It's also worth noting that instead of sending the monster directly to Earth as he's always done before, Gorganus actually transforms Octodroid from his frozen model form into his guy-in-a-rubber-suit form and lets him just kinda hang out in his throne room for a while as he discusses his plan. So either the monsters only turn gigantic when they teleport to Earth, or Gorganus himself is hundreds of feet tall.
Dude doesn't look like the first person I'd invite over to my crib, but whatever.
After the monster arrives on terra firma, we change scenes to the coffee house, where Drew is taking orders at a counter from a long line of customers. Despite the fact that every previous time we've seen someone place an order on this show, they've done so from their seats. Swinton, Laurie, and Gordon are inexplicably hanging out with her at the counter as they enjoy their refreshments, because this episode wants to break the "keep our identities secret by not hanging out together" rule as quickly as possible. Why even bother trying at this point, right?
In between taking orders, Drew is trying to write a paper for class on "heroism in classic French revolutionary literature." She's writing it on the novel Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. Here's another of those rare moments where I need to give this show credit; that's actually a believable high school assignment. On Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (and even the current Power Rangers Ninja Steel), the Ranger teens' classes are always elementary school level with such challenging curriculum elements as "Question marks: Why do we need them?" and show-and-tell. Which I guess is to make them more relatable to the target audience, but honestly seems pretty pointless and distracting.
Anyway, Drew is actually really enjoying the book and the assignment (which is good since this one paper is apparently SIXTY PERCENT OF HER CLASS GRADE), and takes the time to briefly outline the novel's plot about an innocent man on the run from the law. Gordon is unimpressed because as far as he can tell, that story is just a rip-off of the 1993 Harrison Ford film The Fugitive. When the others call him out on the fact that Les Misérables was around over a hundred years earlier, he tries to play it off as a joke. But it's clear to the audience and the other characters that no, he really is just that stupid.
A realization perfectly conveyed by Laurie and Swinton's facial expressions.
Meanwhile, Octodroid is busy salinating all of Earth's water. Or at least he's supposed to be. All we actually see him do is stomp around a forest and shoot fireballs at trees. Somehow this unconventional method seems to work, because when Gordon takes a sip of his coffee, it's disgustingly salty! He complains to Drew, but she couldn't care less - her shift's up and she's off to finish her paper. Or she would be, except that the four teens get a page from Nimbar. Gordon "creates a diversion" so they can escape through the Power Portal in the back room unnoticed by... loudly declaring he wants a refund for his coffee.
I'm sorry, but in what universe is shouting in a crowded public place the best strategy for making sure you go UNNOTICED? Whatever. Somehow it works and the foursome teleport to Nimbar's lair.
Once there, Nimbar explains the situation to the teens. Laurie asks if it's too late to stop Gorganus' plan, but Nimbar explains Octodroid has just begun his task. Apparently ruining the coffee of a bunch of people in Beverly Hills was his first priority. The team step onto their Transo-Discs to confront the monster, and Drew takes her paper with her. When they transform, the paper and the clipboard it's on grow giant alongside Drew. Now, this seems pretty stupid, but it's not without precedent; the same thing presumably happened to Swinton's earpiece in the last episode since he could still hear the teens talking to him through their microphone (though we couldn't see the earpiece).
My immediate question is: have they found the solution to world hunger? Could Laurie go buy a pizza, portal to sub-Saharan Africa with it, and suddenly possess enough cheesy bready goodness to feed a tribe of starving children for a month? Is that how those giant party cupcakes were invented?
It's also worth noting that when they arrive on the scene, Octodroid is spinning around like a ballerina and releasing waves of white energy from his body. I think this is supposed to represent him salinating the water, but if so I have no idea why he wasn't shown doing it before.
Maybe he just thinks his tentacles look pretty spinning around like a skirt.
