The second episode of Super Sentai Zyuranger sees the ancient heroes fighting desperately to free the children captured by the evil witch Bandora, and the return of the Tyrannosaurus Guardian Beast.
Following the surprise appearance of the Dora Titan at the end of the previous episode the ancient heroes have retreated to their temple base to plan their next move against the evil witch and her forces. Dan, Boi, and Mei argue amongst themselves as they worry about the fight ahead and their mission to save the children, whilst Goushi and Geki discuss their past, giving viewers an insight into the civilisation they came from.
At the same time, Bandora has moved her palace from the top of a skyscraper to the moon, a perfect place to hatch her plans whilst staying out of reach of the Zyurangers. Bandora hatches a new plan to use the shrunken space shuttle to lure the rangers into a trap with her latest monster, Dora Skeleton; who is made from living mud and brought to life by Pleprechaun. The shuttle is sent back to Earth, where Bookback uses a remote control to make it chase people around the city.
The Zyurangers arrive on the scene, trying to catch up with the shuttle using their motorcycles, but are suddenly attacked by the Dora Skeleton. The monster brings the warriors to an amusement park, where it attacks the team. The creature manages to destroy their weapons, before transporting them all to another dimension, where the shrunken shuttle sits in a tree. The rangers try to rescue the shuttle, but Dora Skeleton summons his skeleton minions to stop them. Whilst fighting the monsters Bookback arrives and plants a bomb in the tree next to the shuttle.
Geki takes on Dora Skeleton in a sword fight, distracting him so that the rest of the team are able to shoot him with their blasters, blowing him apart. As he attempts to put himself back together Dan grabs his skull and wraps it in his cape, preventing him from putting himself back together. He throws the head to Boi, who tosses it into a firey pit, destroying Dora Skeleton. Geki is now able to grab the shuttle before the bomb goes off.
However, before the rangers can celebrate their victory the Dora Titan breaks through into the dimension and grabs hold of Geki, dragging him out. The rest of the team grab the shuttle as the bomb goes off, which throws them back into the real world. Inside a quarry the Dora Titan tries to crush Geki, but he manages to break free and joins the rest of the team as they head inside a cave for protection.
With no way to fight the giant Dora Titan the team have no idea how they're going to win. Without warning the ground begins to shake and breaks open, revealing the Tyranosaurus Guardian Beast. Geki jumps inside the control room of the Guardian Beast and takes on the Dora Titan in combat. The other Zyurangers get the children out of the shuttle before launching it at the Dora Titan, making the ship blow up in his face. With the Dora Titan reeling from the blast Geki manages to knock it down before unleashing a powerful sonic blast that destroys the monster once-and-for-all. Whilst Bandora complains about her plan having failed the Zyrangers reaffirm their mission to protect the earth and defeat the evil witch.
The second episode of Super Sentai Zyuranger takes on what feels to be a more traditional kind of formula, at least for what I expect as a fan of Power Rangers. Bandora has come up with a new plan and sends a monster against the heroes, which ends in a fight with their Zords. What makes it feel different, however, is that the monster they go up against initially isn't the giant one they have to fight at the end, which subverted my expectations somewhat.
To be honest, I was actually somewhat surprised by the episode to begin with anyway. I was expecting the story to continue where the last episode left off, with the Zyurangers fighting Grifforzor and the Dora Golems whilst the Dora Titan held the shuttle hostage. Instead it seems like there's something of a time jump, with the action having jumped forwards several hours. The rangers have retreated and Bandora has left the city, transferring her palace to the moon. There's isn't really much of an explanation as to why this has happened, and I feel like this was perhaps done in an attempt to establish something of a standard formula for the show of how episodes will play out.
What this break in the action does do, however, is give the show a chance to fill in some more of the backstory that was alluded to in the first episode. Geki and Goushi discuss the history of the ancient human tribes and their fight against Bandora, giving viewers a glimpse at the war they fought in and the imprisonment of the witch and her lieutenants on Planet Nemesis. Whilst this is a great bit of information and is presented in an interesting way with the glimpses of artwork in an ancient book, the fact that two people who lived through it are discussing it like one of them doesn't know about it feels a little silly. It's definitely been written to give the information over to the audience, without possibly thinking about how it comes across in universe. But honestly, this is a fairly minor nitpick.
The first monster to feature in the episode, Dora Skeleton, is one that I'm familiar with, remembering him as Bones from Power Rangers quite well. What blew me away about him was how different he is to the american version, and how much stuff was cut out. He's absolutely terrifying here, especially with his high pitched giggling scream. The fact that he doesn't talk at all and just makes these shrieking noises is really disturbing. His glowing, stick-like sword and skeleton minions are also a lot of fun, and goes towards making this version of the character very memorable. The face that he's killed when his head gets thrown into a crevasse as Boi tells him to 'go to hell' just makes his demise even better too.
I also absolutely loved how once again we didn't get a Megazord, but just had a single Zord/Guardian Beast show up to fight the Dora Titan. As much as I love the Zyuranger Megazord design, getting to see the Tyransaurus given his own moment to shine is great, and really highlights just how good the suit for it is. It's obviously a guy in a suit, but it feels a lot less silly than some of the Megazords do, possibly because its arms move differently and because it has a huge tail. Whatever the reason, I found myself very entertained by the fight, more so than some other Zord fights I've seen over the years. Whether they're going to do this for each individual Zords, or will just introduce the Megazord in episode three, this was a moment that I think will stand out for me.
'The Revival' was definitely more of what I was expecting from Super Sentai, but that doesn't mean that it was ever boring or predictable. The fight sequences and stunt work were great, and the scene where a monster attacked one of the heroes whilst he rode around on a motorcycle was particularly impressive. I can't wait to find out if the show will settle into a similar formula going forward, or if it will continue to subvert my expectations.
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