TripleSRank said: This episode was frustrating to watch.
Five shouldn't have been able to find the real car that easily. I am glad the FBI agent with her finally moved to arrest her, since it was already beyond the point of breaking WSOD, but of course Five''s willing to ditch any past connections she had.
Five's death was also unsatisfying, as her purpose was never explained or given significance. Why do everything she did only to kill herself in the end? If she truly wanted Nine, she could have captured him. She already "beat" (dubious) him in the airport too. What the heck did she even want? Five seems more like an obstacle the writers decided to throw to screw up Sphinx's plans, rather than an actual character that matters. Instead of exploring the themes originally presented, they just started showing random action that doesn't add to the show. It wasn't very thrilling or tense action either, thanks to the universal perspective.
May I ask if you could elaborate more on what is the universal perspective? Also ahhh that tracking the car scene really was fast, but I've gotten so used to this kind of BS. Now, I do agree with you that the purpose of Five in terms of the story was literally to provide something for the protagonists to fight against on "a level field" (I'm sorry Shibazaki;;;;;;) and quite honestly I would have loved to only see the "battle of wits" between Sphinx and the police force, but the 3-way clashing forces was also somewhat fun to watch as well.
However I do believe that there was some logical sense to her death. The premise behind this would be of Five wanting to beat Nine (she directly says this in this episode) She even says she would not let anyone else have Nine. This would imply she has been obsessed with beating Nine for a very long time now (as in the airport episode - Nine or Twelve makes the remark of her wanting to redo the chess match they had when they were kids.) She then says in this episode that because of Nine, Five had the willpower to stay alive up until now. (we've seen her had the ringing and the collapsing in previous episode/s, but of course this is all my interpretation of the events) Going back to the airport scuffle between them, the conditions of Nine's victory would be of the bomb on the airplane not killing people, (and I suppose side goal of saving Lisa too(for the Twelve!)).To me, I define the game that Five wants to win is for Nine to not get his way. If he doesn't get his way, then in a sense, he has lost. Thanks to Shibazaki's intervention, the plane was directed away and Nine got his wish. Therefore under this logic Five still hasn't beaten Nine. However in this episode, she's successfully delayed Nine's presence to the press conference. Now that she has beaten Nine in a weird sense, she no longer has any purpose in life. Now with that in mind, she could now live a rather mundane life, but so far she's possibly killed the FBI agent, her physical health has been called into attention (Clarence wanted her to see a doctor) and she's decreased the amount that the government of Japan would be willing to take BS in their country by the hands of the American government.
Finally, imagine Five's actions and general everything was supposed to be the entire thriller genre they put this show as-/shot
TripleSRank said: Then we have the atomic bomb. Why was Sphinx so unwilling to kill people before if they're suddenly ready to massacre the whole city now? (Unless that isn't the atomic bomb... which doesn't make much sense either.) What happened to VON and the message behind Oedipus? Are Lisa and Twelve even relevant anymore? (Pointless sacrifice ftw!) Is anything that's happened up until now relevant anymore?
And that my friend is what I'm hoping (key word on hope) will be explained in next week's episode. If not, I will wallow in a tub of ice cream. |