Few answers, but fewer new questions makes this feel like a slow-burn affair. Despite that, we still got some impressive action and solid world-building.
This episode involves the characters going on a “bus” ride. They get in this big clunky ATV you’ve seen in other sci-fi, with a few other quirky passengers, and head on out.
After the required time to meet our cast for the episode, the bus is attacked by mercenaries hunting for Rouge. The passengers decide that these mercs don’t seem trustworthy and thus instead of handing her over, the old granny takes the wheel and they drive like hell as the combat-competent party members make short work of the enemies that got aboard.
However, it’s not long before the bus breaks down. One team goes to scavenge replacement parts from a nearby military site, which should be quite abandoned given the end of the war between humanity and invading aliens known as Usurpers (friendly aliens being known as Visitors). They find a broken-down alien war machine and also a slightly shifty scavenger there, as well as the part they need.
Meanwhile, Rouge and a little girl go out into the forest to let the girl take some photos (makes sense in context). They accidentally wake up a couple of the alien war machines that are less wrecked than the one in the military base, and end up on the run. The scavenger, who met up with them about then, gets the little girl back to the bus while Rouge stays behind and takes up her super mode to fight back. This leads to the episode’s big action sequence, with the “cylinder head” mechs chasing after and trying to attack the bus while Rouge fights them off on foot. Eventually, she gets the upper hand and takes out the enemies, meeting up with the bus later without leaking her true nature to, at least, any of the normal passengers.
So, to follow up with what I said last week, we got basically nothing about the Immortal Nine – just the opening scene, where a detective from Earth is headed to Mars on the trail of Rouge, who is wanted in her mech form as a serial killer for taking down the disguised super Neans, with an organization known as Alethea evidently controlling the info on the situation.
But, that’s okay: we also didn’t really engage with that side of the plot. I’m going to revise my opinion to this: we need some basics of motivation and cause for conflict before it becomes important again. I’m willing to watch a sequence like episode 1 about once being totally ignorant of the reasons behind just about anything involved, but if they’re pacing it out with material like today’s episode, which works just fine in a self-contained sort of way, they can put it off as long as they feel they need to before bringing us back to the task at hand.
Thus, I think Metallic Rouge is giving us a pretty darn strong opening. If you’re in to scifi, especially classic scifi like it clearly homages, check it out and watch along at home with me!