Review: Gen:Lock “Together. Together.”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kazu resolves his subconscious body issues with Val’s help, while Chase pushes away Yaz and Cammie and fails in an attempt to connect with the Nemesis monster in his mind. The Vanguard heads to retake the Anvil, with Cammie being instrumental in regaining control, but despite driving the Union out, Miranda kills many of their own soldiers with the Hammer laser (including Jodie), Kazu is killed by a Nemesis bot, Cammie bails to join the Union, and Chase links with one of the Holon Frames, discovering they are not just copies, but merged copies of all of the pilots.

OUR TAKE

We’re at the halfway point of the season and I think we’ve pinned down the main problem with this season so far. Going over all the plot developments and character turns and all these weird ideas, I honestly can’t say I hate them or how they seem to be planned out…at least on paper. The issue lies in that all of them are thrown at us so quickly with so little time to process or adjust to them before the next thing comes and changes things. It was only last episode that we were introducing subplots about Cammie’s drifting loyalties or Kazu’s gender issues or the whole team going on R&R from the last mission, and now the team is back on the field, Cammie has officially deserted, and Kazu is dead mere minutes after resolving those issues and confirming a relationship with Val. The writer for this episode mentions her reasoning for killing him off here, saying that he had served his purpose and that deaths in war should be shocking and disturbing, but seems to fail to notice that this whole season so far has been dysfunction and loss for the team anyway without any clear victories…and now we have one of our main cast biting the dust right after reaching some major psychological breakthroughs.

Thankfully this episode is a lot more focused so I don’t have to go into every single little thing, with the primary plot being about the Polity taking back the Anvil that they lost late last season. Personally, I think the last finale should have been about them retaking it then instead some random fight in Chicago, but better late than never. Unfortunately, we go into this battle with all the very sudden baggage of this season, which bogs it down considerably. Like with so many other things, I’m not against the idea of Miranda being slowly corrupted by a higher position and leading her to make some dark choices to win a battle, but again, she only got that new rank last episode, through blackmail, and now has killed off Jodie, who I wasn’t the biggest fan of to begin with, but he definitely deserved a better death than that. All of this, ALL OF THIS is only showing that this season is going with way too much, way too fast, and it’s only hurting every big twist they want to throw in. We have Chase finally confronting his literal inner demon, but it’s strangely intercut with Kazu and Val’s sex scene (two sex scenes in a row, let’s see if they go for three!) and I have no idea what the intent was with that. I have no grasp or connection to most anyone in this show anymore because things change so rapidly and I doubt that’s going to change in the second half. Oh yeah, and Chase’s sister is back and we get payoff for her brief appearance last season…but it screws up the timeline even more.