Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers Episode 22: The Trouble with Shellshock

The Rangers’ basketball game is interrupted by a giant turtle with a traffic light in its back.

Episode Summary

The episode begins in the Moon Palace with Rita taking a nap. Squatt and Baboo sneak around, working on a monster design of their own that’s “better than anything Finster ever made.” Turns out it’s a clay turtle with a traffic light mounted on its back. What?

Squatt wants to call it Greta or Peetoosh, but Baboo decides “Shellshock” is a more fitting name.

Basketball Game

Elsewhere in Angel Grove, we watch our heroes (with new member Tommy) play basketball. Putties show up and start a fight, but the Rangers win effortlessly. Tommy leaves for karate practice, and Bulk and Skull arrive and have a little comic relief scene that ends with them landing on a hot dog cart.

“Now that’s what I call hot dogs with everything on them,” quips Zack.

Turtle Trouble

Shellshock appears and destroys the Rangers’ basketball with a beam from his traffic light. The Rangers morph, but Trini gets zapped by a green traffic light (forcing her to constantly run) and Kimberly, Zack, and Billy get zapped by a red traffic light (freezing them in place).

Jason retreats to the Command Center where Zordon tells him that the only thing that can cure the frozen Rangers is a rare flower called the Deandra. These flowers grow in only one place in the universe, the Mountain of Hope. Zordon has sent Trini (still running) there to find it.

Big Turtle Trouble

Rita throws her staff at Earth to make Shellshock grow; “Wait ’til those teenage mutants see what a full-grown turtle can do,” he says. Nice TMNT reference.

Jason leaves the Command Center and calls for his zord, but it’s no match for Shellshock. He literally calls for backup, phoning Tommy, and the Green Ranger and Dragonzord show up.

Shellshock zaps them with the stop light and both zords are unable to move, but Trini shows up just in time with the Deandra flower. She jumps on Shellshock’s head and shakes the flower, causing sparklies to fly everywhere – even the Command Center, unfreezing the frozen Rangers.

The Tyrannosaurus zord finishes off Shellshock and Rita is really angry.

We return to the basketball court where the Rangers play some more and the dialogue here is so embarrassing that I’m not going to transcribe it.

Thoughts

I liked the idea of Squatt and Baboo, the comic relief baddies, getting a chance to shine with their own monster scheme, but the more they talked in this episode, the more they annoyed me.

I do love Shellshock, though. Such a bizarre idea for a monster, but it works.

Tommy is now a member of the team, but he doesn’t really do much. In Zyuranger, Tommy’s counterpart spent a good chunk of his time confined in a room, only showing up to a fight at the last minute. Because Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers uses this Zyuranger footage, we won’t be seeing the Green Ranger do anything super interesting for awhile.

I’d like to note that Kimberly gives off a pretty good, realistic scream when Shellshock zaps the basketball early in the episode. Never have I heard such anguish and emotion expressed over a destroyed ball.