Time is running out.
What They Say:
Episode #8: “The Fate of Time”
A trap set by Donna ends up leading the group to the man they’re searching for. Can Derrida use time rides to save them all from their merciless pursuer?
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
I can’t help but feel the opening lines of “I’m bored” in this episode are representative of what this show has turned into. We’re on episode 8 and the most plot progression that has happened in this show still happened back in episode 1.
I had thought this show was taking place in a fantasy UK or something but in this episode, they’re in the middle of a badlands desert where the assassin lady Donna is trying to blast rocks on top of them. How did we get here? When did we get here? The world building in this series is nonexistent. In the middle of the desert is an intact town with a hotel which the group quickly checks into even though they were just targeted by an assassin. The girls aren’t even on edge, they just want a warm shower.
Logic is not this group’s strong point.
Case in point, Derrida gets a message via a hijacked police scanner which is a warning from a man with a scrambled voice. Derrida doesn’t remember until later that it’s the same type of call he got tipping him off about the robot apocalypse code. He does seem to make an entirely illogical assumption it’s the man he’s looking for associated with Mage’s last known whereabouts. He also decides to trust the mystery man, even though they have no idea who he really is.
Cassiel, as it turns out, is the original programmer of the code for the killer robots. He had gone into hiding for much of the same reasons that Derrida is currently on the run. Or something like that. He manages to save the group from the assassin and then tells them all of this. Yes, more minutes upon minutes of telling and not showing. Literal talking heads. He does give them the one clue he had to where Mage went. “Someplace quiet.”
Donna does catch back up to them and manages to land a hit on Vidaux, and in the middle of the attack, Derrida attempts to change the present. The moment is surprising because for once, he actually succeeds in doing so by making sure to grab an item from the past to have in the present. A sort of chicken and egg, a simultaneous solution to an immediate problem.
One thing is certain though, time is running out for Derrida and the series. He learns from the mysterious Ange that he can only time ride back to one moment and adjust it once. The conflicting memories are fracturing the timeline for him and he realizes that all his frantic time travel tests where he was throwing shit at the wall and hoping it stuck may have screwed over his chance to actually change anything. Whoops! There is a deadline looming after all, one with the threat of a scorched earth finality.
In Summary:
Another week, another episode, and yet the future refused to change. After long stretches of exposition, and one too many conclusions jumped to, the group is one step closer to finding Mage. With perhaps the most competent team member down for the count and a crazed assassin still hot on their tail time is running out. I don’t see how this show’s finale can possibly be satisfying, the show hasn’t been so far. At least we know another limit of Derrida’s time travel now.
Episode Grade: C
Streamed by: Crunchyroll & Funimation
