English Dub Review: Gnosia “Silver Key”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Despite finding the Gnosia, Yuri finds themself looped back to the first day again, with another new crewmate, Yuriko, who rubs everyone the wrong way but is good at convincing people to her side. Even worse, in this loop, Setsu reveals themself as the Gnosia!

OUR TAKE

We’ve got another episode with multiple loops and another new crewmate, Yuriko. Unlike Shigemichi and Stella, Yuriko is not the friendly type and is quick to suspect anyone, saying a bunch of cryptic stuff to Yuri when she’s able to get them alone. Still, it doesn’t seem like she’s necessarily a bad person, though that could be said for anyone who’s not the Gnosia this time. But that’s not the only new thing in these loops, as this is the first time Yuri doesn’t make it to the end, facing their end in the first loop of the episode at the hands of Racio while in warp. We do see the final results and at least see that Racio was found out in the end, with Yuri as the only casualty and SQ as the engineer. But win or lose, things loop back to the beginning with yet another strange twist: Setsu, who is normally Yuri’s closest ally, is the Gnosia this time around and even admits this themselves without prompting. However, surprise upon surprises, they still seem oddly helpful to Yuri anyway and are knowledgeable about the time loops. They identify the thing that allows the loops as a Silver Key, a “parasitic life form that forces its host into a time loop”, as they put it, and it turns out they have one as well and can pass on info to and from Yuri from theirs.

As it turns out, Setsu, or at least this specific Setsu, has also been looping, but they’ve done it over a hundred times whereas Yuri’s only on their fifth. So, it seems the long term goal is to let the Silver Key fill up on alternate timelines until Yuri has all the knowledge (new knowledge, not anything already learned) they need to stop this once and for all, and they’ll just have to keep looping, win or lose, until they get it. Here’s where Setsu reveals they are the Gnosia in this loop, and despite knowing this full well, Yuri doesn’t vote for them in the next vote, instead asking them to kill them during the next warp, letting Setsu know above everything that they are on their side, Gnosia or not. And, as we’ve gotten used to by now, Yuri awakens in the next loop with another pair of new crewmates to get a read on. But we’ll have to learn more about them, and their floating cat head, next week.