“Waiter, there’s a fairy in my soup”
What They Say:
In a fictional version of New York City, called Hellsalem’s Lot, a young man named Leonardo Watch suddenly finds himself mixed in with an organization called Libra that fights super criminals. Blessed with super vision himself, he now battles to help save the world from a criminal called Femt, the King of Depravity.
The Review:
Content (warning as this review may contain spoilers):
Well now, I guess Matsumoto and co. decided to be merciful this week because compared to the last couple of super crammed episodes, this one is almost absurdly straightforward. It even has the decency to put the heavier Black and White material towards the very end of the episode, and all at once. Given the show’s usual zaniness you could almost accuse it of being a little too straightforward, but as always it’s a lot of fun, and even more so than the last breather episode, so it works out.
So the episode opens up with Leo, Zapp and Zed grabbing a burger at the usual diner when they’re suddenly attacked a giant armored shell and a horde of aliens as Klaus arrives to ask for their help. At this point it would seem like a relatively standard way for the show to kick things off given it’s usual antics are pretty darn unusual. However, the real story here actually started a bit earlier than that.
What really happened is that the trio first decided to go out and grab some sushi for lunch, but Zapp being well…Zapp decided it would be a good opportunity to haze Zed, but when that failed they instead went in search of another place to eat. Sadly for them it’s hard to find a decent meal anywhere around Hellsalem’s Lot as the various restaurants they check out feature everything from oceans of blood, to clam chowder that eats people, more oceans of blood, and even fairies in the soup. Meanwhile, Klaus and Steven take on a job from the police involving dealing with an alien mafia group called The Thousand Regioka Brothers who are trying to smuggle a special kind of armored suit into the city (I think you can see where this is going). To assist with the job, Abrams decides to get the help of the League of High Order Spiritualists (LHOS for short), the group of Casters responsible for stopping the Great Collapse.
The trio’s restaurant woes continue, and even the classiest joint they can find takes a turn for the sour when it ends up the crime scene of a love affair that turns…violent. Leo gets driven so insane by their inability to get a meal that he hallucinates the God of Chow (food) must somehow be punishing them and has a hilarious freakout involving the words “Food Punishment” in engrish. In the end they just decide to go the diner Leo normally hangs out at, and the girl there tells Leo that it’s great he has friends he can eat out with. All seems well as they finally get to eat…and then we get that pesky cut to the present. That pesky God of Chow just won’t let them have their burger.
If you were expecting them to rampage on the alien mafia guys in retribution, well…too bad for you. The battle with them is skipped entirely and the show instead gives literal cliffnotes on what happened afterwards: They just went back to the Sushi restaurant in the end, and Zapp got himself sick from it. It’s a pretty abrupt punchline but hey it works, and the episode itself is the funniest the show’s been to date. To be honest it feels a little weird to have this kind of episode so late in the game, but it looks like it’s just the calm before the storm.
After the whole affair’s said and done, the elder of the LHOS tells Abrams that one of the city’s barriers got destroyed recently and it seems like that was what Blank was really up to last week with the whole airplane scheme. He then tells Abrams the story about a particular pair of Casters who lost their lives when a new barrier had to be erected three years ago and only their children survived with one of them becoming a Caster himself (only one guess who that is). At the same time, Leo runs into White who decides to take him to an old church. Leo’s a bit weirded out by it since she doesn’t seem the religious type but White says she wants to pray for him, or more accurately what she’s about to do to him. Blank however, shows up and tells her that in truth she just wants to pray for her own salvation since it’s now abundantly clear she’s gotten way too over her head concerning the whole situation she’s put herself in and with that she demands that Leo give her his eyes. Looks like things will be getting real pretty soon…or two weeks from now anyway. Darn, recap episode.
In Summary:
BBB takes a breather this week with a mostly lighthearted comedy episode, with the show at the funniest it’s ever been. The whole thing makes for a lot of fun, although there’s still more serious material to be had as well as the Black/White storyline has finally reached it’s climax. With the finale close at hand, I’m really looking forward to seeing how that arc wraps itself up, so hopefully the gap caused by next week’s recap episode won’t knock the wind out of this show’s sails.
Grade: A
Streamed By: Funimation, Hulu