Let’s build the world while we let Rouge fly solo for a bit.
So, the episode more or less gets its start with, after they drop off Viola’s core and discuss what little they know of the upcoming mission, Naomi opening her mouth and inserting her foot, calling Rouge a piece of equipment, which pretty much triggers Rouge to storm off in a very understandable huff.
Whilein her own, Rouge ends up teaming up with a shady depressed doctor, who gets her access to the local Nean ghetto when normally entry and exit are harshly controlled. There, she’s approached by the leadership of a Nean Liberty group. This group is hoping to peacefully work towards equality, but also has contects with the Alters, a more dangerous group who Rouge seems to suspect might be related to the Immortal Nine. The Freedom group, tipped off by a Nean who was on the bus with Rouge and saw her transform, tries to recruit Rouge to stand with them, on the grounds that just the knowledge that a Nean like her exists and supports them would be a pretty big boon to morale.
As Rouge considers this proposal, we get some scenes with the dour downer doctor (who seems to think the movement for equality will probably come to a grisly end even though he empathizes with the suffering Neans), with the inspector from Earth getting stonewalled by the local police, and with Naomi realizing she’s screwed up and trying to find Rouge with Birdbot 2.0
Rouge then gets summoned – alone – to the boss of the freedom-seeking Neans she talked with before, only to find him dead with a hole through his chest. Naomi makes contact about then, but then other Neans show up and though rouge is briefly suspected, decide to try to cover it up. Evidently, though, that might not be going to well as the human law enforcement is in an uproar and mobilizes to deal with something.
In this episode, we also see the boss of Rouge and Naomi, a guy who plays the piano and muses over the Immortal Nine in a way that only a villain or extreme decadant asthete usually would. He’s also informed of the traveling carnival in the town Rouge is in and seems to think much of it, which comes back as the last shots of the episode show the carnival, and then an approaching airship of some description. The general idea seems to be that the carnival is somehow bad news, which I would currently suspect might have something to do with Mr. Joker.
In any case, we do get more of a picture of the world in this episode. While the idea that Neans were second-class citizens was pretty strong before now, what with the whole “bullied to death” sequence in episode 1, its especially flagrant here, with the different nean groups having their motivations, along with the difficulties imposed by the Asimov Code, made clear. Given that this place, a brutal ghetto where death at the hands of the authorities is rampant, is said to be better than many of the alternatives (like working to death on a project to terraform Venus), it goes a long way to show how abject things are. That gives a possible motivation for the Immortal Nine to start making trouble, which in turn explains why the mysterious Alethia might want to hunt them down, seeing as they (like Rouge) are not bound to the Asimov Code. It’s also highly possible that the grumpy doctor may be one of the Immortal Nine, since they take human form but this one is allegedly hanging out in the Nean ghetto, and speaking from experience when it comes to how ugly this matter can get.
So far, the show still wants viewers to do a lot of that dot connecting… which can be a good thing depending on the overall strength of the presentation. Time will tell if Metallic Rouge is up to the task.