What They Say:
Episode #11: “Endgame of Sand”
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Impromptu drinking party! Celebrating their survival at the hands of rogue demonic agents bent on killing humans, Gayus and the rest settle in at the request of Jiv and enjoy some adult beverages. Too many adult beverages. Gayus invents a devious drinking game which ends up being a nasty amount of truth or dare which gets very heated and very adult extremely fast.
The magical warriors might be brothers and sisters in arms, but they do not like each other at all. We could have used more of this horrific bonding earlier in the series as a good way to get to know these characters, instead, we’re getting it at the very end. These nightmare disasters are really terrible people when you get right down to it.
Gayus and Gigina are aware that the situation may not be over. They are approached by the dragon empire once again for a bit of a debriefing by the Empress herself. It’s then that the story arc from the first half of the series connects to the second, as Mouldeen’s meeting then set up the deal which has had repercussions for current events. The dragon empire gets plenty of resources from the desert kingdom as it is, the dictatorship benefits them. A democratic nation would keep those resources for themselves and the empire wouldn’t be able to exploit them anymore.
However, Remedius’s plan isn’t over yet. His real target wasn’t the city outside of this conflict. The attack there was just a smoke screen to move the weapons he needed to move in order to execute on his actual plan to assassinate the dictator of the desert kingdom. The attack is broadcast widely on TV and watching from a safe distance are Gayus, Gigina, and Zhuo Lu aka Remedius. Gayus berates him over the loss of life, and Mouldeen and the Empress are almost collateral damage in the attack. Remedius stands by his values and walks away, alone with the ghosts of his past and a county which now needs a new way forward.
The gulf in quality between this episode and the previous is quite massive. Even the talking heads in this episode are of a far higher quality than the last. This series really does have some production issues going on behind the scenes.
Episode Grade: B
In Summary:
The second story arc of Dances with the Dragons comes to an end with only one final episode to close out the series coming next week. Remedius’s anger is justified even though his methods are terrible. The politics and behind the scenes plotting, and even some of the tactics that Gayus uses to combat the enemies he faces are well thought out. However… the final battles of this arc left a lot to be desired, and frankly most of the fights in this action-heavy series have been disappointing. Too much character development has come too late into the show and there is simply not enough time to do the stories that they want to tell justice.
Streamed by: Crunchyroll & Funimation
