天下制覇

It didn’t work when the Matrix did it either, Maeda.

Impressions:

Ugh. As the fight scene went on with the shadows, I seriously began to wonder if they were going to do an introduction for every single character popping up to save someone. And then they basically did. Plus a little schtick just to remind you which show you’re watching. Meanwhile, Yuri’s underground and using a scope to shoot an automatic weapon… or philosophizing to herself. And that’s the part that made sense. Yes. TK headspinning down a railing while shooting formless blobs was one of the least inane parts of the episode. It goes without saying that he’s always the best part, but it’s a rare day when he’s one of the more sensical parts.

Eight minutes into the episode, Yuri get dumped into about five minutes of what is definitely not a flashback to her having a mental breakdown in the real world. No siree. Well, aside from the shadows in the schoolyard. After that, Yuri meets the Architect and has to choose whether to save Trinity or save Zion the Programmer and gets a lecture about how the whole world is run by love, love, love and how it drives you crazy enough to reset the world to stop the ‘glitches’ from getting too big. Where have I heard that before? The budget literally ran out at this point and we were treated to the same long drifting stills as they spewed random exposition from someone with delusions of godhood about things unrelated to the protagonists for almost 8 straight minutes. This is not effective storytelling. Any time that a whiteboard would be a more effective tool to display what you’re trying to convey, you’re doing something horribly horribly wrong with your narrative. Not to mention that holy goats am I sick of seeing this shot. Oh wait, now they framed it with Yuri’s legs. We can stretch another goddamned minute out of it.

*ahem*

The point is, this was a pretty bad episode on every front. Poor production, poor writing, the works. The bad schtick during the fight against evil amorphous blobs was the best part of that and the lecture from the completely random ‘god’ figure was the epitome of tedium in every possible way. All that’s left after that is TK headspinning around like a mad top. "Tasty Candy" indeed, TK.