Carmen Rodriguez

Carmen Rodriguez is a fictional character in the Power Rangers universe. She was played by actress Genivive Cortese during the first three seasons of the show, plus on the two feature films of the franchise. Carmen is best remembered as the first Thunderstorm Yellow Ranger and first Yellow Ninja Thunder Ranger from the first entry of both Power Rangers: Thunderstorm and Power Rangers: Ninja Thunder. Carmen spent three years as a Ranger before giving up her powers for good to Telexa's new alumna Claire Mitchell.

Character History
Power Rangers: Thunderstorm

Carmen was one of the original five Thunderstorm Power Rangers chosen by Telexa when Vita attacked Earth following her release from containment. Carmen received the Pterodactyl Power Coin and the Pterodactyl Dinozord, thus becoming the Yellow Power Ranger. Carmen starts the series as a pretty California teen with an latina accent, but with a heightened awareness for her friends. Throughout the series, she is the member of the team most likely to fire off a sarcastic or witty retort. However, as the series progresses, she becomes a deeper and kind-hearted person, due to experiences such as switching bodies with the nerdy Drew Hale and being turned into a punk after Baboo administers a potion to one of Carmen's drinks.

Carmen often used the environment around her as a springboard for her attacks and was often needed to defeat monsters with visible weaknesses, such as the archery-based Snizzard and the Terror Toad. She also taught dance classes at Riverside's Youth Center, while using American Sign Language  to interpret for a student with a disability. Carmen was revealed to be proficient in many hobbies throughout the series, including designing and arranging the floral pattern for a parade float, being regarded as a great cheerleader throughout her education at Winwood Junior High and being able to sing and play guitar.| [9]

Carmen's best friend is Nicole Holden, with whom she starts a petition for environmental awareness and volunteered to become "Big Sisters" to Maria, a young girl who needed guidance.| [11] When Carmen starts a botany club that is less popular than Nicole's Karate club, Lady Morticia uses a spell to turn Carmen's jealousy into hatred; however, she overcomes the spell and the two girls defeat Morticia's monster, the Bloom of Doom, before reaffirming that they are lifelong friends.| [12]  When Nicole leaves for a Peace Conference in New Zealand, Carmen becomes close with Nicole's replacement and young team member, Jasmine Harris and Susie Gold.

Carmen and Jake's relationship, as well as her friendship with both Drew and Susie, were tested many times by Lord Zedd, but the relationships always maintained intact. When Drew and Carem ran against each other to become class president, they bickered and forced Susie to choose between both of them until Susie tells them that she would rather quit than to choose sides and Carmen conceded the race, allowing Drew to win. He and Carmen patch things up and apologizes to Susie. Carmen was often isolated from the rest of the team and put into danger, but she overcame adversity each time, including landing her uncle's airplane,| [5] escaping from Samurai Fan Man and Lord Zedd, and recruiting the ancestors of her present-day friends to become the Wild West Rangers when she falls into a time hole that brings her to 1880's Riverside.| [31]

In the show's third season, Carmen remains on Earth with the flu while her friends travel to the planet Edenoi to help Dex, the Masked Rider; as a result, Carmen battles a monster, Repellator, despite her illness. When Vita's cousin Vida destroys the Thunderzords, Carmen and the other Rangers travel to the Desert of Despair and gain new powers from the creator of the Power Coins, Ninjor. Carmen becomes the Yellow Ninja Ranger, harnessing the spirit of the crane and controlling the Yellow Crane Ninjazord. Carmen later moves in with Jasmine's family when her mother becomes engaged to a painter and moves to France; Zedd creates a monster, Artistmole, from Carmen's nightmares about her mother's fiancee, but Carmen defeats it. After Artistmole was destoryed, Carmen and Jake become and couple. Carmen was sad when her mother was not present for the 1995 holiday season, but she returned from France to surprise her daughter.

Midway through third season, Cortese requested that Carmen be written off the show because she wanted to pursue other opportunities in acting. The character was accommodated with a 10-episode story arc focused on Carmen, leading up to her departure. Carmen and boyfriend, Jake adopt a stray white cat, "P.C.," who is the secret form of Vita's new spy, Claire Mitchell. Claire, jealous of Carmen's popularity, relationship with Jake, and friendhip with Susie, steals Claire's Power Coin; with the Coin in evil hands, Carmen's very life force is in danger. Lady Morticia kidnaps Carmen and uses her as ransom for the other Rangers, but they rescue her. Telexa disconnects Carmen's connection to the Morphing Grid, forcing her to receive power from the other Rangers, much like Susie had when he was losing his Aqua-Blue Ranger powers; Susie and Jake consoled Carmen through this time, as she had done previously for him.

Meanwhile, Carmen caught the interest of a Figure Skating coach, Gunthar Schmidt, and began training for the preliminaries of the Pan Global Games. As she trained, sister-in-laws, Vita and Morticia plotted to exploit this and overexhaust Carmen in battles; they succeed when she falls off a balance beam while training and injures herself. However, this event breaks Vita's spell over Claire, who calls an ambulance and convinces Carmen not to give up on ice-skating. Claire also returns Carmen's Power Coin back to her. When Telexa allows Carmen to give up her Ranger duties to participate in the figure skating competition, which occurred in Australia, Carmen chose Claire to replace her as the Yellow Ranger, ending her appearances on the show as her character relocated.

Trivia

 * Carmen is the only Power Ranger who does figure-skating.
 * Carmen, along with Susie, Drew, Trey, Jasmine and Nicole are the only Rangers to appear in more than 100 episodes.
 * Carmen is the first cheerleader in the franchise, the second was Kayla Thomas.
 * Among the rangers Carmen's been friends with, she remained close to Susie.