As Drew follows the others' lead and attempts to summon her weapon, Octodroid snares her in one of its (apparently extendable) tentacles. Gordon manages to free her, but then Octodroid retaliates by knocking the essay out of her hand, apparently just to spite her. The teens get the upper hand by blasting the monster with their weapons, and Gorganus teleports Octodroid out of the battle. The teens arrive back at Nimbar's lair, but Drew is super bummed about the loss of her essay. She claims "that thing ate my essay," which very clearly did not happen. She just dropped it on the ground. But I suppose that line is meant to explain why she couldn't have just picked it up before teleporting back. The paper's due in an hour, which in Drew's estimation makes her "dead meat."
Later in school, Drew thinks she's gotten away with not handing in a paper. Since her teacher, Ms. Musker, takes "forever" to grade papers, she reasons she can write a new one. Then once Ms. Musker notices she doesn't have a paper from her, Drew will insist she handed it in but offer her an "extra copy" to replace it. Shockingly, this foolproof plan falls apart immediately when Ms Musker shows up to confront Drew for not turning in a paper. Surprisingly, Ms. Musker offers Drew twenty-four hours to hand in a paper with no penalty, which is actually really generous. On the other hand, as she puts it, "twenty-four hours and one minute - you fail."
I need to take a minute here to pay special attention to just how terrible an actress the lady playing Ms. Musker is. Her line readings are flat and unsteady, as if she's struggling to remember what she's supposed to say even as it comes out of her mouth. It makes me think they hired the first lady who walked in off the street instead of holding an audition for the part. Or maybe it was a producer's relative who just wanted to be a "TV star." Whichever it is I'm immediately relieved when she walks out of frame and hopefully out of the show forever.
That afternoon, Swinton, Gordon, and Laurie all come over to Drew's pool house and find her struggling to rewrite her paper. Seems she can't remember anything she wrote the first time around. Swinton offers her a tape of songs from the musical version of Les Misérables to "inspire" her, which Drew doesn't expect will be especially helpful. Gordon then offers his unique take on the situation - according to him, school is a business where grades are a product paid for by their parents' taxes and, therefore, the students deserve grades they're satisfied with. This, of course, turns out to be a sales pitch.
One accompanied by pointless hand gestures, even.
You see, Gordon has actually brought along a printed catalog for a mail-order pre-written essay company. He explains that it's the perfect solution because they take credit cards and provide overnight shipping. They even have a selection of Victor Hugo papers, and guarantee a B+ or your money back! Laurie is appalled at the mere notion of cheating and remains unswayed by Gordon's justification that it's not Drew's fault she doesn't have a paper done already. Swinton offers to personally help Drew write her own paper, but ultimately, she's persuaded by Gordon's argument and decides to order herself an essay.
Even in a pre-internet plagiarism checker age, I wonder how often this could've worked. The essays are presumably typed so that handwriting isn't an issue, but if the papers are pre-written, there's probably only one or two for each topic. I have to imagine at some point someone would hand in the same paper as another "customer" and the ruse would fall apart. That said the scene definitely implies Gordon makes regular use of this service, and the potential for getting caught is never actually brought up, so I suppose we're just supposed to assume it always works.
Up on Moleculon, Gorganus has Octodroid back in his frozen figurine form and is working on him with a thrown-together prop that shoots lasers. He explains that humans are 98% water - which is a hilariously huge overestimation (the number is more like 60%) - and so he plans to defeat the Sentinels by giving Octodroid a "desiccation ray" that sucks the moisture out of whatever it hits. Which, again, is actually a pretty good plan. To draw the Sentinels out, he plots to send Octodroid to drain the water from a nuclear power plant, potentially causing a meltdown.
It looks more like he's spray-painting his collectible figure with lasers, but what do I know of alien technology?
At the coffee house, Gordon is handing out more mail-order essay catalogs to classmates - with Drew sitting nearby - when Swinton and Laurie arrive to scold her about her choice. Gordon says he's proud of Drew's decision, which Laurie immediately points out is a pretty big red flag. Before this can turn into a full-blown Jerry Springer episode with flying chairs, Nimbar summons the teens to his lair. They leave through a Power Portal that opens right in the middle of the room, which leads me to realize that the coffee house is deserted (save for another employee we'll later learn is named "Roz," who comes out of the back room looking for Drew right after they teleport out). Now maybe the place was closing and the people Gordon handed the catalogs to were the last customers to leave - but even then, how would Nimbar have known it was safe to open a portal in plain sight? So far he's been completely ignorant of the teens' civilian lives, and there's no indication he can or does watch them when they're not in battle. It seems ridiculous to assume he knows the business hours of their hangout.
