There are many edges and this show is determined to lord over all of them.
I’m doing two episodes at once to catch up. This regular feature is likely to remain… somewhat irregular, but Haruhi as my witness I’ll get through the show. So, what’s up this time?
Episode 5 is pretty much all about Strength. She’s bust drowning her sorrows when she encounters the boy from the first few episodes. The boy is looking for Empress because the Educational Institution raided his home and stole his sister, so he wants to get her back. For all her tough talk, Strength’s bark seems worse than her bite. Before she can refuse to help out, the Educational Institution goons attack.
At first, Strength thrashes them, but then they use some liquid metal goo that eats her giant metal arm rig, leaving her a far less overpowered mere humanoid. Without her gear, she also dramatically changes personality, turning into a crying little girl who the boy has to help escape. They have some heart to heart talks, but ultimately it turns out that the boy agreed to sell her out for his sister back, somehow having not gotten the memo that the Educational Institution can’t be trusted as far as you can thrown them. Strength manages to regenerate one of her doom fists and disengage, after he gives her the window to do so by having a change of heart.
Strength does the Gollum/Smeagol thing with her two personalities, since she has half her gear, but ultimately decides to chase down the Educational Institution goons, not blaming the weak little human for his moment of weakness. She arrives at the ruins of the bar just as the Institution goons are hanging him to feed to the liquid metal, and she saves him and does a fair amount of thrashing. When it looks like the fight might still be a problem, Empress shows, shoots down an enemy, and ultimately meets up with Strength. She doesn’t join the party just yet, but it seems everyone is going to be storming the Educational Institution’s base (the search for which was most of Empress’s uninteresting side of the episode).
In Episode 6, we find that the little sister has survived Smiley’s usually rape-to-death routine, and thus he intends to make her into a Hemitheos unit that will bear his children. He doesn’t have a lot of time, though, as Strength and the brother are aboard the land ship raising hell and Empress and her team are on the field outside. Smiley takes to the fight against Empress (morphing into a blood red kewpie doll ogre in what might might be described as a pink Cadillac if it was refitted by Warhammer 40k’s Orks), while Dead Master skirmishes with Charlotte and Strength tears deeper into the base.
On the inside, Strength becomes convinced this all needs to burn when she and her escortee find the discarded girls Smiley raped to death, left to rot in what I guess is probably some kind of garbage room. As they infiltrate deeper, they encounter the strange lady who talked to Smiley in the first couple of episodes, and who was briefly seen earlier in this one frustrated that she couldn’t start the girl’s conversion without Smiley there. This is Lunatic, who in her combat form is obviously the incarnation or herald of Artemis we’ve seen Empress fighting (and losing to) in the flashbacks, so naturally she starts mopping the floor with Strength.
The interchanged between Dead Master and Charlotte gets the least focus of the action, with Dead Master eventually faking Charlotte out to shoot out one of her engines. The battle between Smiley and Empress is a lot harsher, as she can’t get the time to pull out her big gun, and Smiley seems highly resistant to small arms fire. He damages Black Trike, throws his own goons when he runs out of ammo, and shifts into a stretchy bigger black kewpie doll with demonic red markings when he needs to go to the next level of serious business. Eventually the military underling who got a couple of lines a few episodes ago sacrifices himself to crash into Smiley with a grenade. This only takes out Smiley’s car, but by the time the smoke clears Empress is ready and able to waste him with full power.
Once Smiley is dead (yeah, he’s dead. Cheer for that.), Empress takes out the tracks of the giant Educational Institution carrier. The sudden stop causes Lunatic to realize her minions have been beaten, and since it would be a bother if Charlotte was stolen as well, she leaves Strength and buggers off, allowing them to complete the rescue of the girl who is shockingly for this show not traumatized beyond belief by her experiences.
In the aftermath, Charlotte is nowhere to be found in her crash site, and Strength relates Lunatic’s words to the others, which make them realize that Charlotte is both important and probably able to be rescued from her brainwashing. The mission is back on to take on the space elevator, but before that Black Trike needs repairs, so we’re headed to Lighthouse Number 8 as the episode ends.
For what the show is (which is very much a “your mileage may vary” sort of product), this was a pretty good set of episodes. We got some real development on Strength at the very least, Empress seems to at least have a psychology seeing how much she flashes back to the girls who got blown up right in front of her, and we introduced a new villain properly before finishing off Smiley, letting us dovetail into a new arc. The structure is perfectly serviceable, even if the substance is as edgy as a box of razors. We’ll see if there are any new developments next time.