We found the Rust Eater! And, predictably, that’s far from the end of our woes. Getting it starts with an action scene, fighting the Pipe Snake (Giant human-teeth-having finger-and-limb-fringed flying amphisbaena) with Pawoo once she gets the picture that Bisco isn’t trying to decieve or hurt Milo. The monster is brought down, and the mushroom that is supposed to be the Rust Eater is discovered growing on its body.
At first, the Rust Eater doesn’t seem too marvelous, but it turns out that the blood of a Mushroom Keeper has some special reaction with what otherwise appear to be normal Matsutake mushrooms (well, as normal as a pine mushroom growing on a giant killer snake monster can be, I guess) in order to activate them as the immensely potent Rust Eater.
While the group is recovering, though, the thug governor arrives with a ship and airlifts the dead pipe snake (and most of the supplies of Rust Eaters) away, wounding Bisco with a Rust-inflicting bullet in the process. The group agrees to split up with Pawoo taking a dose of Milo’s Rust Eater Medicine to Jabi since her bike is the fastest conveyance. She secretly gives the other prepared ampule, meant for her, to the now-afflicted Bisco, making him turn beet red with a little flirting in the process. I guess the ability to absolutely charm the opposite sex runs in the family, if not in the exact same form.
However, Pawoo is caught out by the governor when she discovers that her guards have been mind controlled or zombified and, captured, is used along with Jabi as a hostage to draw in Milo and Bisco. Milo discovers this through a broadcast from the governor, and tries to prevent the still bitterly wounded Bisco from tearing off to handle it himself. This leads to a pretty good argument between the two of them, and a surprisingly savage fight, in which Milo gets the last laugh with a tranquilizer injection, meaning that it’s his turn to head into danger for the sake of the people that matter to him, rather than Bisco doing it.
We’ll see how long that holds out.
For being a major turning point in the plot, there’s fairly little to talk about with this episode, because it was all (with the possible exception of the “Mushroom keeper blood” note in specific) needed beats. This is where being predictable is not a bad thing. For the story to work, the villain had to get the Macguffin, there had to be a reason why he couldn’t just say “toodles!” and use it for himself, and there had to be a reason why our main characters had to go after him directly and emphatically, and not at their leisure. That you could have anticipated the turns doesn’t mean they were at all wrong; rather, it means that the show is telling its story in a competent manner.
Right now, the biggest challenge the show is facing is that the thug governor is perhaps a bit too enigmatic. We get that he’s a nasty guy but his knowledge and capabilities outstrip what we would expect of a politician while his motives are presently unclear. We can kind of accept that he might just be power hungry, but how lame would that be if there was nothing more to our big bad? Is he a fallen Mushroom Keeper (maybe the one from the old couple’s story), some kind of scientist, a person with a bigger and badder dream than just ruling one province he already rules? There needs to be a good answer to that, not just any answer, since the show is now all set to lean more on the rivalry with him rather than on road trip stuff.