The Mutiny

"So, poor old Zordon is still around, eh? Little does he realize that his pitiful teenage do-gooders are no match for me."

- Lord Zedd

The Mutiny is a three-part episode of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and the first storyline of Season 2. This episode features the first appearances of Lord Zedd and the Thunderzords.

Synopsis
Rita Repulsa has been removed from power, and now her master Lord Zedd threatens the Earth with powers unlike anything ever seen before. The Power Rangers must step up their game if they hope to survive against this new enemy.

Part 1
The Power Rangers have entered themselves in a four-wheeler race to raise money for the charity hospital. As always, Bulk and Skull are present to boast their victory over the heroes, even though Kimberly reminds them that it's a charity race. Mr. Caplan drops the green flag and the race is on. Up in the Moon Palace, Rita Repulsa is getting ready to launch her newest scheme to destroy the Power Rangers, but a sudden lightning storm sends everybody into a panic. Goldar declares that the storm can only mean one thing: the return of the evil Lord Zedd. The lightning storm is also seen on Earth, causing concern among the Rangers as they continue the race.

Goldar heads to a new area of the Moon Palace to meet with Lord Zedd, a fearsome man of exposed muscle and twisted metal who has already turned the room into his personal Chamber of Command. The armored monster is very fast to swear his loyalty to Zedd and is rewarded with the restoration of a pair of wings on his back. Rita then attempts to pledge her own loyalty, but Zedd shows no forgiveness towards her due to her many failures. To prove his superiority, Zedd uses his power to create Z Putty Patrollers, a more ornate and more powerful version of the familiar clay soldiers.

Zordon summons the Power Rangers to the Command Center with distressing news of Lord Zedd's arrival. The wise sage fears that the Rangers' current powers will not be enough to defeat Earth's new menace, but he is unable to do anything about this for the time being. Meanwhile, Zedd has run out of patience with Rita's continued grovelling and makes her staff and powers vanish, then orders her banished from the Moon Palace. As a final insult to injury, Zedd has his Z-Putties bring out a miniature version of Rita's original Space Dumpster and shrinks her to the size of a doll. Goldar enjoys one last laugh at his former master's expense as he seals Rita in the Dumpster so that Zedd can cast it off into deep space. With Rita Repulsa out of the picture, Zedd turns his attention to the Power Rangers.

Back on Earth, Bulk and Skull have crashed their four-wheelers and are attempting to steal the Rangers' own when Z-Putties arrive and send them into a panic. The Rangers morph and arrive to save them, but the new breed of Putty prove tougher for them to handle than Rita's version did, more so when Tommy's Green Ranger powers also start failing him in mid-battle. While Bulk and Skull cheer from nearby, Jason connects with a punch on the Z-emblem of a Putty, causing it to explode. The other Rangers follow suit and soon the entire pack is crumbled to dust. As the heroes return to the Command Center, however, an awestruck Bulk declares to Skull that they have a new goal in life... to reveal the Power Rangers' true identities and become famous.

At the Command Center, the Rangers admit that finding the Putties' weak-point so quickly was dumb luck and realize that if they are that bad to fight, then Zedd's monsters must be even worse. Indeed, Zedd has already retaliated by turning a small piranha into his new monster Pirantishead. Tommy is unable to join the fight due to his weakened powers, and so the other five Rangers head back to action without him. Pirantishead appears in Angel Grove to taunt the Rangers, who respond by summoning the Dinozords. However, the fishy fiend uses his powers to freeze almost all of them in place.

Part 2
Though the Tyrannosaurus Dinozord isn't frozen, Pirantishead uses his power to turn it against the Power Rangers. A recharged Tommy arrives to summon the Dragonzord, which is able to hold the Tyrannosaurus back until Pirantishead takes it over as well. After a failed attempt to get to the controls, the Rangers retreat.

