Random Curiosity

Summary:

Twenty years ago in a.t.b 1997, V.V. had asked Charles if he had learned anything from being Emperor, and Charles’s answer was that everyone is a liar. When V.V. had then reminded Charles of their contract, Charles had affirmed that they’re going to kill the gods and destroy the lies in the world. Back in the present, Rolo finds Lelouch still kneeling over Shirley’s body at the train station and mentions how dangerous it was that Shirley’s memories returned. Lelouch realizes that this means Rolo was the one who killed Shirley, and Rolo confirms it, saying that he has to eliminate Lelouch’s enemies. Instead of being angry though, Lelouch compliments Rolo on a job well done and proposes that they go destroy the Geass cult and the source of Geass. Rolo objects to the idea, but Lelouch feels that they can’t keep running away and suggests that it’s for the sake of their happiness. Shirley’s body is discovered sometime after the two leave, and Suzaku eventually learns from a coroner that she died of multiple organ failure from blood loss and shooting herself. He’s still in shock over how she committed suicide by the time of the funeral, and her friends are as well, including Nina who finds out from Milly. Nina cries for Shirley despite not having gotten along with her, and Kanon comforts her and suggests that she had been envious of Shirley.

Meanwhile, on Penglai Island, C.C. is talking telepathically with someone again about how Lelouch left her there, and she worries that Lelouch might have forgotten their contract. When Lelouch finally does contact her, he tells her about using the Zeroth Squad to go destroy the cult. C.C. is surprised that Lelouch would want to destroy the cult rather than make use of them since the people there aren’t armed but are instead just researching Geass. Lelouch’s insistence on destroying them leads C.C. to question what happened, so Lelouch explains how Shirley had been at the mercy of Geass until the very end and how she had been killed by it. This leads C.C. to realize that Lelouch wants to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again as his atonement, and Lelouch feels that only one person having the power of Geass is enough. Since Lelouch intends to erase Rolo from this world, C.C. wonders if he’s going to erase her too, so he responds that he couldn’t even if he wanted to since she’s immortal. When C.C. points out that V.V. is immortal as well, Lelouch feels that it’ll be fine just to put V.V. out of business. He then asks C.C. about having been at the top of the cult, but she feels that she had just been a figurehead, unlike V.V. currently. Regardless, she notes that she and Lelouch were accomplices, and this leads to Lelouch trying to get her to confirm the contents of their contract and what she wishes for. C.C., however, declines to tell him because it has nothing to do with the military operation.

Sometime later, V.V. is wondering if the Emperor knew about Cornelia’s movements when he receives a transmission from Jeremiah. The person on the other end turns out not to be Jeremiah but rather Lelouch, and he demands to know if V.V. was the one who kidnapped Nunnally during the battle in Tokyo. V.V. confirms that it was indeed him and figures out since Lelouch is asking, it means that Lelouch’s memories have returned. He tries to get Lelouch to give C.C. up, but Lelouch only cares about how it’s become war between them now. V.V. isn’t worried about that because he thinks that by the time Lelouch comes, the cult will have gone to another location, however at that very moment, their underground base is attacked. As it turns out, Lelouch had been transmitting to V.V. from right outside the base, but he wanted V.V. to think that he was in Area 11 in order to delay V.V. from escaping. The attack prompts V.V. to order his men to put their research data onto a transport and to prepare a certain something for him because he intends to personally go out and fight. As the massacre of everyone there begins, some members of the Black Knights find it odd that all the people they’re killing are unarmed. Lelouch, however, tells his men that everyone is guilty until proven innocent and that Britannia was committing blasphemy against life by trying to research immortal soldiers here. One of the victims of this is Bartley, and as he lays dying, he sees C.C. and thinks that it would have been better not to have messed with an immortal woman.

While the fighting is going on, Diethard is at Penglai telling Li Xingke and Toudou about how Zero is off destroying a Britannian research facility. Toudou feels that with Saudi Arabia suppressed, they need to hurry up the ratification of the United States charter, and Xingke reports that Poland and Italy have become their allies. Afterwards, Diethard assigns Sayoko to follow Ougi because Ougi has been acting strange and hiding something. As it turns out, Villetta is at this moment trying to find a flight to China because she feels Ougi is her only option now that Jeremiah has been taken in by Lelouch. Back at the Geass cult base, a Black Knight soldier encounters some children who have Geass powers, and when they start controlling him, Rolo arrives and executes everyone involved. Rolo is still fiercely loyal to Lelouch, but what he doesn’t realize is that Lelouch intends to kill him with the bomb attached to the Vincent to make him atone for Shirley. What messes up Lelouch’s plans a little is the appearance of V.V. piloting the Siegfried. The Black Knight Knightmares quickly surround the Siegfried and start firing on it, but their weapons are ineffective against its electromagnetic armor. When Jeremiah even gets involved, V.V. points out that Jeremiah had hated Zero, however Jeremiah feels that if he’s to serve Zero, it’s for Marianne’s sake. Hearing that name infuriates V.V.

