天下制覇

What more natural way to tell a story is there besides a long non sequitur?

Impressions:

It's not even an interesting one. You see, humanity screwed things up, and Dr. Bob Franxx had a wife whose entire purpose was to get fridged, and then he had an arm ripped off as part one of atonement for the sins of man. Also, the teenagers are upset at being mindwiped and/or messed with by the adults. These things aren't really related in any meaningful way, certainly not as far as the episode is concerned. The entire flashback is just Dr. Bob Grumpus doing a self-recap of his personal history for the sake of the amnesiatic space goat that lives inside his head. Why does this matter? The setting is not a character, and even if it was, nothing here is compelling, developed, or grows. It's just some unimportant factoids about an exceedingly tertiary character who barely interacts with any of the cast in the first place.

But you know what the amazing thing here is? The really really amazing thing? Next week is a recap episode. It's been only a month since the last recap episode. In that time, there hasn't been a single fight, a single robot, a single anything. They bumbled around the Happy Happy Ranch, had sex, got mindwiped into forgetting about sex, and now a flashback infodump that conveyed next to no important information, let alone any relevant information to ongoing events… of which, might I remind you, there was still that giant hand. Remember when a giant monster showed up? Someone on the staff probably should.