So it turns out that red doesn’t have to go versus blue.
This episode takes place as the squad travels to Venus, and covers two major lines.
The first I’ll mention, and the lesser of the two, is following up with the Immortal Nine and their captives and hosts on Venus. They reminisce about what it was like in the good ol’ days when they were family (along with Gene, after all), enjoy sole chocolate, go over their regrets, and so on. The circus ringleader (referred to as the Puppetmaster) is there as the catalyst, putting on a show for the Usurpers as he would have it.
Some good notes from that side include that it was Aes, not Alice who was on board with the Immortal Nine plan (seemingly led by Silva), and that – as we’ll see in the other line – Noir will be steadily losing his memories as a result of his core being removed.
Speaking of that, the other line veatures Rouge, Naomi, the cop, and Noir all on the ship to Venus. Naomi has a secret weapon intended to get them in and win the day, but it turns out Cyan has stowed away on the ship, and she did so by junking that ultimate trump card weapon.
Except… Cyan isn’t exactly the character we met before. Evidently, her behavior then was the result of a mysterious voice controlling her, and now that she’s on her own, she pretty much acts like a little kid, considering Rouge to be her big sister. She mostly wants to play, including doing imaginative crayon drawings, while Naomi antagonizes her like Naomi does and the cop, being the only adult in the room not suffering from a gaping chest wound, does what he can to mediate.
True, there are times where it’s clear that Cyan (evidently a creation of the Puppetmaster after Rouge’s template) is extremely volatile, and potentially dangerous in as much as she doesn’t seem to know her own strength, but when she’s got the mind of a grade schooler by all appearances, some of that can be forgiven. At least by the audience; Naomi is not amused.
Thus, that side of the story is largely concerned with bonding with Cyan. After all, strategy is a bust so there’s not a whole lot else to do on the ride to Venus. This is essentially the “Cute girls doing cute things” episode in this heavy and overall kind of dark scifi outing.
And that’s also pretty much the episode: we cut when Rouge and company arrive at Venus, facing a greeting in the form of a swarm of missiles to shoot them out of the sky (even though the plan needs Rouge’s core, but that’s neither here nor there). Going forward, I suspect we’re in for a hell of a fight.