Zack is grooving away in practice for a dance contest. Kimberly and Jason are impressed but Bulk and Skull joke that he's going to blow it. He does indeed flub a move, knocking into Kim and causing her to spill her juice all over Bulk's shirt. He figures he doesn't have what it takes to win, and Bulk growls that he has what it takes to make him lose. Rita declares that she's pulling out the heavy artillery and chants a spell to summon a pair of monsters. Goldar surmises in appreciation that her enchantment will cause Mutaytus to destroy Angel Grove while Lokar will send the Rangers to her dreaded Island of Illusion. Tommy leads a kids karate class and tests two students' reactions before leaving them to spar, stressing control of a situation so nobody gets hurt. Zack does some cool moves including high kicks to his music, and Bulk imitates them poorly in derision. He eventually falls back over some prop Roman columns and he and Skull hit the deck. The team joke that Zack taught them the "Crash and Burn" but he still doubts his chances for the contest. They say that he's lacking self-confidence for it, but he has a great chance if he can build it up in time. Rita says this will help Lokar the Terrible capitalize on his weakness and send the team off to the island unwillingly. Baboo shudders at the memory of the last time she called upon Lokar, and Squatt pleads and tugs at her not to summon him again, but she shoves him away in anger. Rita says they're doing it her way and Goldar agrees, while Scorpina insists she likes the plan too. The beast is called forth and another earthquake is triggered in Angel Grove, this time with thunder and lightning too. Ernie exclaims "I hate when this happens!". The Rangers sans-Zack are left alone inside the Youth Center and call Zordon. He says they have detected unusually large power surges within Rita's Moon Palace, and that she seems to be harnessing a power he's not familiar with. Tommy rushes to take his students out of the danger area, and the others race to the park while the villains prepare to send the Putties. Finding Zack in the park, they start to fight the Putties off. They hold up excellently but then Goldar and Scorpina show up along with a new wave.
Morphing, they fight back against the golden assailants. Casting the final hex, Rita sends an already-giant sized Mutaytus into the city to wreak mayhem. It starts to thud towards the Rangers, threatening them with it's footsteps so they summon the Megazord. Mutaytus gets the upper hand right away, hitting it with its ball and chain and knocking it to the ground. They trade blows and Rita boasts to Finster that this time she's made her own monster and it's winning, as Jason is very concerned. Rita comes down to Earth and using her wand, calls down the evil sky spirit Lokar which generates an instant, ominous night time effect. Zordon sends Tommy for backup while Lokar's breath weapon mutates Mutaytus into a horrifying new form. Mutaytus beats the Megazord down easily, but Tommy shows up along with the Dragonzord which he personally pilots this time. The two mecha still struggle against Mutaytus though as Lokar and Rita both laugh evilly. Mutaytus sprays them with an adhesive toxic foam as the mecha fall down, the team are flung out of the cockpits. Lokar uses this as an opportunity to force them into the island which exists in another dimension. Zordon tells Alpha that this move places the Rangers out of their reach and that only their self-confidence can help them now. Landing on the mysterious, tropical island, the team get their bearings and realize that the teleportation stripped them of their communicators and Power Coins. Intimidated, they set off to explore their surroundings. They pass a Komodo Dragon and fear that the bushes have eyes; they are indeed apparently being watched by an unknown hunter. We see dwarf natives running around them from the sides as they wander deeper into the jungle. Zack mentions this but writes it off as a hallucination. They hear a piercing sound and cover their ears. Zack sees the dwarf again and points it out to the others as it plays a tune on a flute. Kim cautiously asks him for help as Rita sent them. Speaking in rhyme, he tells them to stay away and he wants nothing to do with Rita as they must be friends of her's, introducing himself as Quagmire. He disappears.
A vision of Goldar appears in the sky and mockingly asks about their losing the Power Coins and says they'll soon lose more than that. A collection of monsters the Rangers had previously defeated suddenly materializes, including Pudgy Pig, Eye Guy, Pineoctopus, Shellshock, and Snizard. They charge forward but as the team braces themselves for an attack, the monsters vanish. Goldar declares that this is a place where nothing is real except the danger and that they're in the Island of Illusion. Zack walks off in numb shock but panics when he stumbles across a snake on a tree stump, but the others can't see it and explain that it's another illusion. He can't shake the vision though and runs away from it. Billy posits that Rita is weaponizing their own fears against themselves to play on their self-doubt. Zack sages he doesn't feel so good and to everyone's shock, his body starts to fade away. Quagmire appears for a split second and tells him that the fears and doubts are what causes him to fade, which Billy believes straight away. Jason tells him to fight it off but Goldar says it's useless because there's no fighting your own worst fears and that they will all fade away one by one. Cue Evil Laugh and another kind of fade out...
