Kimberly left the team during Mighty Morphin Power Transfer when Jason, Zack, and Trini never actually interacted with their replacements, MMPR season 3 was able to give Kimberly a proper sendoff as she transferred her powers to Kat. While Power Rangers handled Kimberly’s exit well, replacing such a beloved character was difficult.

Kat made for a great Pink Ranger not just in MMPR but also in Zeo and Turbo. As the Pink Ranger for three consecutive teams, Kat built a legacy of her own and grew beyond the “Kimberly replacement” stigma. That said, no one could replace Kimberly as a character, and seeing the show move forward without the original Pink Ranger was bittersweet. It was only in 1997 that Amy Jo Johnson reprised her role as Kimberly for Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie. However, not only was Kimberly no longer a Power Ranger, but she never returned to the show.

Kimberly Never Appeared In A Power Rangers Show Again After Mighty Morphin

Kimberly Eventually Returned, But Not In The TV Show

While Kimberly did return to Power Rangers in 1997, the original Pink Ranger only appeared in the Turbo film. Unlike the 1995 movie in which Amy Jo Johnson starred alongside most of the original cast, Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie was canon to the TV show and marked the transition between Power Rangers Zeo and the Power Rangers Turbo. Kimberly was not the only original Power Ranger to return in the Turbo film, as Austin St. John’s Jason also appeared. In the story, Jason and Kimberly are kidnapped by the bad guys and forced into fighting their friends.

Seeing Kimberly reunited with Jason and Tommy felt very nostalgic, not to mention how she got to interact a little more with characters like Kat and Adam. Unfortunately, that was the last we saw of Kimberly on screen, at least without her helmet. The Mighty Morphin Pink Ranger was featured in two crossover episodes, but in both cases, she and the rest of the team were wearing their costumes and had no lines. Interestingly, Amy Jo Johnson had a cameo in the 2017 Power Rangers reboot alongside Jason David Frank. However, they weren’t playing Kimberly and Tommy.

Kimberly Was Back As The Pink Ranger In 2023, But There Was A Catch

We Don’t Know When And How Kimberly Became A Ranger Again

Netflix’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always brought back David Yost and Walter Emanuel Jones for an hour-long scripted special celebrating the show’s 30th anniversary. While Amy Jo Johnson did not return for the Netflix special, Kimberly was part of the story. Once & Always opened with the original Power Rangers – Jason, Kimberly, Trini, Zack, Billy, and Tommy – fighting a new version of Rita Repulsa. At the end of the fight, the original Yellow Ranger was killed. A year later, Robot Rita returned and captured most of the team, with only Zack and Billy escaping.

Robot Rita capturing the Power Rangers was how Once & Always handled the absences of the original characters whose actors didn’t return. Although finding an excuse for why the rest of the Rangers weren’t there for most of the Netflix special made sense, the fact that Kimberly and the others were fighting as a team in their Mighty Morphin colors at the start of Once & Always was strange. The Mighty Morphin team was no more after the original show ended, meaning they must have reassembled offscreen at some point.

Kimberly chose not to be a Power Ranger anymore because she wanted to pursue other things, yet she was now a superhero again.

Power Rangers showing up out of nowhere using their old powers that were not supposed to exist anymore has become part of the show’s charm at this point. From Adam’s broken Power Coin to Tommy’s Master Morpher, Power Rangers keeps finding ways to bring the classic costumes back. That said, having the original Rangers operating as a team again in Once & Always raised some questions that the special did not bother to answer. For example, Kimberly chose not to be a Power Ranger anymore because she wanted to pursue other things, yet she was now a superhero again.

It's Frustrating How Little We Know About What Happened To Kimberly After MMPR

The Only Answers We Can Find About Kimberly’s Fate Are From The Comics

Power Rangers: Once & Always was a frustrating reminder of how little we know about what happened to Kimberly after the events of “A Different Shade Of Pink.” Apart from the fact that she and Jason were on vacation together in 1997 and that she eventually became the Pink Ranger again and fought alongside her original crew, we have no canon information about Kimberly’s post-MMPR life. Granted, Power Rangers was never about following continuity and having a cohesive canon. However, it is frustrating to know so little about one of the franchise’s most important characters.

In Matt Hotson and Amy Jo Johnson's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Return, Kimberly and Tommy had a daughter, Olivia Heart.

The lack of Kimberly in the Power Rangers universe is not a problem when it comes to the comics. In Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Pink from 2016, we follow Kimberly after the events of MMPR season 3 and learn more about why she chose not to be a Ranger anymore and why she wrote that letter to Tommy during Zeo. More recently, Amy Jo Johnson herself co-wrote a Power Rangers comic book for BOOM! Studios set in an alternate continuity where the events of Zeo never happened. While these are not canon, they are a great way to revisit Kimberly’s character.

Despite Only Returning Once, Kimberly Remains One Of The Most Iconic Power Rangers

The Pink Ranger’s Legacy Is Bigger Than Just How Many Episodes She Appeared In

Many of the actors who left Power Rangers during the Zordon Era ended up returning to the franchise at some point, either for a small cameo or an extended role. For example, Jason David Frank returned for multiple crossover episodes and even played a major role in Dino Thunder after Tommy left the team in 1997. David Yost, who was not involved with Power Rangers for decades, reprised his role as Billy in two different 2023 projects – Once & Always and Cosmic Fury. Another example is Austin St. John, who returned in Zeo, the Turbo movie, and two crossover episodes.

The fact that these and many other actors continued to appear in Power Rangers in some form added to their legacy and made their characters even more iconic. This puts into perspective how special the original Pink Ranger is considering her relatively small amount of screen time in the franchise. Amy Jo Johnson hasn’t played Kimberly since 1997, but the character remains as important to fans today as she was three decades ago.