86 continues to impress with its humanity, but to an extent much of what was had and needed this episode was highly predictable from the last. That’s not a bad thing; there are an infinite number of ways to tell a story, and only a finite subset of them actually work. Because of this, it’s not a necessary bad thing when elements of a story are predictable, especially from what immediately precedes them.
It does mean, though, that there’s only so much that can be talked about for this episode, at least in terms of summarizing the plot. The story is essentially, following the talking-to the Major got, how both sides handle the rift. The soldier who did the talking (Laughing Fox, aka Theo) gets a bit of a lecture from his fellows who, while they may not entirely disagree, do disagree with how he said it. For the Major (Lena, to use her preferred name), she has to face up to her friend and uncle, neither of which is sympathetic towards her distress. Of course, unlike the 86 squad themselves, they want her to get over the idea of treating those people as human. In the process we learn more about her visit to the battlefield; it seems to have been when she was a child, taken to view it by her similarly principled father, only to have their transport shot down en route.
Her uncle actually makes a good point that ‘principled’ Alba like Lena and her father still fall prey to the general perception of the world, arguing that the reason her father got killed taking his little daughter to a live battlefield was because he had internalized the idea that only 86, not Alba ‘humans’ die. Of course, he and Lena differ on what the proper solution to the conundrum is; Uncle wants her to drop the charade of respecting the 86, while Lena wants to be honestly good.
The pressure, overall, causes Lena to break down as she hears the sanitized propaganda war report, leading to her reaching her limit at the memorial for, presumably, the early days of the war when Alba citizens died, calling back in to Undertaker.
On the other side we got a little more development for Theo in particular, how he had a commander some time in the past that inspired him, but the main interest is in getting to Lena’s apology. Her call is first to Undertaker, getting the general atmosphere from him, apologizing personally, and learning the names of the other squad members.
After the credits (no, I will not stop pointing that out) we get her conversation with the entire squad, exchanging proper names with them and setting up where they stand in relation to each other, which is essentially that they still won’t exactly respect her as long as she’s safe behind the walls and they’re not, but they’ll be more honest about their feelings and don’t exactly mind her small talk calls if it’s largely to pass the time.
Lastly, before signing off, she realizes that Undertaker didn’t give his own name, and asks him on a private line. When she learns his name is Shinei Nouzen, she asks after another Nouzen, causing Shin to have flashbacks before identifying the name she knows as his brother. While there are a lot of things we can safely assume from that, the episode ends before we see how the connection pans out.
So, since I talked about predictability, here are some predictions I’m making as someone not spoiled as to the source material. Right now, I’d guess we don’t follow up with Shin’s brother as a major plot point right away. It’s certainly going to come up, but I think we need a new movement with the new normal between Lena and the squad before we transform her relationship with these characters again, so I expect the brother thing to be kind of slow burn. Also, I’d hazard a guess from this point in the story that eventually Lena is going to find her way to the front. She may never climb into a juggernaut herself, but she’s going to meet the Processors in the flesh eventually. That, of course, will also be a long time coming; it feels like something we wouldn’t really get until the second cour, possibly the very end of the first (explaining why the show was split, as that would transform its nature and to an extent its genre).
As for next week? The main thrust of the episode is largely going to be sight unseen, and I’m looking forward to it.