Back at the Command Center, Zordon and Alpha 5 tell the Rangers that the Dinozords alone will be no match for Lord Zedd, so new Zords have been developed to balance the playing field against him. They are introduced to the Thunderzords - the Red Dragon Thunderzord, Black Lion Thunderzord, Blue Unicorn Thunderzord, Yellow Griffin Thunderzord, and Pink Firebird Thunderzord. When Kimberly asks about Tommy, Alpha explains that his powers are still too weak and unstable to allow him access to a Thunderzord.

However, the Rangers have one major problem... they must first regain access to the Dinozords before the Thunderzords can be summoned. Unable to come up with any plans, the Rangers fall into a slump until Billy pulls some calculations and suggests that he may be able to make a device that would block the signal controlling the Zords. Trini and Billy head off to work on the device in his lab, but Pirantishead is spotted at the rally and the other Rangers are forced to go down and fight more Z-Putties in order to keep the racers from getting hurt, unaware that they are playing into Zedd's hands.

At the rally, Bulk and Skull have stolen two four-wheelers from the Rangers and are trying to figure out the way to the finish line. Pirantishead suddenly pops up and uses his powers to send the four-wheelers driving backwards, along with their screaming passengers. The fishhead then appears to meet the Rangers as they finish off the Putties and summons the Tyrannosaurus and Dragonzord to destroy their own pilots.

Part 3
Billy and Trini arrive with the device to stop Pirantishead's signal and activate it... to no effect. With the giant robots closing in on them, the Rangers form the Power Blaster and initially aim them at their Zords, but turn and blast Pirantishead at the last second. With him distracted, Billy fixes the device (he had put a battery in backwards) and activates it. At once, the attacking Zords are halted and the rest are unfrozen.

Furious, Lord Zedd uses his magic to sink the Dinozords below the Earth's surface, though Tommy sends the Dragonzord back to slumber in the ocean so as to keep it intact. Zedd then throws a spherical object down to Pirantishead, which explodes like a grenade and makes the monster grow. Back at the Command Center, Alpha reports that he is able to recover enough of the old Dinozords to create the Thunderzords, but Zordon confirms that Tommy's powers are too weak to support a new Zord. Regardless, the Power Rangers summon the Thunderzords into battle, bringing a rare smile to Zordon's face as they come together into the Thunder Megazord.

The battle is joined and Pirantishead makes the first attack by catching the Megazord in his chain weapon, but the Rangers recover and break the chain. With a mighty slash of its Thunder Saber, the Thunder Megazord finishes off Pirantishead and gives Lord Zedd his first taste of defeat. While Zedd rages in his throne room and berates all of his minions, Finster merely looks on from his workshop and mutters that his monsters would have won had Zedd used them instead.

Back at the Command Center, Tommy is informed that the Dragonzord's power is now as limited as his own and must be used sparingly, but the Rangers are confident that they will get their friend back to his full power. As to Rita Repulsa, the Viewing Globe reveals that she's still stuck in her Dumpster and is singing to herself to pass the time. Everybody enjoys a good laugh at Rita's expense (even Zordon!), but they also see that Bulk and Skull are still stuck on their out-of-control four-wheelers.

The Rangers use Billy's device to get the vehicles back to normal, sending Bulk and Skull onto the ground in a heap. As Kimberly and Tommy help them recover, the bullies boast that they're going to expose the Power Rangers for who they really are. The Rangers simply laugh at the notion, but agree to give Bulk and Skull a lift to the finish line.

