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Episode 5 - Breakaway Limit Zone
Another week and a new episode of Gundam 00 so let’s cut to brass tax and get to it.
We start off with Marina Ishamel watching a news conference of the Union president visiting Taribia after the events of last weeks show. Marina still believes that the two nations used Celestial Being for their own purposes but her aide, who goes by the name of Shirin, disagrees. Marina then leaves for foreign talks and trade deals in order to get her country some much need access to the solar energy as we hit the opening credits.
We’re back and we get treated to a completely useless scene featuring the equally useless Saji, Anna and Louise. I’ll save you the time of it and cut it to the basics – Saji and Louise are going up to one of the orbital stations for a field trip. Saji and Anna are not rich while Louise is and Anna doesn’t think too highly of Louise. Man, that was useless and an absolute waste. We better see a payoff for Saji’s and Louise’s involvement soon because I still can’t see what roles their characters play other than just being there. We also see Sergei and Soma also boarding the elevator train heading for the station.
Back to the city and we see our hero Setsuna doing sit-ups in his apartment as he gets his mission alert. Lockton and Allelujah also get the mission briefing which is to go and spy on a new mobile suit being tested and depending on the results, destroy it.
More useless scenes with Saji and Louise so it’s fast forward time.
We then goto Sergei and Soma on the same train and they discuss (more like Sergei asks) Soma’s training/enhancements as a “Super Soldier”. Turns out she’s a “designer baby” for the Human Enhancement Project. We then goto a flash back of Sergei observing Soma’s training with Soma doing her best Bionic Woman impression. No slow motion though…
One interesting note, it seems part of Soma’s enhancement include nanomachines in her body. So I guess she’s a Borg?
Back to Saji and Lousie, being useless….
Finally, we arrive at the Human Reform League orbital station named “Pillar of Truth”. Saji and Louise meet their tour guide and go for a tour in and outside the station. Hopefully we won’t see them again. We follow Sergei and Soma as they see the “new” mobile suit for the first time. It’s an enhanced Tieren built to maximize Soma’s super soldier abilities called the “Tieren Tau-II”, and yes…it’s pink. ANOTHER PINK UNIT!
Now, normally I don’t rant about these things but seriously, why a pink mobile suit? Why give it to a girl? To try and see model kits to girls? First the pink zaku from SEED and now this. Who are the ad wizards who came up with this one?
Rant done, back to the ep – off to the “low orbital station gravity block” and sadly more Saji and Louise hogging screen time and they pass by Wang Li and her faithful bodyguard. Wang Li smiles at Saji to which Louise reacts poorly and tells Saji not to look at other girls. Poor Saji…not even officially with Louise and she’s got him whipped.
Back in space as we see Soma put the Tau-II through its paces. During the test, Soma has a newtype-ish moment that Allelujah also feels as he boards the station. A disturbance in the force indeed. It looks as though they’re somehow in each others heads as Allelujah starts to scream “Get out of my mind” as Soma goes nuts and starts to fire at the station. In doing so, she blows a chunk of the station off that traps 200 people plummeting towards the earth. Calls the Thunderbirds to help. Of course, our useless couple are in said section so we know it will be saved because sadly they won’t kill them off this early in the series. They’re just like the wonder twins from Superfriends – always getting into trouble.
Allelujah sees the falling block and has a flashback to a time we he was trapped, drifting in space in a shuttle. Sergei realizes that the rescue team won’t arrive in time to help those in the block so he leaves the pass out Soma in her MS and flies out to try and slow the decent of the orbital block. Wang Li comes to the conclusion that the block cannot be saved in time. As Sergei is trying desperately to push the block back into a stable orbit with his Tieren, Allelujah goes off his mission (as we see in a bit as the people of his team are annoyed about his going off mission) and arrives to help push the block and save the people – much to Sergei’s surprise. So, now we have our Char’s counter attack moment with the two suits pushing the object falling to earth.
As the station looks to be doomed, Allelujah orders the people inside to move to the center of the 3 blocks. We then see an energy blast come for the earth and blast on of the side blocks away. We then see the Dynames on earth with a super sniper rifle. That’s a gun with a big boom. For some reason, the Exia has to be there as it’s needed to disperse the clouds blocking Lockton’s line of sight. With only the one block now, the Kyrios is able to push the block (with the people in it) to a safe orbit. The episode ends with Tieria giving Sumeragi a hard time about changing the mission and revealing the ability of the Dynames and then Tieria makes another quote about those who don’t have the skill shouldn’t have a Gundam.
Nimrod’s Thoughts - This episode was pretty “meh” to me. So much focus on Saji and Louise and with them being completely useless to the story on a whole really drags the ep down. On the plus side, the Dynames long rage gun was cool and it looks like Tieria is really showing that he’s not a fan of his fellow “Gundam Meisters”. Could be the groundwork for something down the line.
