Power Rangers Jungle Fury: Fear and the Phantoms

Welcome back to the Jungle Ranger Fans. Last time, our heroes managed to get their hands on five out of the eight Crystal Eyes which contain the souls of the powerful Phantom Beasts. In addition, thanks to Casey’s incredible instincts, Grizzaka finally met his ultimate demise. However, Jellica, the final remaining Overlord plans to unleash the three remaining Phantom Beasts. And now, on with the show. 

We open in the loft where Lily is giving a dance lesson to some strange girl we’ve never seen before. Wait, what? Um… Lily, you’ve been a Power Ranger for a while now, don’t you know that not letting random people into your secret base is like, page one of the superhero handbook. Actually, it’s not as bad as all that. Turns out this woman, Gabby, is actually Master Phant’s niece. Well, with that in mind, it’s possible that she knows about the Order of the Claw and can be trusted with-HEY WAIT A MINUTE! This makes even less sense! When the Rangers met Master Phant he was living completely off the grid in a shack in the middle of the fucking woods! There is no way in hell Master Phant was in contact with anyone, family or otherwise! That guy probably didn’t even own a mailbox, much less a cellphone! Okay, okay, I digress. It’s entirely possible that after Lily coaxed Master Phant out of his self-imposed exile, he reconnected with his family. Good for him. Would have been nice to establish that because as it stands, this development seems very much at odds with what we know about Master Phant. 

We need to move on. Our next scene is at Dai Shi’s castle where Camille and the Rinshi are searching high and low for Jellica who is still hiding somewhere in the building. And indeed, we see Jellica in the dungeon performing a ritual involving the alignment of the stars to revive the three Phantom Beasts in her possession. And so, the three Phantom Beast Generals are unleashed. A Dragon Beast named General Scorch, a White Tiger Beast named General Whieger, and a Snapping Turtle Beast named General… Snapper. Not exactly the most creative name, but this episode was written by scab writers so you get what you pay for. Also worth noting is that these guys are actually a reference to three out of the four Guardians of the Cardinal Directions of Chinese Mythology, those being The Azure Dragon, The White Tiger and the Black Tortoise. There’s a Phoenix in there too, but, we’ll get there later. Well, since Jellica woke these guys up, she feels they owe her one and orders them to waste Dai Shi. And, no sooner than you can say Jellyfish Girlboss do the Phantom Beasts burst through the doors of the Throne Room ready for battle. Jellica gloats for a bit, as all good supervillains should but, in a surprising twist, the Phantom Beasts Generals blast Jellica into oblivion and swear their loyalty to Dai Shi. They even reveal that they’ve got eight more Phantom Beast Warriors at their disposal, each one representing an animal from the Chinese Zodiac. Also, these guys come with their own poorly defined energy powers called Rinsin Power, which is basically Zocato Power only Gold instead of Black. I look forward to never getting a concrete answer on what Rinsin Power actually is or does. Anywho, The Generals wish for Dai Shi to become their Phantom Beast King. Dai Shi, remembering that the Phantoms were his enemies thousands of years ago, is naturally skeptical of this pledge of allegiance, but the Generals insist that the reason they lost the Beast War in the first place is because the two factions were divided, and now, they’ve decided to bury old rivalries and focus on destroying mankind. Dai Shi says that if they want his trust, they must earn it by capturing the Three Pai Zhuq Masters and bringing them to him. 

We then cut to Master Swoop who is training in seclusion when he’s attacked by General Scorch. Would have liked to see that fight as Master Swoop is far and away the coolest of the three masters, but too bad, we immediately cut to Lily talking to Master Phant about Gabby. Something about how ever since she was a child, she’s been unwilling to try because she’s afraid to fail. Okay, seriously, can we get a timeline for how long Master Phant was living off the grid, because he clearly has a close relationship with his niece from when she was a child and something’s not adding up.

Back at the loft, Lily’s dance class continues and Gabby is finally getting the hang of it, and is even finding her confidence thanks to a pep talk from Lily. However, this is cut short when Theo arrives to tell the others that Master Swoop is missing and the broken fan he found in the place they were supposed to meet means he probably ran into trouble. 

Knowing that one of the Masters has been attacked, RJ checks on his father, Master Finn. It’s worth noting that since last time we saw these two together, their relationship has grown far more amicable. Always good to see fences mended. RJ notices something I will henceforth be referring to as Chekhov’s telescope, which Finn says contains “A Little Light In Case It Gets Dark.” However, no time to dwell on Chekhov’s telescope now, The Rangers need RJ’s help. However, once RJ is gone, General Wheiger arrives and blasts Master Finn.

In the City, The Generals have sent out one of their Phantom Beast Warriors, a Powerful Boar Beast named Sonimax, with the Power to unleash devastating sonic shockwaves. As a Phantom Beast Warrior, this guy is tough, possibly even tougher than Grizzaka but the Rangers aren’t afraid and charge the monster. 

Meanwhile, General Snapper has attacked Master Phant, but Lily stands in his way. Lily fights Snapper one on one, but even with her and Phant fighting side by side, Snapper  appears to be on another level entirely and knocks Lily backwards, taking Master Phant away.

Back in the City, Sonimax is giving the other Rangers a run for their money until Lily arrives to even the odds. With five Rangers, the tides of battle begin to turn. However, the fight means Lily is going to have to miss Gabby’s dance competition. What a pity, I was so invested in that plot development. Well, things get to the point where it’s Megazord time, and my favorite commentator, Flit, is finally back at the announcers desk. Sonimax surprisingly holds his own pretty well against three Megazords. Things get even worse when Snapper shows up and joins the fight. Snapper, being a Phantom Beast General, pretty much completely wrecks all three Megazords with ease before fucking off with his henchman. After all, this fight was only to distract the Rangers while the villains abducted the Masters. 

Speaking of, at Dai Shi’s Castle the three Masters are all chained to the wall with a Crystal eye placed in front of them. Master Swoop tries to appeal to Jarrod’s humanity, but Dai Shi insists that Jarrod cannot hear them. The three Generals then fill the Masters with their Rinsin Power as part of some kind of spell. 

Oh and Gabby came in second in her dance competition, I’m sure you cared about that so much. I know I didn’t.

Later, The Rangers regroup, RJ having confirmed that his dad has also been taken. As the Rangers wonder what the bad guys want with three old white kung fu masters, an explosion sends our heroes flying, and out of the dust walk three new Rangers with helmets resembling a Bat, an Elephant and a Shark, our episode ending on a cliffhanger. 

Okay, let’s address the elephant in the room, pun very much intended given her relation to Master Phant. The whole Gabby subplot was not only completely pointless, but also flies in the face of what had been previously established about Master Phant. There is literally no actually reason I can think of for her to be here. You can’t even say it gives us an excuse to bring Master Phant back into the story, because you could just as easily have had Lily continuing her training with Master Phant without the inclusion of this Gabby character. By the way, to the best of my recollection, Gabby never appears or gets mentioned again for the rest of the series. The only justification I can conceive of for this character’s bizarre and nonsensical inclusion is that the episode ran short and we needed to pad out the runtime. But, that aside, this episode wasn’t half bad. We introduced a new faction of villains, successfully established them as a serious threat to our heroes, put the plot for the next story arc in motion and ended the show with a massive hook for the next episode. This would have been a great episode if it wasn’t for, well, you know. So, who are these three new Rangers and, more importantly, are they friend or foe? Find out next time in Blue Ranger Twin Danger. Until Then, May The Power Protect You.