“Zamasu and Black” falls prey to turning into a bit of a recap of past episodes as this arc’s storyline continues to twist and turn. That being said, the episode still presents this summary of information in an entertaining way. Pilaf and company’s reactions to how the fight went down are all a lot of fun and the gag where Goku builds up Goku Black’s Super Saiyan Rosé transformation only to then be unable to remember its name is wonderfully in character. So is Goku’s hair-trigger reaction to immediately jump back in the time machine and face off against Goku Black and Zamasu now that their strength is back. Goku might not have much patience or the deepest capacity for strategies, but you’ve got to love his enthusiasm towards battle, even if it is a suicide mission in this case.

Goku’s energy and attitude are a consistent highlight through this episode, especially the moment where one of his guesses proves to be correct and leads to everyone in the group losing their minds over this rare occurrence. Furthermore, there’s a terrific exchange where Goku’s legitimate plan of attack here is to just guzzle a concentrated bowl of Senzu beans to become “temporarily immortal” so they can contend against Zamasu. Nobody takes this idea seriously, but it does raise the very real question of what would happen in this circumstance? I’d be very entertained by a filler episode after all of the Goku Black drama is said and done that just looks at the gang wishing for a huge supply of Senzu beans from Shenron and then doing experiments for the duration of the entry. That’s of course not going to happen (they’re going to play baseball instead), but it’s funny how Dragon Ball can hint at such an interesting plot development, only for it to be looked at as a joke.

Goku’s behavior is very satisfying, but perhaps the best scene in the episode is a simple, muted moment between Future Trunks and Mai. Trunks tells Mai that her future counterpart is still alive and as scrappy as ever, but he laments on how he couldn’t bring her back with him and “save” her. Mai certainly wasn’t expecting anything from Future Trunks and the episode has plenty to cover so it’s appreciated that it still makes time for these more emotional, human interactions between all of the plot machinations. The animation in the scene is just gorgeous too and a stunning sunset compliments the sensitive conversation between the characters.

Beerus, Whis, and Supreme Kai reconnect with everyone and take stock of what happened back on Bleak Future Earth. After the update, Whis offers the first real theory of what’s been going on here. Whis’ million-dollar hypothesis is that Zamasu has been determined to wipe out all mortals from existence, but he lacks the extreme energy needed to pull off such an incredible task on his own. After Zamasu’s meeting and brief spar session against Goku, the Supreme Kai-in-training became inspired and obsessed with the Saiyan and his crazy strength. If Zamasu has someone like Goku at his disposal then maybe he could exterminate all mortals. Whis then supposes that Zamasu will use the Super Dragon Balls to wish for an evil copy of Goku, Goku Black, to work alongside him.

Beerus also throws in for good measure his earlier observance that Goku Black appears to be able to travel through time in the same way that Supreme Kais do. He thinks this means that Zamasu will ultimately kill Gowasu and give Goku Black his Time Ring to use at his destructive disposal. Beerus also addresses how this Time Ring is surely how Zamasu also plans to circumvent the one-year waiting period for the Super Dragon Balls to become active again and use this to obtain his immortality. With all of this information the group feels like they’ve cracked this colossal conspiracy theory.