Power Rangers in Space, Episode 43
Original Airdate: 11-21-1998
Last Time: The forces of evil decided to conquer the universe....and did. Dark Specter got killed and Astronema took over.
Well, it's the end of an era, the very last episode of what is called "The Zordon Era," which, of course, is kind of misleading as Zordon hasn't really been around for almost two season. More importantly, however, it's the end of a certain production model where actors would play the same characters for multiple seasons, until they entered into a contract dispute with Saban and were sent away, usually never to be seen again. Oh, it didn't make a lot of sense, "Your Zeo powers aren't enough to deal with this cosmic threat, so I got you some new car powers....they're definitely better." But, still, it was kind of nice to have the same characters last for more than thirty or forty episodes. Then again, given the Rangers we'll meet in the coming weeks, thirty or forty episodes can feel like forever.
On Earth, the Quantrons are still rounding up the citizens of Angel Grove as the Rangers look on. The Dark Fortress comes down, and Astronema beams onto one of the few remaining buildings to speak to her new subjects. She orders the Rangers brought to her by the next morning or the Earth dies. You know, given that she knows what the Rangers look like, and the people of Earth don't, that doesn't seem quite fair.
That night, the citizens are holding a meeting, and realize that they don't actually have a way to find the Power Rangers even if they wanted to. Bulk and Skull rally the citizens to have faith in the Rangers, who have never let them down. Except for the end of last season when they were utterly crushed. Final Credits!
The Rangers are also holding a meeting to determine whether or not to let the Earth be destroyed. Zhane shows up...oh, yeah, Zhane, I always forget about him. Then again, so do the writers. Carlos suggests forming an underground resistance, but T.J. decides that they can't risk people's lives unless there's a giant robot involved. Fortunately, Andros has the solution: go to the Dark Fortress and reason with Astronema. The Earth is boned. The other Rangers don't think that it's going to work. Andros, despite the fact that the Earth will be destroyed if he doesn't show up the next day, decides to go ahead with his plan. He has forgotten the lessons of teamwork. Ashley notices and tries to talk him out of it, and they almost kiss, but decide not to. Andros calls for the Battilizer armor and I have to look at its profoundly stupid design one last time.
It's the next morning, and Astronema wants the damn Rangers, who haven't shown. Bulk and Skull try to once more rally the crowd by invoking Spartacus and claiming to be the Rangers. The rest of the crowd joins in, and the villains, being fans of all of Kubrick's work, even those that may not comfortably sit in his ouevre, decide to honor this homage by crucifying the entire city along the nearest major road. No, not really, but that's what actually happened in the movie. Now, you'll see a lot of people saying about how awesome this scene is. It's really not that great. On the one hand, yeah, I suppose it's nice to see Bulk and Skull step up, but on the other hand, I just don't really see what's so great about it.
Anyway, it obviously doesn't really work because Astronema actually knows and has met the Rangers. Astronema decides to just kill them all and be done with it. The real Rangers, except Andros, decide that this has gone on exactly long enough and reveal themselves to be the Rangers. Bulk and Skull can't believe it. The Rangers decide to fight it out, and Astronema and Ecliptor decide to leave because...well, it's not like the Rangers are going to win against an army that conquered the universe. Bulk and Skull lead the citizens of Angel Grove to their deaths.
On the Dark Fortress, Andros has made it onboard. He manages to divert Ecliptor and his mooks, and makes it to Zordon. The giant head explains that Andros has done such a bang-up job of protecting the universe that every planet has either fallen to evil or is about to fall to evil. He goes onto explain that the only way to fix the Rangers' fuck=ups is to kill Zordon himself and release the good energy in his tube. Andros doesn't really want to do it, but Zordon explains that the sheer scale of this particular Ranger team's uselessness is such that there is none. Andros can't bring himself to do it, saying that Zordon "asks too much." In fairness, asking Andros pretty much anything is probably asking too much and collapses into a stress-induced brood.
Astronema shows up and decides to kill him. Andros tries to reason with her and, well, given how the season has gone, you can guess how successful he is at that. She beats him up for a good, long while. Just as Astronema is ready to deliver the killing blow, however, Andros grabs his drill-sword and reflects the attack back at her, killing her instantly. Ecliptor finally gets back to the scene and asks how Andros could kill his own sister. Ecliptor is justfiably pissed about his foster daughter's death and decides to kill Andros. Zordon, realizing that Senor Fuck-up, as he likely refers to Andros, is probably going to manage to lose his fight with Ecliptor, tells him to shatter the damn tube. Andros, having already bridged the whole "murdering my kith and kin" divide by killing Astronema, is now ready to comply, and kills Zordon...for the universe.
The tube explodes in a giant yellow light and Ecliptor is turned to dust, as are the Machine Empire. Zedd and Rita are turned into normal people, and Zedd now has the whole Northeasterner tennis shirt and shoulder draped over the back look. They decide to dance. Divatox is also turned into a normal person. Elgar, on the other hand, is turned to dust. I guess redeemability is based on how human you look. Anyway, with Zordon dead, the Rangers also lose their powers, and everyone in Angel Grove celebrates.
The Dark Fortress descends, however, and the Rangers assumes that it's because she won. Yeah, her army disintegrating was all part of the master plan. Andros gets off the Fortress cradling his dead sister's body. The Rangers are delighted to see him. Andros puts Astronema down and starts crying, and his tears bring her back to life...and make her good again....and change her hair and wardrobe. I'm guessing that the writing staff realized that they couldn't actually keep Astronema dead, but couldn't think of any way to plausibly bring her back to life and eventually just decided to punt.
Everyone's happy, which is weird, because you'd think people would be a little less than thrilled about the ressurrection of the woman who just almost killed them all. Later, on KO-35, the Rangers are preparing to disband as the Rangers are planning to leave Andros, Astronema and Zhane on KO-35 while they go back to Earth. On the bridge of the Megaship, which the former Rangers from Earth get to apparently keep, Ashley is bummed because she never got a chance to fuck Andros. But then, Andros, Zhane and Astronema show up. They all decide to go back to Earth. Season Over!
Next Time: Things begin to slowly get worse.
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