If you want to know what the term “Edgelord” refers to, consider this show to be at least a somewhat decent example of its use when referring to a piece of media.
So, the general flow of this episode is that we meat up with a group of military and roll out to take on the space elevator that’s in construction. However, the creepy Ken doll in charge of the Educational Institution (who is apparently named Smiley, which I don’t think I caught in the previous episodes) is rather cross with Empress and sends a special attacker, Charlotte, to hunt her down.
On the convoy’s way towards the Elevator, Dead Master appears. She actually comes down to explain herself to Empress. It’s about as warped as you think, the good old “kill you to stop you from suffering more”, which of course Empress soundly rejects. Before Dead Master can take out her frustration with violence, Charlotte appears. She’s flying high in her jet drone, because they had to find something to go past a motorcycle, and strafes the hell out of the convoy as well as Dead Master before landing to take Empress down/in. Since Empress got her bike flipped in the fly-by attack she’s on the ground helpless at first. Dead Master then intervenes, and Charlotte shoots an arm and a leg off of her and prepares to finish her off.
At this point. Empress flashes back to her last great battle and finds some extra resolve with which to pull the big laser cannon. She takes out Charlotte’s shield-gun, which sends the girl running, but doesn’t end up finishing her off. Part of the reason for that is probably that our military commander friend screamed for her not to kill Charlotte, having recognized the girl as his long-lost daughter, taken years ago by Smiley’s Educational Institution and believed dead.
While Dead Master is down two limbs and recuperating, Empress manages to talk a little sense into her, and what’s left of the convoy brings her along. Initially, there’s a suggestion to go after Charlotte, so as to not waste the father-daughter reunion, but the commander is dedicated to the mission and they note that she’ll be coming on the hunt for Empress again, so continuing on is going to give them another encounter without losing the chance to destroy the elevator before its completion.
Along the way for this, we get about the level of violent and sexual references you’ve come to expect from the likes of the skanky engineer girl and Dead Master, not to mention checking in with Smiley for even a second. I know that this show was probably created by professional writers, but really it seems dedicated to reminding you that it’s supposed to be by a fifteen-year-old for fifteen-year-olds.
If the action this time around seems a little sparse, though, it’s because we do at least get a few character building scenes between all the action set pieces. They’re not exactly good handlings of the commander’s backstory or Empress dealing with her depression over having a bunch of girls blown up right in front of her, but they are… an attempt, at least? I’d say it’s better than nothing, if only because it means that pacing isn’t a total urban legend.
We’ll move on to the next episode… at the earliest convenience. There’s not necessarily going to be as hard a schedule for this one as there is for most other seasonals, but we are going to see it through to the end one way or another.