Episode 20: The Lunar Base Infiltration

Review by Chris

January 30, 2001

Heero and Duo consider their next moves. For Heero, that involves going to the base on the Moon to destroy the new mobile suits and killing the doctors. He tells Duo to stay behind so he can rest. Heero leaves the colony and takes a shuttle to the Moon. Now that the Alliance is gone, OZ is allowing citizens to travel freely between colonies and the Moon. On Earth, Sally infiltrates on OZ base where Sandrock is being rebuilt. She plants explosives to destroy it, because she doesn't want OZ to have a Gundam. The Maganac Corps show up because they want to steal the Sandrock and finish rebuilding it for Quatre. Sally detonates the explosives, but they have no effect on the partially rebuilt torso. The OZ soldiers are alerted, and Sally steals a Leo to start fighting them. The Maganac Corps steal a mobile suit transport and load the remains of Sandrock onto it. They convince Sally to let them go, and she continues her mission to find the next Gundam. In space, Lady Une meets with colony leaders. They feel that with the amount of citizens living in space it is time to organize and make a nation. However, they do not like OZ's plans for the main industries of space to be mobile suit production. They don't believe that peace can be gained by increasing armaments, but Lady Une convinces them that the weapons are deterrents.

Nearby, Nichol supervises a field test of new OZ pilots. They all perform miserably in destroying space mines, with the exception of one who just happens to be Trowa. Nichol tells Lady Une about his abilities and suspects he is a Gundam pilot. Lady Une asks him to perform a second test: destroy Deathscythe. Duo watches on TV as this is broadcast across the colony. Trowa takes a Taurus laser cannon and destroys Deathscythe. Lady Une meets with Trowa over Nichol's objections. Trowa's talk of OZ's plan to take over space confuses Lady Une and sends her into a panic. Later, Lady Une selects Trowa to be a pilot for one of the new suits. The mad scientists show off their new creations: the half completed attack suit Vayeate, and the nearly completed defensive suit Mercurius. The Mercurius possesses 'planet defensors' that can block energy beams. The two are meant to work as a team to maximize offense and defense. Lady Une asks which one would win in a battle, and the scientists tell her it depends on the skills of the pilot. The Vayeate suddenly comes to life and fires at the Mercurius. The planet defensors of the Mercurius block the attack, and the Vayeate torso falls from where it is suspended. Heero ejects from the cockpit, and Trowa holds him at gunpoint.

Yet another episode where nothing important happens. Heero may think he's some master soldier, but he's really not at all. He destroys valuable Gundams, and he tries to kill Gundam pilots. He also leaves his Gundam on Earth, and now he tries to use the torso of half completed mobile suit to destroy a completed mobile suit. And he manages to get captured too. There's plenty of things that don't make sense in this episode. Why would OZ want to rebuild Sandrock? Zechs had a reason to rebuild the Wing Gundam, but the Romefeller Foundation didn't like it. Why then would they allow Sandrock to be rebuilt? Also, Nichol repeatedly accuses Trowa of being a Gundam pilot, but the weirdo happy version of Lady Une doesn't believe him. It seems like she's starting to break down as the two personalities clash. Though I don't like this episode much, it does raise an important question: how can peace be attained by increasing armaments? That's a question we have yet to answer.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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