Tropes:
- All There in the Script: Simply going off of the characters speaking it, it's hard to say exactly how to spell the name of this episode's Monster of the Week. Is it Mutitus? Mutidas? Mewtitis? One would have to track down and read the script for the episode in order to see how the writers spelled it out: Mutaytus.
- Behemoth Battle: Dinozords vs. Mutaytus and Lokar.
- Bowdlerise: Lokar's counterpart in Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger was actually Satan himself, whom Bandora sold her soul to in order to obtain her magical powers. Here he's just another monster that Rita summons, though the dialogue implies that Lokar is more of an ally of hers than a servant (and a dangerous ally at that, considering how nervous her crew seems to be at the idea of summoning him). Power Rangers also cuts out the rather grisly transformation of Mutaytus's counterpart Zombie Franke into Satan Franke, which consists of a Satan head bursting out of his head.
- Breath Weapon: Lokar's Breath of Doom is responsible for transforming Mutatyus from a horrifying zombie into an even more horrifying demon.
- The Cameo: The Island's first illusion to scare the Rangers with is Eye Guy, Pudgy Pig, Snizard, Shellshock, and Pineoctopus appearing together and charging, only for them to disappear when the Rangers stand their ground.
- Innocuously Important Episode: Even though it was only an illusion (and a brief one at that), it was this episode that introduced us to the concept of old, destroyed monsters making return appearances.
- Dark Is Evil: When Lokar arrives on Earth, the sky darkens immediately.
- Eldritch Location: The titular island is treated as such by the characters. See Informed Attribute for more.
- Evil Gloating: After so many of Finster's monsters had failed in the past, Rita points out that once she'd made a monster of her own - Mutaytus - it was actually winning.
- Evil Laugh: Lokar's lines are mainly this, though he was given the occasional boast as well, which more than Dai Satan can say.
- Eyes Do Not Belong There / Belly Mouth: In his second form, Mutaytus has a small Lokar head growing out of his chest.
- Hopeless Boss Fight: Shortly after appearing on the Island (with their Power Coins now missing), several monsters from old episodes appear, seemingly Back from the Dead, and immediately charge at the Power Rangers, who prepare for a battle they cannot hope to win. They turn out to just be another illusion, make this ultimately a subversion.
- Informed Attribute: The Island of Illusion looks like any run-of-the-mill natural garden you'd find in L.A. Yet, from the Rangers' reactions and the eerie music, you'd think they'd been sucked into a forest of death that had bloodthirsty beasts stalking them throughout the place. They show a monitor lizard in order to try and intimidate but it doesn't help much.
- Monstrous Humanoid: The first form of Mutaytus looks like a person's rotting, zombified corpse. His second form ramps things up to eleven and no longer applies to this trope.
- One-Winged Angel: Mutaytus starts out as a zombie-like thing, until Lokar's breath turns him into a more powerful demonic-looking creature.
- Our Demons Are Different: Lokar is clearly demonic in nature, but he's definitely not the traditional "red devil with a pitchfork" type, instead appearing as a massive, ghastly face in the sky.
- Mutaytus' second form as well. Whereas most Monsters of the Week with powered-up forms magically transform into them, Mutaytus' new, more demonic features look as if they physically burst out of his previous form's body, with his horned head and extended neck having split his zombie form's face open.
- Rhymes on a Dime: Quagmire does this throughout the two-parter, although not all his rhymes make complete sense. For example, he refers to Madam Woe (a Monster of the Week who appeared in a previous episode) as a "nightmare queen" who Billy fought in a "realm of dreams," which doesn't really describe Madam Woe or the actual battle at all.
- Silent Antagonist: Neither of Mutaytus' forms talk, only grunt and growl.
- Spikes of Villainy: Both Lokar and Mutaytus' second form.
- Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: After having a bad reaction to bugs, Zack finally takes this trope literally as he's terrorized by a python he encounters.
- One wonders, if Zack is scared of snakes, why he didn't have a bad reaction to fighting Snizard.
- Zombie Puke Attack / Super Spit / Covered in Gunge: Mutaytus' second form spews a stream of "toxic foam" from its mouth that absolutely covers the Megazord and Dragonzord, taking them out of the fight and allowing Rita and Lokar to send the Rangers to the Island of Illusion.
