Be careful what you wish for.
What They Say:
Episode #21: “CAUSE AND EFFECT”
Sophie is heartbroken her brother is already a Horror. Martin finds out the truth about all the work he has been doing for Sophie. While Sword and the others rush to Sophie’s side, Sophie searches for her unstable brother to finish things herself.
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Sword, Gina, and Luke once again have to race back to the tower. With Sword recovered they don’t have much time to get back in and retrieve Sophie. However, the jig is up and the horror triple threat knows that the golden knight and his crew are on their way. Queen heads out to stop them once again.
She is so overpowered compared to most of the enemies we’ve encountered in the show. Every confrontation with her has not ended well. She’s able to use her demon plant powers to split and lift entire skyscrapers. While Sword continues onward Luke and Gina stay behind to take her out. In the end, it appears her own hubris might have done her in… or did it?
It’s so rare in a show like this for a character like Sophie to take the initiative to do the right thing. When confronted with the fact that her brother has become a monster she resolves to do the right thing and doesn’t pull any punches. She attempts to end Martin’s life herself while she has the opportunity. Sadly, this was probably the one moment where knocking him out and whisking him out of the city would have spared his soul.
Instead, showing him the truth was the final nail in the coffin for his fate. Most of this episode is an extended flashback explaining how the horrors found Martin and approached him. His drive to give his sister a perfect life and to see her smile lead him to research VR so deeply it caught the attention of the horrors already running their own experiment. Here was a heart driven and pure and ready to accomplish what the horrors couldn’t on their own.
Martin truly had no idea his strange career was or how evil his recruiters were. When confronted with the truth he has a total mental breakdown. It was the moment that the enemy was waiting for.
Maybe it was inevitable that this would be Martin’s fate, but for a brief moment, this show let us believe that Sophie might have been able to save her brother. The greatest tragedy of it all is that in the end, Sophie is the trigger for his transformation.
In Summary:
The dream of El Dorado, a perfect utopia free of pain and suffering, is just that for Martin. A dream, and his nightmare. Sophie’s confrontation of her reality and Martin’s realization is what finally causes the whole farce to come crumbling down. As El Dorado begins to physically fall apart the sad fate of the city in entwined with that of Sophie’s brother. If Sophie had stayed behind in the city could the knights have saved Martin? Or was it a foregone conclusion that this is how things had to be. I guess we’ll never know.
Episode Grade: B +
Streamed by: Crunchyroll & Funimation
