Last time, with the destruction of the Gadoll Factory, Natsume had quite the question and received a world-shattering answer. She actually ends up hyperventilating and even passing out, being initially unable to take the truth of her world. I don’t blame her. Kaburagi removes her from the crumbling factory while the lab workers there fail to get their avatars to safety, with one being stabbed by a dying Gadoll with just the right amount of focus so you know what’s coming. Meanwhile, the real bodies of the surviving bugs do their best to escape the prison.
This episode is mostly a lower-key
episode, with a decent amount of talking and flashback, but I think
that’s what was needed here in particular. We needed to be excused
from high drama and battles to let the weight of what happened sink
in.
That weight is truly crushing for
Natsume. After waking up in the car during their escape, Natsume
gets an even more full answer, and has a bit of a falling out with
Kaburagi over being lied to and now having to bear the truth entirely
herself since any other Tanker who learns the truth or even comes
close to it will be killed. Kaburagi even confirms something I had
myself suspected, that Natsume’s father was a victim of the System
for just that reason, after digging up the junked robot in the
opening.
While she is angry at Kaburagi, I think
it’s more interesting how her bad feelings are ultimately more
internally focused. Natsume is consumed with regret, feeling like
her struggles have been meaningless and that she would have been
happier to remain ignorant. Resolving Natsume’s feelings is the task
for the rest of the episode. She’s unable to particupate in the
victory feast, but Kurenai finds where she’s moping in an alley,
trying to work out her feelings.
One thing Deca-dence has done is
weirdly balance the case. The only characters that get real focus as
mains are Kaburagi and Natsume, and even Natsume has felt more like a
supporting character sometimes. But the real supporting cast outside
them is weirdly vast, and strong for how big it is. One reason I
bring that up now is Kurenai – she’s not a character who’s actually
done a whole lot in terms of the show, but the few conversations
she’s had with Natsume have done a good job establishing who she is
and what kind of insight she has. So when she visits Natsume in
Natsume’s low moment here with a burger in her pack, we both believe
that it’s something she’d do and that the advice she gives,
insightful despite her enforced ignorance, does come from the heart,
which makes the scene much more emotional than if Kurenai had rung
hollow for a character. Managing to “speed paint” characters the
way that Deca-dence has done, establishing them with little run time
but well enough that they hold up when a scene is predicated on them,
is a difficult thing to do, and it’s been done very well here.
Kurenai ultimately encourages Natsume
to look at her experience in a new way: no one else can know what
Natsume’s been through (Kurenai meaning that a little more
philosophically and less literally than the truth) and that she
should treasure her experiences as what makes her unique.
On the other side, Kaburagi is
grappling with depression as well. Natsume rebuffing him after
learning the truth hit hard, and the fact that he comes home to an
empty house, Pipe having dissolved like the other non-bug Gadoll,
doesn’t help. He composes a letter to Natsume after seeing the one
she left for him during his last absence and logs out to complete the
escape.
Meanwhile, the eggs planted in the
avatar of the Gadoll lab tech by that vengeful stab hatch, spawning
what I’ll call the Last Gadoll. It begins to feed and grow.
Jill, Donatello, Kaburagi, and the gang
get out of the prison camp with a hijacked truck and make their way
across the surface to a hideout, but while driving (which is a little
comical because Kaburagi, grumpy action star attitude aside,
shouldn’t be able to see over the wheel in his natural form) check
the news to find out they’re the System’s Most Wanted… along with
Natsume, who we see Kaiba Shades Boss seeking out himself, though he
of course has some difficulties finding her.
After Natsume goes home she finds the
letter from Kaburagi and races to his apartment as he hurries to log
in, ending up opening the door into his face. She gives him another,
much better talking to about his actions and responsibility, aside
from the necessary lies, and he’s able to express properly what
meeting Natsume meant for him. It’s a sweet moment of
reconciliation, interrupted when Kamina Shades Boss shows up by way
of ramming his hand through Kaburagi’s chest, killing his Avatar. He
looms over Natsume, and makes it clear she’s meant to be next.
At the hideout, Kaburagi panics. No
matter what Jill does, the sudden disconnection from his avatar can’t
be fixed (probably because it’s, ya know, dead), and another crisis
emerges on the horizon: The Last Gadoll, now the size of a mountain
itself, decked out in armor plates scavenged from the ruins of the
world and shambling with presumed destructive intent towards
Deca-dence.
Donatello is pumped. Everyone else
should be afraid.
So, here we have the setup for the
final two episodes: a gigantic final boss in the form of the Last
Gadoll, and a confrontation with the System to free the Tankers and
robots alike from having their destinies decided for them. Of
course, in an immediate sense, something has to stop Kamina Shades
Boss from killing Natsume as he easily could, but there are options:
Kurenai, The Last Gadoll, Kaburagi’s other avatar, Minato, a
mysterious survival of Pipe (we didn’t see Pipe dissolve, but since
his costume was there and he was gone it would take some explaining
if he didn’t)… or perhaps most promisingly Natsume herself. If she
can stand up against Kamina Shades, at least enough to help outside
forces help her rather than simply needing to be saved, it would be a
great moment.
From that list, speaking of Minato, he
remains a wild card. In the previous episode he seemed furious; in
this episode, he’s more lost, leaving his post to have a smoke and
ask himself what Kaburagi is planning next. I’m asking what Minato
is planning next. He seems to have a complicated relationship with
Kamina Shades Boss. At some points, Minato is able to manipulate
connections over Kamina Shades Boss’s head (such as saving Kaburagi
from the scrap heap), while at others Kamina Shades Boss seems to
have the right to enforce The Rules on Minato. It would be hard to
imagine that Minato wouldn’t have a role going forward, especially
since we’ve seen him handle unexpected battle scenarios with grace,
but he could be anything between the Big Bad and the Cavalry.
We’ll see more of how this resolves
next week!