Nimbar quickly explains the situation at the nuclear power plant to the teens, and they teleport into battle. The fight that ensues is about 75% jumping and flipping for no discernible reason, with an occasional kick thrown in for good measure. Eventually Octodroid hits the Sentinels with his desiccation ray, a particularly embarrassing special effect that causes what look like teal smudges made with crayons to be sucked from the empty space to the left of them.
No comment needed, really.
Drew declares that they're goners unless they form Knightron, which they promptly do. At first it seems to be a good idea, as Octodroid stops trying to drain their moisture. I assumed at this point that Knightron might be some sort of space-metal golem that doesn't have or need any water in his body. For a while the two exchange blasts and blows, but as soon as Octodroid manages to wrap Knightron in his tentacles he goes right back to using his desiccation ray. So, frankly, I'm not entirely sure how forming Knightron really helped. Still, Knightron does eventually manage to break free of Octodroid's grip, at which point Lechner declares that the battle's over and Gorganus should let the Sentinels kill him. Gorganus disagrees and teleports Octodroid out of battle.
At the time this exchange occurs, Knightron is not actually winning in any way, shape, or form. There's nothing to stop Octodroid from grabbing him again or, hell, just using his desiccation ray without wrapping him up. But as soon as this decision is made on Moleculon, Octodroid inexplicably stops fighting and allows Knightron to blast him repeatedly while he waits to be withdrawn. It seems like the villains weren't really as committed to this whole plan as they should've been.
Back at the coffee house, the teens emerge from that same Power Portal in the middle of the room. Roz is standing right next to it cleaning a table but conveniently fails to notice it. Despite seeing Roz and knowing she's there, the teens then congratulate Drew on her courage in battle out loud. The employee somehow misses this, too, and simply asks where the teens have been. They reply they went outside to watch a parade, which Roz couldn't hear because it was a MIME parade. Genius.
Roz is clearly unconvinced but also doesn't have time for this bullshit, so she disregards it and hands Drew a package that came for her - obviously the essay. Somehow the battle with a giant rubber octopus man has changed Drew's mind about cheating, and she rips up the paper. When Gordon protests, Drew explains her reasoning and realizes that she's actually reciting her old essay. Conveniently, it seems that one of the residual effects of Power Portal travel is enhanced memory, and now she can recall everything she wrote. So the episode ends with Drew dictating her assignment to Swinton, who types it up on his laptop, and the moral about facing unpleasant consequences to maintain your integrity is completely botched as the central character experiences no consequences whatsoever.
Remember kids, if you ever have trouble with your schoolwork, space magic will fix it for you!
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First, about the episode's title. It doesn't make any sense, on multiple levels. Unless we're counting the random kids Gordon hands catalogs to in the coffee house, there are at most two cheats in this episode - Gordon and Drew. And Drew ultimately doesn't go through with it in the end. Now the reason for the "three" in the title is because it's a play on the expression "three sheets to the wind." A phrase which is completely irrelevant to the episode, as it refers to an out-of-control drunk person. Though admittedly this episode would probably have been a lot more entertaining if it were actually about Drew's hard liquor habit and a drunken bar fight with the space octopus.
As to the merits of the episode itself - it's pretty middle-of-the-road by Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills standards, which is to say it's pretty terrible by literally any other standard. Gorganus' plan was good but he gave up on it way too early. There were the typical lapses in logic and common sense, and the fights were as uninspired and poorly-choreographed as ever. At least, with the exception of Ms. Musker's acting, the civilian plot was tolerable - even if it did completely drop the ball with its deus ex machina ending.
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