight, and it becomes the big centerpiece. It’d be easy to complain about kind of forcing him into the spotlight here, since we never really saw this great relationship with Robo Knight other than his declaration in the premiere. But it’s a necessary element that keeps this episode focused, with so much going on. It’s a testament to Troy’s established views of humanity, good, honor, and all that—he even does the quintessential Red Ranger-y “This is my fight, stay away!” one-on-one thing—and it coalesces in such good moments that any leaps of character logic just don’t matter. These are the kinds of relationship and honor-based fights we’ve been missing for the past two years.
What’s been deemed Troy’s “Super Saiyan” moment is admittedly a little weird on first glance, but it plays really well into the few themes the Megaforce seasons have established: the true power lies in humanity, and the human ability to keep fighting and never surrender. Like “End Game” had the Rangers charge in their human form, and “All Hail Prince Vekar” had Noah’s finisher in his human form, Troy lands his blow as a human. The difference is that it comes after Troy has gotten the snot beat out of him, both in Ranger form and human form, way more than characters on this show have been in recent years. This, again, is where Gray shines, and surprisingly sells the literal visual representation of “the power within.” It’s foreshadowed in Troy and the Rangers’ speeches about carrying a flame inside for hope, and while it’s Power Rangers-style cheesy, it’s miles better than almost all other “humans are great!” speeches from the past two seasons. So, while an aura of energy surrounding Troy and allowing him to punch Robo Knight so hard that it knocks all the evil out of him (or something) doesn’t make any logical sense, it does in this conceptual landscape Power Rangers has created. And besides, if you wanted real-world logic, you wouldn’t be watching Power Rangers.
There’s also just a ton of craziness in addition to the Robo Knight business, and it only adds to the wild momentum already in place. Emma flies the Command Ship solo to take down the drills, and even though it doesn’t yield anything, it’s always great seeing the show giving its female Rangers due diligence. There’s an entire monster fight and Zord battle in the middle of all this, which causes the drill problem to escalate. Vrak’s excuse that the Rangers were “too distracted” by Robo Knight is weak on its own, but there really is such a whirlwind of stuff happening that it’s actually believable. The Rangers are dealing with fighting on a lower power level, piloting Zords they haven’t driven in a long time, they’re split among different fights, and both of their allies are either lost or evil. It’s easy to be on auto-pilot and destroy a monster like normal just to get to the next dire problem. And then we get a scary eclipse, and an example of the Rangers failing at one finisher—the Megaforce Blaster—only to, you know, try it again. It’s a clever, even if slightly out-of-place subversion of the trope where TV characters only try ideas once for some reason, and it ends up working out with additional help from their sidearms, too. They also play the same trick that Vrak did on them by turning his drill-accelerating eclipse into their own fuel. There’s no explanation given for why the eclipse is creates power, other than eclipses just being representative of weird stuff, but it’s forgivable in order to condense the plot points.See what I mean about a lot of stuff going on?
But at the end of the day, this is Robo Knight’s story, and ultimately his final bow. There’s nothing particularly revolutionary in this story, which essentially amounts to the tried-and-true “finding humanity by making a sacrifice” conclusion. That doesn’t make it any less affecting, though; it’s been said again and again that Robo Knight was the best character to come out of Megaforce, and this puts a nice capper on the development that made him work. Robo Knight is a being with nothing but good intentions, even if those intentions lead him astray sometimes, and has a sense of curiosity that allowed him to learn what it meant to be part of the human race the Rangers talk so highly about. His sacrifice here works better than his sacrifice in “End Game” because, besides being final, it’s not just a last ditch effort to save the world.
Robo Knight in “End Game” gave the Rangers his power because they were needed as Earth’s protectors. Robo Knight doesn’t have much juice by the end of this episode, and once he removes Orion from the power sapping room, he’s effectively saved the world and could stop there. That would be logical, something that old Robo Knight would consider. But Robo Knight takes it one step further, and not only gets Orion to safety, but transforms what’s left of his energy into lifeforce for Orion, effectively killing himself so Orion can live. Self-sacrifice is a heroic quality we probably take for granted in these stories, but it’s a big deal for a machine to put a human above his own well-being just because it’s the right thing to do, not as an end game to save the Earth and environment. Even at that, he gets to have his cake and eat it too—Orion is a formidable Ranger who will, no doubt, go on to help save the world. And as on-the-nose as Orion’s dialogue at the end ais, it’s extremely bittersweet that this functions as a belated passing the torch from one Sixth Ranger to the next.
“Vrak is Back, Part Two” is a slight—but only very slight—step down from its predecessor just because of its pacing. It spends a fitting amount of time on the fight to save Robo Knight, but Vrak’s defeat happens so close to the end that repercussions of the two-parter are a bit rushed. There’s time to grieve for Robo Knight in subsequent weeks, but it lessons the impact an unfortunate amount as things are wrapped up in about two minutes time, especially after such a whirlwind happened just before. That said, it doesn’t have as much impact on the otherwise positive viewing experience as it might sound. Because, frankly, this is still a very, very good Power Rangers episode. Maybe it wouldn’t play so well if it were the actual Megaforce finale, and we expected it to be big, but it’s loads better than “End Game” and most anything we’ve gotten otherwise. And as a finale to Robo Knight’s character arc, it’s a complete win. There’s hope for Super Megaforce yet, even this late in the game. While it surely won’t redeem the multitudes of problems this season has, it’s a step in the right direction for ending the anniversary season on a high note. Let’s see if it can keep up the momentum.
Odds & Ends
- Vrak’s chess metaphors are interesting. He says “Knight takes pawns!” to refer to Robo Knight taking out the Rangers, which at first makes no sense since the Rangers are the only pieces on the board, but then makes total sense considering it’s just, y’know, an insult.
- Troy’s charging Ultra Mode transformation is very cool.
- Did they recycle the same shot from the premiere of people in the office building running away from attackers flying into the windows, or was it just a very similar one?
- Robo Knight and Troy’s battle takes them from the standard mountainous quarry to the standard abandoned warehouse district, which doesn’t seem out of place until you think about how nonsensical a warehouse district is next to a mountainous quarry.
- Remember when Orion stupidly said “It’s like Armageddon!” two weeks back? It’s funny how quickly he was proven wrong.
- All the Megaforce actors have grown in their capabilities throughout the series, but Christina Masterson is the most surprising in how good her reaction to the news of Robo Knight’s death is. They don’t get much time to show any grief, but she nails the devastation in her brief line delivery and facial expressions in a way I wouldn’t have expected.
- Why is Robo Knight’s key between Blue Jungle Fury and Red RPM, of all places? How does that order make sense? And how does Robo Knight even have a key? Where do the keys come from? How do the keys work? Which Rangers have keys and which don’t? Why do some keys appear on the wall sometimes but not other times? For being such an important part of the season, those keys don’t make a damn lick of sense.
- That gorgeous crane shot of the Rangers running along the beach from the opening credits is finally seen in context. It’s still totally gorgeous.
- “Do you give up?”
“No! Not about this! Not about you!” - “We’re not afraid of the dark, or of you!”