A Face From the Past

Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue, Episode 18

Original Airdate: 8-26-2000

Last Time: Olympius replaced Diabolico. Of course, they're basically the same character so....nothing. Nothing happened.

On the aquabase, Kelsey rollerblades to a meeting because she has the brain of a ten-year in the body of...er....well....you know. Captain Mitchell shows up to assign the Rangers a day off. They Rangers all decide to head to the beach, because the first thing they do after getting off a base surrounded by water....is head for the water. Carter, however, is completely lacking in personality, so he just decides to do some martial arts training in a park. Captain Mitchell shows up to lecture Carter about taking time off or something, and this somehow leads to them sparring. Credits!

Captain Mitchell somehow wins the fight, despite the fact that Carter's in perfect shape and the captain is a pasty, middle-aged dude. Then they decide to go for a run. Uh...demons? Care to chime in and do something? In fact, the demons have a new monster named Shockatron who they send out to be horribly destroyed. They probably have some sort of mission in mind for the monster, but, well, it's not like it really matters.

At the local power plant, a local school is holding a field trip. You know, we never had those sorts of field trips when I was a kid. Anyway, Captain Mitchell and Carter continue to bond. This somehow leads to Carter talking about the mysterious firefighter who saved his life as a child. We see the flashback again, and the voice rather clearly belongs to Captain Mitchell. But enough time for such frivolity, the monster attacks and it's time to get down to business.

Back at the power plant, Shockatron has disabled the plant and trapped the schoolchildren from earlier. Captain Mitchell, in order to make the reveal as oddly contrived as possible, heads down with Carter to the scene of the attack and puts on some firefighter gear. The other Rangers just in time for Shockatron to attack Mariner Bay's other power plant, and have to rush over. Meanwhile, the schoolchildren have been trapped by burning debris. Captain Mitchell shows up and saves them, but one girl loses her teddy bear and decides to run back into the fire to get it. Of course she does.

At the other power plant, the Rangers fight some Batlings because the episode wasn't running long enough. They finally get down to the business of fighting Shockatron, but the monster only lasts about thirty seconds against the Rangers. The Rangers decide to head back to the first power plant to help Captain Mitchell. Carter rushes in despite some typical protests about the building being about to explode and it being too dangerous and whatnot. Inside, Captain Mitchell has found the idiot girl and gets her out, but gets pinned under a pipe in the process. Wow, little girl, way to get a firefighter killed, hope that teddy bear was worth it. Carter arrives to find Captain Mitchell in exactly the same position as the firefighter who once rescued him, and his mind muscles finally begin to work as he escapes with the girl. Then the building explodes. Whoops.

Captain Mitchell, however, is apparently indestructible, and climbs out of the wreckage. Jinxer decides that he might as well make Shockatron grow and so Carter gets interrupted before he can ask Captain Mitchell about his mysterious past. The Rangers pull out the Lightspeed Megazord and kills him in seconds.

Okay, now Carter can ask Captain Mitchell about-Oh, for Christsakes! Apparently we have to hear from the demons about how Bansheera is about to come to Earth or something because the planets are about align. Yeah, I'm really sure that she and the Rangers are going to have a decisive battle halfway through the season. The last twenty episodes will consist solely of the Rangers debriefing and moving on with their lives.

And now Carter can finally ask Captain Mitchell about the whole firefighter thing. Carter notices that Captain Mitchell has a scar on his back from exactly where Carter saw the firefighter who saved him get burned. And, in fact, Captain Mitchell was that very fireman. Great. Whatever. I would be more interested to learn how exactly an ordinary firefighter became the leader of a high-tech underwater base. That seems like an odd career path.

Thus, Carter decides to heed Captain Mitchell's advice and hangs out with the other Rangers down at the beach. I suppose if you were wondering what Dana and Kelsey looked like in swimwear, this scene answers that question. Oddly, they are wearing conspicuously less than their male counterparts. Show Over!

Next Time: The demons try to play their endgame in episode 19 of a 40-episode season. Hilarity ensues!