I have to say that Episode 12 of Power Rangers Ninja Steel “Family Fusion” is by far my favorite episode of the series so far. This episode was full of everything you could want from an episode. It had amazing action, a defeat of a major villain, the finish of a huge story-line and contained intense emotion I haven’t felt from Power Rangers in a very long time.
I was just simply impressed with this episode because there was something in this episode that we haven’t seen much of this series, heart. With the defeat of Ripcon and the ending reunion of the Romero Brothers, I actually felt connected. The direction, production and acting in this episode is what Ninja Steel needs more of! Let’s go through the moments of this episode and see what worked!
Romero Reunion: As I was watching the ending sequence of this episode where Brody got on stage to perform his family song before the audience of the school, it was highly emotion already. Brody’s face was already extremely sad because he had found out that “Aiden” was a robot and had to sing the song alone. His emotions were already high an so were the people watching at home. His shaking voice began singing the words before the crowd and us as viewers can see that Levi’s memories were beginning to awaken inside him. These scenes were particularly powerful as we could see the memories of Levi being kidnapped, tortured by Madame Odius and then finally memories of Brody and Dane Romero, who we finally see is indeed his father. Levi, is Aiden!
The song that Brody is singing was very beautiful and hit me in the heart very much and I simply loved it, but the emotions didn’t stop there. As soon as Levi stepped into the backstage area and looked at his newly realized brother and began to sing and finish the lyrics, I couldn’t take it! From the first time, second time and third time I’ve watch that scene the tears well up in my eyes. Let me tell you, Power Rangers very rarely does that to me (Not since Jen left Wes in the past has that happened…). Then, watching Brody and Levi embrace finally finding each other was very satisfying and only the heartless could not feel something for them during this scene. Only the music, direction and connection between Will Shewfelt and Jordi Webber could’ve made this scene work and it did magnificently.
Robo “Aiden”: Well, it was obvious. We all knew that “Aiden” was not Aiden. It was very suspicious from the beginning and then we all realized when his eyes began to glow. However, I will say I didn’t think they’d go the cyborg/robot route. I was really thinking that “Aiden” was a monster of the week in disguise. However, this was a very interesting route as well that Madame Odius had placed the childhood memories of Levi/Aiden into the memory banks of a robot.
I simply loved the scenes of battle between Levi and “Aiden” and the action was very intense especially when “Aiden” got blasted into the walls of the garage! It was intense to see the insides of the robotics blasted away as well pinned to Nick Beckwith who was pretty cool as a robot delivering lines such as “I have no brother!”. But the robotics they added to his voice made him sound a little bit too much like Robo Knight, so that was a little bit weird for me.
But, these scenes were even more interesting because before they realize he was a robot, Levi and Mick think that “Aiden” is betraying Brody and then it’s even more saddening when Brody realizes he hasn’t found his brother at all. Will Shewfelt really makes these scenes work.
Madame Odius’ Deception: It’s not hard to see from my reviews that I love Madame Odius. It makes me laugh incredibly that she totally shoved off all of the blame for holding the Gold Ranger captive to Ripcon. Plus, of course, Galvanax was too dumb to realize that she was conning him the entire time! I love that she one-upped him! Ripcon was totally destroyed because of her deception and I loved that he was dragged of by Cosmo Royale and gigantified against his will basically! What a great moment and I’m sure she has more trickery up her sleeves in the future!
Ripcon’s Destruction: Beautiful Sentai footage! I mean what can be said about this scene besides that it was action packed! It was a long time coming, what with the constant battles between Brody and Ripcon! When Brody finally received the Ninja Fusion Star from Mick and Levi and used it against Ripcon, it was just a fantastic scene! All 6 swords fighting against Ripcon finally got the best of him and ended his favor in Galvanx’s view!
Of course, Ripcon whined in his own unique way. I have to say that now that he is gone, his voice was just atrocious and not appropriate for his monster suit. Was it that we weren’t supposed to take Ripcon seriously because he was gone in 12 episodes? Luckily for our little Rat Bait, he finally got the best of him!
Ninja Fusion Star / Zord: I was happy with the way that the Ninja Fusion Star was handled because Mick actually worked on it this time and the Star flowed with what was going on in the episode. The 6 Ranger powers flowed together and created the new Star that not only helped Brody defeat Ripcon before he was gigantified, but it also help the Megazords combine into one. Let me say also, that the Ninja Fusion Zord looks so much better on TV than as a toy….
I will say, however, that it would’ve been a little cooler to see both Levi and Brody use the Ninja Master Blade at the same time or something because of the theme of the show (perhaps even two?), but oh well I guess.
“Levi Weston”: I suppose it was smart to continue to call Aiden, Levi to keep up appearances.
But I am pretty excited to see how the dynamic changes between Levi and Brody changes now that they know they are brothers.
The scene you can see in the image above was another touching moment in the episode as well, a touching moment of friendship. I just loved watching the Rangers sitting around the campfire with Brody and Levi finally being reunited, as brothers. This team is finally beginning to feel like a real team of Power Rangers and friends.
Victor and Monty: I was happy they kept these two on the sidelines for the most part this episode because we needed to be focused on two other big events going on. However, in this episode Preston’s magic backfired on them and they ended up inside of his magic hat and chased by a gigantic rabbit which caused them to fear it later on in the episode. I didn’t find this funny really, but I’m sure some people did. I could’ve cut this part out completely and never noticed it was gone.
I was truly moved by this episode of Ninja Steel and I hope that more of the episodes to come have this sort of feel. Obviously we are not going to have that sort of emotional connection, but the fun I had not only with the action and the emotion really made me like this episode. This episode was “penultimate” to me because it ended a lot of plot details and defeated an enemy we had seen giving the Red Ranger a rival for quite some time. Now, we go forward with something new hopefully that will begin and end with some as satisfying. I hope this kind of emotion, direction, production, use of Sentai Footage and music (with the exception of reuse of previous season background music) be put to good use in the future and especially in the 25 Anniversary.