GundamGAF's Victory Gundam Rewatch
Episode 39: The Song of the Wings of Light
The episode starts off with a recap of the last episode, and some blurb about the V2 unlocking its true power. Between that and the title, it's pretty clear that we're gonna get some sweet MAX POWER Wings of Light action.
The LM heads back to Kashirelia to regroup, now that the treaty's clearly in shambles. Uso takes point on their return; he spends most of the trip cradling his mother's helmet in his arms, and we get another gratuitous flashback to Mueller's decapitation. This would be a lot more effective if it were used sparingly. Thinking about it makes all that RAGE and VENGENCE he's got inside him bubble over, and when the White Ark spots some enemy craft, he goes off at 'em. Except, they don't engage. The crew think it's weird, but there's not much to be done.
The crew gets a short reprieve to check out home (most likely to get certain members of the crew to stop warbling about the damn place before everyone else goes nuts), but wouldn't you know it, they're spotted and tracked by the BESPA soldiers from before, lead by one Lt. Machis. They're intent on avenging the losses at Largaine, and they feel like they can't go back home until they do. There's no clever plan here though, no do-or-die stratagem meant to bypass direct combat with superior machinery - they're just gonna Zerg Rush the LM, and they're going to start by trashing the White Ark. Shakti starts singing some sort of weird little dream she might have learned here, which has the same melody as the music that played during the somber moments in the early episodes of the show. The head of the squad overhears the song, and muses that such peaceful children must be a sign that the Earth is a good place to raise children. If he only knew who was singing that song to begin with.
Up to this point in the show, I fail to see why the White Ark is considered to be such a strong tactical advantage. Yeah, it's pretty handy having a support ship/mobile carrier, but they keep hammering away at it to the point of ignoring direct attacks from the mobile suits, and it always backfires. In this case, the fact that Machis and his crew made a beeline straight to the Ark means that the Ark had to extend its shields near a lake, which in turn sent a bunch of water and fish flying every which way, which alerted the others on the other side of the hills. Convoluted, but more sensible than sensing 'pressure' from miles away, at the very least.
Uso tells Shakti and the kids to hole up in his cabin while he runs off to grab some gear, namely his paraglider and hoverbike. The truth is that this is the perfect excuse for him to start wearing his cap and try to get some wicked air, but he just can't bear to tell anyone what he's really up to.
The crazy bastard decides to paraglide straight towards the Ark during a firefight, just to try and slip past the enemy without them noticing - because hey, it worked the last time, right? Apparently Batstraff heard about Uso pulling stunts like this from Marbet, since he decides to have the V2 shoved off the ship so that Uso can slip in, somehow - because hey, it worked the last time, right? Amazingly enough, dropping a massive war machine seems to garner attention; Machis sees the V2 Gundam falling like a rock, and figures that they're trying to sortie, so he takes a shot at it.
The shot pierces Uso's parachute, but completely misses the V2, causing Uso to smash into the V2's hand and get tangled up. A few moments later, the V2 parts the waters with the Wings of Light. Apparenly Uso shook off blunt force trauma and a possible concussion, held his breath long enough to activate the suit, and breached all on his lonesome. And at this point, I realized that this episode was basically an amalgam of the first 10 episodes, the Greatest Hits version, if you will.
Anyway, Uso starts to pick off the recon team; he takes down a particularly enthusiastic enemy with one clean shot. Uso's honestly shocked that the enemies aren't even good enough to
try to dodge his attacks. Uso's hesitant to kill a bunch of idiots, even if they're the same people who killed his mom. For some reason. So the rest of the LM start adding to their kill count. Tomache, in particular, is really gung-ho about it, which leads to him being lured into the recon team's hidden base of operations - the hornet's nest, so to speak - and are quickly outnumbered by a bunch of docking suits (because fuck yeah, jets that dock to transform. Way better than helicopters.)
Uso remembers how a core explosion botched his attempt at rescuing his mother, and decides that he can't let them explode normally, so he plants himself under the fleets and maxes out the WoL. It takes out everyone except the Lt., who goes in for a kamikaze attack. Marbet covers his ass again, but Machis detaches his torso and slips past her, heading straight for Uso. He tries to drag Uso down, but Uso stops his attack and plants a saber right into the suit's core. As the core breaks down, Machis starts screaming at Uso, saying that it's his fault everything turned out this way and if it wasn't for him he could have brought his family on earth to live in peace and blah blah blah. Uso, realizing that they basically want the same thing, tries to help him at least get out of the damn cockpit before it explodes, and he actually forces it open (while the core is damaged, mind) to try and get him out. Somehow the core stays intact long enough for Machis to go throught the whole 'but your're just a kid' thing, and for Uso to grab him and jump. Not that it matters, since he succums to his injuries and dies anyway.
They bury the dead, and have a sort of impromptu funeral. Shakti sings that song on Uso's request, because it's what that jerk Machis would have wanted.
I'm not really buying the whole idea of Uso being in emotional turmoil, but it's something at least. Odelo and Warren's little competition to see who hooks up with the Kranskie sisters is starting to become totally threadbare, the Kranskies' thalassophobia is still forced, and everyone else seems to have adjusted to a soldier's life episodes ago, so I guess the show has to have some kind of drama. Still, I'm annoyed that this was basically a bunch of spots from the first few episodes rolled into one.
