Summary:
Reiji kills the Inferno bombers, and then flops in the alley until Claudia calls him up to ask him to meet her at the 39th Drive Inn. Instead, Lizzie meets Claudia whom she has been ordered to kill, while Reiji heads back to his old training facility, where he knows that Ellen will be waiting to kill him. Thinking he’s already lost everything, Reiji forfeits the knife fight and pulls off Ellen’s mask so he can see Ellen’s face before she stabs him. Even though he’s got Ellen straddling him, all Reiji can think about is how Ellen’s raison d’être is Scythe Master’s magical hands and amazing rubdowns.
Unexpectedly, Ellen gets topless and gives an interesting speech about how she admired Reiji’s desire to survive. He fought to stay on the path she’d abandoned, and it gave her hope to think of him as a genderbent version of her living on elsewhere. While Reiji clearly wanted to touch Ellen’s chest scar, Ellen presses his hands to her abdominal scar and says she wouldn’t want to live without Reiji. Reiji realizes that there’s a shortage of perfect breasts in this world, and decides to spirit Ellen away with Mexican passports so she can get away from Scythe Master and his new experimental dolls.
Reaction:
At first I thought it made no sense that Reiji didn’t check for Cal’s body, but then I realized that Reiji was caught in a classic Goldilocks situation. The reason why he didn’t meet Claudia or wait for Cal (aside from his hatred of names that start with “C”) was because Claudia was too old, Cal was too young, but Ellen was just right. I kept desperately hoping that Ellen would interrupt their heart-to-heart with a stern, “Reiji, my eyes are up here,” but alas that moment never came. Speaking of which, I only just noticed in this episode that Ellen’s has survival mode eyes as well (blue, unlike her normal brown eyes).
As for Cal, I was certain she was alive even before the preview. No one in this series dies if you don’t see the body, and Reiji didn’t even bother looking for her body. I also suspect that Lizzie let Claudia escape, even though the director clearly wanted us to think that Lizzie executed her childhood friend because Inferno ordered it. Yeah, a likely story, although I liked seeing young Lizzie. Lizzie probably told Inferno she dumped Claudia’s body in the ocean when in reality she let Claudia drive away. Finally, what the heck did the Godo group invest in that was worth more than stolen cocaine?!
This post was written by...
Kabitzin – who has written 1971 posts on Sea Slugs! Anime Blog.
One of the founders of Sea Slugs, I handle most of the blog admin tasks while wearing my I AM BOSS shirt. I like my action series well choreographed, and my romance series extra trashy. I also have a soft spot for puns.
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually, Reiji didn’t check to see if Cal was really dead for few reasons:
1. The chances of survival were 1%
2. The loft was on fire at the moment
3. Later, he would have endangered Ellen’s life if he returned to LA with her and with Cal’s chances of survival being near zero, it was too risky. He already accepted that Cal was dead
Of course, she survived and that will no doubt greately affect the story.
As for Lizzie and Claudia: The scene should have made it obvious that Claudia is dead (her finally snapping, look on Lizzie’s face, the symbolism of footstep in sand dissapearing)
It’s been shown several times that Cal doesn’t really sit at home all that much, and Reiji (as a professional and as a “killer” of Ellen) should have known to check. The fire makes sense as a reason I guess, but still…
The beach scene with Lizzie and Claudia was very symbolic, but it wouldn’t be the first time that this show has pulled a fast one on the viewers. Coming right after Cal supposedly got blown up, it’s hard to take everything in this show at face value.
Indeed, he should have taken into consideration that he already was wrong about someone being dead. Why he didn’t learn from his past mistakes is beyond my comprehension.
Actually, the only time they wanted to make the watcher believe someone was dead was Ellen’s death. Cal not being dead was made obvious to the watcher even before the explosion and the reason for making Cal look like she died will have a different role then Ellen’s “death” had (it will actually have big consequences).
Claudia’s death, unlike Ellen’s “death” which was not supported by anything and Cal’s”death” which was made obvious to be false even before it actually happened, was made obvious by all the symbolism. Also, take into consideration that Claudia has 0 chances of surviving against Inferno who controls almost entire USA underworld. Her only hope was asking Reiji for help as he might have been able to protect her from Inferno. Without him tough, she is dead meat even if she survived the beach scene.
As for Lizzie, she would need to choose between Claudia who betrayed her trust and Inferno whos many members are her friends, comrades and subordinates who trust her. In other words, she would never betray Inferno and unless she returns to Inferno with Claudia’s corpse as proof, she will be labeled a traitor and need to fight against her former comrades, something a moralic woman like her wants to avoid at all costs. Killing Claudia may not be something she likes, but it is something she would definetely do if needed.
Of course, a mirracle may still happen, but I doubt it. There are far too many things pointing towards her death.
I thought it was funny how Lizzie said she’d stick with Claudia as long as Claudia was righteous. I guess you can still be skanky and righteous, though!
What you say makes sense, but Ellen, Reiji, and Cal have all pretend-died so I am still suspicious. I even suspect that Claudia’s F40 is still alive.
I doubt that car is still ok, and I’d rather leave Claudia dead for now. I’m interested in what’s going to happen to Cal. Since Reiji said she was a genius, and acknowledge her in front of inferno it just makes me wonder if Scythe master going to pick her up. Heck he already made those other puppets, I wouldn’t be surprised if they tried to use her to get Reiji. I know someone’s going to get shot.
Ain’t that the truth. In my review, I even left open the chance that Lizzie offing Claudia might be a ruse, just as you do.
Unless some big changes have been made from the game, Scythe Master shouldn’t even have his new experimental dolls yet: things won’t quite make sense later on …
Of course, some big changes could have been made. (Can’t remember anything about the old guy Scythe Master was talking to, but I could just be going senile.)
He should have started training them soon after he threw out Ein anyway. Few weeks sooner or later, there will be no differences. At least their revelation at the end won’t be so sudden in anime
He wasn’t present in the VN. Anime used him to reveal Scyhte’s plan and situation. Maybe he is the guy who helped Scyhte flee from Inferno.
I wonder if the old guy is Colonel Roshnenko, since Scythe Master was trying to get to Roshnenko back when he was running away from Inferno.
Didn’t Scythe Master kill the colonel by mistake while escaping? Or am I confusing it with a lackey? (I was puzzled by why a bigshot would be in the field …)
I think he killed one of the Colonel’s men.
It’s not their appearance that’s the problem, it’s that their names and the data Scythe Master based their training on wouldn’t quite make sense. (Worrying that this is getting dangerously into spoiler territory …)
Hahaha, I wonder if one will be based on Cal and be really good at fixing appliances!
It was just some small fry. Collonel Roschenko is a powerful smuggler who woudn’t go on a battlefield himself.
You know what I just realized? I just realized that the Inferno goons went to Reiji’s apartment when nobody was home, put down the bomb, left without checking anything, and got shot on their way out. How can this kind of incompetence be allowed in the premiere criminal organization?!
You got to give them some credit, I don’t think I would have the balls to set a bomb in Phantom’s apartment. And look what happens, they die so easily. Man, Reiji makes everything look too easy.
To modify your Goldilocks theory, maybe it was because Claudia is too big, Cal is too flat but Ellen is just nice?
P.S. Scythe should use an endless recursion of Kyon-kun denwa to get Phantoms to shoot themselves if they turn rogue.