The Lying, The Witch, and the Warehouse

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

In Anchorage, Alaska, Wraith and her team manage to contact the remains of Al from the wrecked Arbalest.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, California, Tessa Testarossa is seen walking barefoot across a highway and is taken to a nearby hospital. She’s despondent and barely responsive, but manages to tell her psychiatrist, Dr. Witt, about what happened since the attack on the Mithril base. Apparently, after the escape, a mutiny formed against her but was quickly stopped, only to be followed by the submarine sinking and her few remaining men abandoning her by the side of the freeway.

On their way to take Tessa to a mental health facility, she, Witt, and their nurse are captured by Amalgam. They meet with Lee Fowler, who works under Tessa’s brother Leonard and wishes to retrieve her for him. Though surprise surprise, this was little more than a sting operation set up by Tessa and Mao, who is revealed to be her nurse. A firefight breaks out, including giving Clouseau a chance to shine by masterfully taking down a Lambda Driver equipped Arm Slave, but Lee manages to get away, though not before getting a tongue lashing from Tessa that would make a sailor blush. Luckily, Witt is physically unharmed and sent on her way.

At a base in Mexico, Leonard gets the news from Lee about the sting while with Kaname, who’s insisted on cooking her own meals as she waits for Sosuke to save her. Leonard tells her she’ll forget all about her old life soon enough. He then gets a phone call from someone named Sabina about their plant in French Intelligence, and the status of Sosuke Sagara.

Sosuke awakens from an eight-week sleep next to Lemon, who explains the current situation and tries to get answers from him about Amalgam. Before he can do that, he gets a call that the area is under attack. Unable to move, Sosuke can only sweat bullets as he hears gunfire getting closer to the door.

OUR TAKE

Now THAT’S what I’m talking about. Almost seems like someone heard my complaints about Nami’s death last episode and decided to make the bulk of this one female led, with Tessa and the Mithril crew finally getting to shine again after over a month and a half absence. Besides the top notch mech fighting I’ve come to expect from this series, I can’t say I’ve seen Tessa put herself on the line like this since the second arc of the first season, and even then, not to this capacity. Given the grimmer nature of THIS season, I almost expected them go the route of saying the whole story was actually just the fantasies of this mentally scarred young girl in a move that would put the Ash Coma Theory to shame (although how bad does your life have to be to have you be the loser of your own fantasy love triangle?). But, of course, doing this so far away from the end of the season kind of gave it away, and managed to really showcase why Tessa is the captain in the first place. Seriously, Sosuke, Kaname’s pretty and all, but can you really say she’s the better pick over Tessa?

Speaking of Kaname, we finally check back in with her after just as much time, though sadly in not nearly as active a role. It’s not as bad as, say, what happened with Sword Art Online (at least not yet), but she is textbook Damsel in Distress, and that doesn’t really allow for many potentially interesting scenes or routes besides her snarking to Leonard and whoever else she might be around before her inevitable tearful reunion with Sosuke. I imagine there’s probably more to look forward to beyond that, but this story type is pretty cut and dry. At least for now, we can continue watching Mithril kick ass and Sosuke’s bitter recovery, as well as the reveal of the ARX-8 they keep teasing. This episode was a breath of fresh air for the most part, and an excellent way to kick off the beginning of the end for this season.

However, next week is apparently going to be a bit of a doozy. Not only are we in for yet another reminder of how shoddy the production is as we head into a three-week break (at least if the subbed schedule is anything to go by), but I’ve also heard the animation for Episode 10 is a bit…bad. Guess we’ll see when we get there.

Score 9/10