When Rita Repulsa escapes and begins wreaking havoc on Earth, Trini, along with her close friends Jason Lee Scott, Zack Taylor, Billy Cranston, and Kimberly Hart, is one of the five teens chosen by Zordon to receive great power, drawn from the spirits of the prehistoric animals.

While attempting to bring Zordon back to life, Billy accidentally restores the evil spirit of Rita Repulsa, which takes over the body of Alpha 8 and becomes Robo-Rita.

While Zack and Billy lead the remaining Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers to defend Angel Grove and thwart Rita's plan, Minh steals Trini's morpher to join the fight but finds herself unable to use it.

Zack uses the Power Axe's cannon mode to destroy Rita once and for all, saying Trini's name before delivering the final blow.

Later, Aisha Campbell - who took over as the Yellow Ranger when Trini left for the Peace Conference - congratulates Minh on inheriting the legacy that she once held herself.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Once & Always is dedicated to the memory of Thuy Trang, as well as Tommy Oliver's actor Jason David Frank, who died in November 2022.

Trini's issues are made worse by her family's relative normality, as her parents are essentially incapable of acknowledging or accepting her sexuality.

However, as she trains with the team, having met them while practicing martial arts in the mine where Billy found the Power Coins, despite them meeting Zordon and Alpha before Zack even asks for her name, she comes to form a closer bond with the group.

The series is a modern-day remake but also serves as a continuation from Kimberly's exit in the third season of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

Though Bioman was not picked up for a series, the character names of Trini, Zack, Kimberly, and Billy would later be used for Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.

In particular, in the episode "The Beetle Invasion" she is notably seen sitting on a bench wearing a knee brace while the other Rangers played the game.

When Thuy Trang, Austin St. John (Jason), and Walter Jones (Zack) left the show (over contract disputes), their characters stopped making new on-screen or face-to-camera shots, simply being shown in their Ranger uniforms, using archive footage, or with doubles who were not directly facing the cameras, before they were written off in the two-part "Power Transfer" episode in which their characters were chosen to attend the World Peace Conference.

Unlike Kimberly, Trini did not wear a skirt with her Ranger suit and appears with male anatomical contours in most morphed sequences.