It’s no surprise to me; I am my own worst enemy.

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Despite a successful mission, the Vanguard, and gen:LOCK teams are still reeling from learning that Chase, or at least a version of him, is fighting against them on the Union’s side. Miranda, in particular, is bitter, being unsure what to think of the Chase in front of her when there’s one using the same moves (because apparently, Chase’s fighting style is pretty distinct!). Chase decides to confront Weller the moment they get back to base, where Weller reveals that Chase is not the first Chase. Seems that, when he was first put through the program four years ago, two cyber brains were given copies of his mind, with the extra receiving copies of the other’s progress. This first Chase was apparently very proficient in missions but was eventually captured. With no way of retrieving him, Weller and his team decided simply use the copy brain to start over, making this version, the version we’ve been following, think the last mission had simply never happened.

To follow up these dramatic revelations, the Union arrives on their doorstep, led by Nemesis-Chase, who is understandably pissed about his current situation and all the new voices from the other pilots in his head. Chase flies out to confront him, while the rest of the Union troops attack the base. The rest of the pilots fight them back, even making use of “Phase 2” to synch minds in combat, but they aren’t able to stop them from entering the base. At Weller’s request, he calls everyone except Chase back to get away before their physical bodies are harmed, with Weller seemingly sacrificing himself to buy them time. As nanobot clouds fill the base, the pilots fly off to parts unknown, possibly the only ones left alive.

OUR TAKE

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, I guess. This episode reminds me a bit of the finale to Rooster Teeth’s own third season of RWBY, though not in the best qualities. For one, we’re losing The Anvil less than a season after establishing it as the status quo (compared to Beacon Academy, which we lost after three seasons, though it still felt pretty hollow all the way through), which is nowhere near enough time to get used to it, let alone form an emotional attachment. Which actually leads me to believe that all those who seemingly “died” in this fight probably didn’t. There’s just too much unresolved and nothing to really learn from this to consider it the right place to cut out the majority of the cast. Granted, at least a fair amount of it is stuff I don’t really care about, like the Miranda-Jodi romantic nonsense, but by the laws of storytelling, this seems like a fake-out.

Then there’s the big twist regarding the Nemesis. Some thought it would be a revived Fake Sinclair, others thought maybe it would be Chase’s sister, but only a few guessed that it might be Chase himself. The idea of it being the first copy of Chase after becoming a Holon pilot is certainly an interesting one, kind of like what might happen in an overwritten save file of a video game after you’ve stopped playing it. And now he’s back to hit Chase right in the raison d’etre by being a living screw up of Weller’s experiments, with a black-red color palette and a scar over his eye so he looks super evil and edgy. Although this development does raise some questions and concerns, and not just “well if you had a copy of Chase’s mind anyway, why didn’t you add a self-destruct option to the first one in case he got captured?” Because they do that in Gundam all the time, so you’d think it would come up in their mecha writing notes.

Maybe it’s because I’ve got Oscars on the brain or I just rewatched Black Panther with my parents, but the way this information was divulged and the subsequent showdown also reminds me of two similar scenes in that movie and how that highlighted the trajectory of T’Challa’s character arc throughout the film. For those who haven’t seen that movie yet: He begins thinking keeping his country isolated from the world is the safest option because that’s how he was raised to think. Then, after a mysterious encounter with a stranger named Killmonger (incidentally played by Michael B. Jordan) who uses similar technology to him, he learns of Killmonger’s own suffering was caused by the mindset he originally thought to be right. Conflicted by this knowledge, he ends up facing Killmonger in battle and loses because of his lack of focus or willingness to accept the truth.

I typed up that summary of a film that almost everyone already saw to point out the similarities in structure between that and Chase vs. Nemesis…as well as how the latter doesn’t quite hold the same weight. Finding out you’re not just a copy, but not even the first copy, is certainly a harrowing thing to learn, but what does this help Chase to learn about how to approach his own character arc? Well…nothing. Because Chase, up until this point and possibly later, hasn’t really had an arc set up for him. He has no real ethos other than living life to the fullest and making use of his borrowed time as well as he can while attempting to salvage his lost connections to loved ones, which is commendable but…not interesting. He has no set philosophy that Nemesis comes into direct conflict with, at least as far as I can tell from this episode, so there doesn’t seem to be anything he can really learn from this battle to help develop when nothing’s gotten started.

So, while the action in this episode was a major step up from last time, a lot of it felt…empty. As said, I have a sneaking suspicion the death count is not as it appears, and the rivalry here with Chase seems to be wired wrong to get anything going with him. We’ve got two episodes left and it’s looking like this show might be out of gas. But I’d love to be proven wrong.

Score 6/10