Review by Chris

December 21, 2000

Duo hides from OZ in the desert. He considers crossing it alone until he spots Quatre and the Maganac Corps. Quatre asks him to join, and Duo agrees. During a sandstorm, they cross the desert until they arrive at an underground base owned by the Arab nations. Quatre introduces himself to Duo, and Duo realizes that he's the heir to the Winner family, the most financially powerful Arab family in the world. The underground base is adjacent to a town, and the people greet Duo, Quatre, and the Maganac Corps as heroes. In Siberia, Zechs and Noin supervise the collection of parts from the Wing Gundam. Zechs wants to rebuild it at the Lake Victoria base, and he believes Heero is alive. Elsewhere, Lady Une apologizes to Treize for planning a strike against the colonies. He tells her to destroy the support that the Gundams have in space. To do that, he tells her to travel to Moscow and announce her trip to space to gain support. He also tells her to lose some of her formalities. Relena arrives at an airport and sees Lady Une on the news. She decides to go to the party that Lady Une will be attending. When she shows up, she is about to be turned away when an old man named Marquise Weridge vouches for her and escorts her in. Relena dances with Marquise Weridge, and he tells her about the Sanc Kingdom and his association with it. He tells her that their pacifist beliefs conflicted with the military agenda of the Alliance.

Lady Une shows up and walks up to Marquise Weridge. She is shocked to see Relena with him. Relena pulls out a gun and shoots a rose off of Lady Une's uniform. She then escapes as Marquise Weridge blocks the OZ soldiers from following. At the Arab base, Duo and Quatre discuss how their missions are identical and how Heero sacrificed himself for the colonies. A squad of OZ Tragos arrives to search the town. The soldiers plant bombs throughout the town and escape. The bomb is set for midnight, when OZ will attack. Rashid gives a speech and orders the Maganac Corps to move out. As the bombs explode at midnight, the Maganac Corps emerge from the base and attack the Tragos squad. They steal a mobile suit carrier and load Deathscythe and Sandrock onto them. The plane takes off, and Duo feels ashamed about not doing anything. He asks Quatre to circle around so he can provide some air fire for the Maganac Corps. In Moscow, Relena is cornered by several soldiers and two Leos. As they are about to take her away, Noin shows up with orders from Treize. She tells Relena that she's come to help her.

This was actually a pretty good episode. Since the series began, this is the first episode to not have all five Gundam pilots. It will be quite awhile before there is an episode featuring all of them again. In this episode, it's actually good not to have everyone because the plot isn't crammed with all of them. The Duo/Quatre story is okay, but the Relena story is more interesting. Instead of being annoying and chasing after Heero, she's actually doing something. And shooting at Lady Une certainly qualifies as 'something'. Too bad she didn't kill her.

Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

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