Lelouch then decides to send Rolo against V.V. with the intent of taking out both of them at once with the bomb on the Vincent. Although Rolo does manage to get up close to the Siegfried, before Lelouch can activate the bomb, the Siegfried gets hit with cannon fire from below. The culprit is none other than Cornelia using an Akatsuki she had hot-wired, and her entering the battle means that Rolo gets to live. Cornelia had damaged the Siegfried’s armor, and when both she and Lelouch fire on it together, the Siegfried goes down. Back underground, the remaining members of the Geass cult are ready to escape via a secret train to the EU, but in their way is C.C. and her Akatsuki. Before blowing the train up, C.C. apologizes for her sin of neglecting them and says that the genealogy of Geass ends there. Meanwhile, unaware of what’s going on, Kallen is back in Japan talking with Nunnally about Lelouch when Suzaku interrupts them so that he can speak with Kallen alone. He tells her about Shirley’s death, and despite the official assessment of suicide, he suspects that Lelouch is guilty of killing her. Suzaku also thinks that Lelouch is Zero again, and when Kallen claims that she doesn’t know Zero’s true identity, Suzaku decides to use the Refrain drug on her because he doesn’t want to create any further tragedy.

By now, V.V. has escaped from the Siegfried’s cockpit and has crawled his way to the room that has a giant door with the Geass symbol on it. That door is now open, and the Emperor of Britannia is on the other side. V.V. is glad to see that he can depend on the relationship with his brother, and when the Emperor asks, V.V. reveals that sending an assassin after Lelouch is what led to this retaliation. V.V. feels that the upside is that they now know Lelouch is Zero again and that he’s been deceiving Nunnally, but the Emperor notes that his brother is lying again. Lelouch eventually finds V.V. in this room, however the moment the Shinkirou gets close, something similar to what happened on Kaminejima happens again. It transports Lelouch to the Sword of Akasha where his father is waiting, and the Emperor declares to his son that the time has come for redemption.

Preview/Gundam 00 Commercial

In light of the fact that the preview for next week consisted of only a single shot, two of the preview images above are from the new Gundam 00 Series 2 commercial. Looks like Setsuna let his hair grow out a little..

As for this episode, it was surprising at first to see Lelouch let Rolo live even though Rolo outright admitted to killing Shirley. Putting aside the fact that anyone else in that position probably would have retaliated against Rolo, I have my doubts about whether that was the smart thing to do. It made sense that Lelouch wanted to make use of Rolo one last time, but with all the variables in play, the chances of everything happening exactly according to plan were pretty low, and Rolo did indeed survive. I suspect that Rolo will do something later that will make Lelouch regret not killing him when he had the chance.

The other big focus of the episode was on how the Black Knights were massacring everyone and how the members weren’t happy about it. It’s very uncomfortable to see them acting like the people they’re trying to bring down, and all the grumbling about it suggests that there’d be a mutiny of sorts if Zero keeps asking his men to do this kind of stuff. Add to that how Diethard is having Sayoko follow Ougi, and it’s very possible that internal conflict could cause the Black Knights to break up - at the very least it would severely weaken the organization. You’d think that Lelouch would be more cognizant of this sort of stuff, but it seemed like he was too blinded by his quest to destroy the Geass cult.

This episode also gave us more reason to hate Suzaku since it now appears that he’s going to use Refrain on Kallen in order to get her to reveal if she knows the true identity of Zero. It is not a completely unheard of interrogation tactic, but it does strip away any right Suzaku has to the moral high ground. The problem is of course that that’s an integral part of the good side of his character - you may remember that back in episode 13 of the first series, he said that results obtained from doing something the wrong way were meaningless - and that shows how much he’s changed. The more Suzaku subscribes to Lelouch’s way of doing things, the easier it is to prefer Lelouch over him because (for better or worse) at least Lelouch is trying to change the status quo.

Next week will hopefully finally unravel some of the mysteries behind Geass and C.C. since it appears Lelouch and C.C. will enter “The World of C.” Maybe they’ll meet Mao there…