The Wings of Animaria

Power Rangers: Wild Force, Episode 23

Original Airdate: 7-20-2002

Last Time: Another day, another zord. Also, music bad enough to inspire future generations to go back in time and prevent the existence of humanity itself to prevent it.

Master Org has taken Jindrax and Toxica on a field trip to the spot where Nayzor, Master Org's last general, got killed. They bring him back from the dead, and the Rangers arrive to find out that he's now Super-Nayzor. Merrick is concerned that he'll have to murder Nayzor all over again. Merrick decides to attack, but well, it would be rather improper to kill a monster three minutes into an episode.

Everyone except for Merrick and Cole end up badly injured, which leads the two last Rangers standing to attack Super-Nayzor again, with predictably ruinous results. Animus shows up...again and spirits the Rangers away.

Merrick and Cole get sent back to the Animarium just in time to see that Super-Nayzor is attacking the city. They haven't had enough punishment, so they go off to attack. They even try their usual chereographed introduction, which doesn't work so well with only two Rangers. It goes about as well as last time.

Back on the Animarium, Animus has deposited the bodies of the other Rangers, and has taken their spirits into one of them shadowy dimensions of mystery. A boy comes out of a doorway and explains that the Rangers have one last chance to pull it together before Animus gives up and lets them die. It turns out that there is yet another zord that has to be collected, and the Rangers can either solve a puzzle to get it or die.

Okay, so the Rangers have to piece together some sort of jigsaw, which will give them a new zord, or they have to remain in limbo forever....and there's a running clock to make it more excitied. This is shown by having sections of the platform the Rangers are on fall into a sea of lava.

Meanwhile, Cole and Merrick are still getting the crap kicked out of them.

The puzzle of destiny continues and Animus gives the Rangers a chance to get out of limbo in exchange for abandoning Cole and Merrick to their fate. They refuse, and that turns out to be a regrettable choice as the platform immediately falls apart and they start plummeting.

Back at the fight with Super-Nayzor, Cole is about to get killed when suddenly gets a new gun out of mid-air and uses it to shoot the monster. It's apparently something the other Rangers sent, and Cole uses it to kill Super-Nayzor. Jindrax and Toxica decides to just fight Cole themselves, a fight that somehow mangles Merrick in the process. Cole gets an odd feeling in his belt buckle, and that means it's time for this season's Battilizer and Cole proclaims himself the Red Savage Warrior. Um...that name....might cause some people to get a bit upset. Anyway, the armor looks as clunky and poorly designed as ever, but it is contractually obligated to win at least one fight, and so Cole is able to use it to beat Jindrax and Toxica. Er...wasn't there a monster....and the Rangers were like half-dead? Can we get back to that? Oh, and Toxica and Jindrax are also no longer brainwashed...I guess the mental conditioning was beaten out of them.

Turning off the Battilizer somehow restores the other Rangers to life, and Master Org belatedly grows Super-Nayzor to giant size. Cole summons the new Falcon Zord and together with the Giraffe, Deer, Rhino and Armadillo form a new megazord....the Isis Megazord, so named because it sounded good at one point and no one cared enough to go back and change it. Super-Nayzor engages the new megazord in an aerial duel, which ends when the Isis Megazord makes a flying bicycle kick with the Armadillo Zord. Super-Nayzor then dies at the inanity of it all.

Master Org is depressed and realizes that Toxica and Jindrax have abandoned him. The pair start to plot against Master Org as well. Later, the Rangers relate their tale of the magical dimension and the puzzle of doom in the most inarticulate way possible. Show Over!

Next Time: The gap in acting talent between this and last season becomes all too hideously clear during the annual crossover. On the plus side, twenty-three episodes of this season has made me all the happier to see those knuckleheads from Time Force again.