In Place (Gundam Seed 32)

As always, Best Girl says what she must, and gets nothing but hatred for it.

I mentioned this project to a friend over the new year, and his response was "how are you handling all the stock footage?" And whether it's a genuine change, or just a function of paying more attention, this episode seemed to contain a lot of previous footage: Milly's outburst from the previous episode, Tolle's death, Kira's flashbacks to previous fights. While a certain amount of reflection is in order after the last big fight, two episodes is pushing it, particularly with so little in the way of resolution: we're no wiser about how Kira was mysteriously spirited away to ZAFT territory, and the political discussions of shady cabals we care nothing about (on both ZAFT and Earth sides) are made all the more irrelevant by concluding that they should continue as planned. The Archangel's crew share our frustration with not being able to do anything, but that doesn't make things any better.

Kira's conversation with Lacus, too, is retreading old ground: Kira doesn't want to fight, but feels the need to protect his friends. It remains true, and tragic, but without anything new to add it feels like we're just going around in circles; worse, it feels like we've gone back to where we were before Nichool and Tolle's deaths.

The second half, back on the Archangel, recovers a little ground: Milly and Flay will struggle to pretend nothing has happened after their successive attempts to kill Deakka.

As usual, Flay reveals herself to be the only person willing to do what everyone else wants done. And yet again, those people who depend on her hate her all the more for it. In many way's she's a mirror of Kira: set apart by the skills she has that everyone around her lacks, fighting desparately for the survival of the whole ship. If anything she deserves more respect than Kira - where his abilities are innate, hers are earned through sheer effort of will.

Somehow I don't think that's how the series is trying to paint them.

Home