This POWER RANGERS BEAST MORPHERS review contains spoilers.
It’s a shame this Power Rangers Beast Morphers episode is genuinely really solid except for one glaring issue.
The guest character is a cop. The main plot follows the Rangers mistaking Chaku, a cop, for a bad guy. First off, I don’t see the difference in those two descriptions. Second, it continues a long history in media of cops being portrayed as the good guys, which as we’ve seen recently (but has been true forever), isn’t the case. Thankfully this wasn’t as bad as Super Ninja Steel’s infamously awful ‘Sheriff Skyfire’, which taught the lesson that you should always listen to law enforcement.
Chaku being a cop is thankfully only a small part of the episode but it still rubbed me the wrong way. Thankfully Devon only helped Chaku BEFORE he realized he was a cop. We still got some cringey lines about Steel being excited he’s a cop but it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Still, Power Rangers really needs to examine its relationship with portraying law enforcement, even if it’s fantastical, as all TV does.
With that out of the way, the plot of the Rangers assuming Chaku was Rhijack was fun to watch because without knowing about Chaku’s origin (from the Japanese series Gavan) you might assume he was a bad guy! Sure if you’re a hardcore fan you can see it a mile away but it still makes for a great conflict for the team. They make a mistake and they have to admit they messed up.
It gave the whole story an energy many Beast Morphers episodes have lacked. The whole thing has all the twists and turns to keep you engaged and the Rangers actions have consequences that drive the story. Adding in a returning Vargoyle helped up the stakes as well and his battle with Chaku and Devon was a huge highlight. The action in Beast Morphers hasn’t always been that engaging but this fight with the bikes was a blast.
After last week I’m sure fans were hoping for some big references but I’m glad that instead the show did a throwback that might not seem obvious at first. When Chaku mentions being part of the Galaxy Police Force, that was some classic TV Power Rangers sandbox world building magic! Back in the early seasons of the franchise they’d just throw out these huge ideas in random episodes that have continued to spark the imagination of fans to this day. I wish the show would develop ideas like these but at least it gives the Boom comics some raw material to play with. Still, its nice Chaku is sticking around for a bit. Maybe the Rangers can teach him about defunding his G5 police unit!
I’m glad to see Beast Morphers back from its hiatus with what seems to be a solid direction. They’re really playing up this vault with all the old Ranger weapons, even if it did come out of nowhere (seriously, why hasn’t it been mentioned before now?) The plots are engaging and the show has more life to it. Get rid of the cops and we’re hopefully at the start of a streak of solid Beast Morphers episodes.