Episode info

 * Writer: Shuki Levy, Shell Danielson
 * Director: Shuki Levy

Cast

 * Austin St. John as Jason Lee Scott (Mighty Morphin Red Ranger)
 * Walter Jones as Zack Taylor (Mighty Morphin Black Ranger)
 * David Yost as Billy Cranston (Mighty Morphin Blue Ranger)
 * Thuy Trang as Trini Kwan (Mighty Morphin Yellow Ranger)
 * Amy Jo Johnson as Kimberly Ann Hart (Mighty Morphin Pink Ranger)
 * Jason David Frank as Tommy Oliver (Mighty Morphin Green Ranger) (as Jason Frank)
 * Paul Schrier as Farkas "Bulk" Bulkmeier
 * Jason Narvy as Eugene "Skull" Skullovitch
 * Henry Cannon as Mr. Caplan
 * David Fielding as Zordon (face)
 * Robert L. Manahan as Zordon (voice)
 * Romy J. Sharf as Alpha 5
 * Richard Steven Horvitz as Alpha 5 (voice) (as Richard Wood)
 * Machiko Soga as Rita Repulsa (Zyuranger Footage)
 * Carla Perez as Rita Repulsa (American Footage)
 * Barbara Goodson as Rita Repulsa (voice)
 * Ed Neil as Lord Zedd
 * Robert Axelrod as Lord Zedd (voice) and Finster (voice)
 * Takashi Sakamoto as Goldar (Zyuranger Footage)
 * Danny Wayne Stallcup as Goldar (American Footage)
 * Kerrigan Mahan as Goldar (voice) (as Ryan O'Flannigan)
 * Takako Iiboshi as Finster
 * Minoru Watanabe as Squatt
 * Michael J. Sorich as Squatt (voice)
 * Hideaki Kusaka as Baboo
 * Dave Mallow as Baboo (voice) (as Colin Phillips)
 * Ami Kawai as Scorpina
 * Wendee Swan as Scorpina (voice)
 * Scott Page-Pagter as Pirantishead (voice)

Errors

 * Original footage of Rita and her henchman standing on the Moon Palace's balcony during Lord Zedd's arrival is actually the balcony in Lord Zedd's part of the palace, and not Rita's balcony. This is very surprising since a U.S version of Rita's balcony was already used for the U.S Goldar balcony shots in season 1. This error also occurs when a very tiny Rita walks on her old balcony on her way to Finster's nearby workshop in The Wedding Part 1 and when she is waiting for The Wedding March to begin in The Wedding Part 3.
 * Zedd creates Pirantishead from a piranha (from what is assumed to be in Angel Grove), but those type of fish are native to South America.
 * Pirantishead freezes the Dinozords, but Pterodactyl Dinozord should fall to the ground upon being frozen rather than being suspended in midair.
 * The Sabretooth Tiger Dinozord is frozen while in the midst of the Megazord transformation, even though the Rangers didn't initiate/call for the Megazord transformation.
 * The Zords are very big. So why didn't the bystanders notice these huge robots before riding their bikes into their direction? Dragonzord's missiles and Tyrannosaurus' breath attack would have surely killed these people, but all it did was blow up some ground.
 * In Part III, Zordon refers to the new Megazord formation as the "Mega Thunderzord," even though he called it the "Thunder Megazord" (its official title) in just the previous episode when introducing the new Zords to the Rangers.
 * Red Ranger's Power Sword appears while Dragonzord runs amok on the city, but then disappears quickly in the next shot.
 * The Firebird Thunderzord is red, even though it is controlled by the Pink Ranger.
 * The Griffin Thunderzord does not look much like a griffin. It does not have an eagle's head; it looks more like a dragon with a backward-facing horn (which is much larger than the Unicorn Thunderzord's forward-facing horn).


 * Black Ranger's Power Axe appears to be missing some components from its design during the Power Blaster scene.
 * As Billy switches the upside down battery some skin can be seen under his right glove.
 * When the Tyrannosaurus and Dragonzord nearly step on the Rangers before being released from Pirantishead's spell, the shadows on the ground clearly show two people holding the feet in order to create the forced perspective of the shot.
 * In the second-to-last shot of Part II, the misty white aura surrounding the Tyrannosaurus and Dragonzord was missing.
 * During the battle sequence between Pirantishead and the Thunder Megazord, during the explosions you can see parts of the original Megazord. This is due to the use of Zyu2 footage.

Songs

 * Fight (Part 1)
 * Go Green Ranger Go (Part 2)
 * I Will Win (Part 2)
 * We Need A Hero (Part 2)
 * 5-4-1 (Part 3)
 * Combat (Part 3)
 * Ride the Machine (Part 1 and 3)