Episode 26: Under the Sky So Blue

Review by Dale

September 29, 2000

Vash finally reaches Knives in an oasis. Then there is a flashback to 130 years ago when the two first landed. Knives gloats about the destruction of Rem and the others. He remarks that the survivors won't last long in such a harsh environment. As Knives is sleeping, Vash picks up a rock and seriously considers killing him. Rem's words pass through his mind and he realizes no one has the right to take anothers' life. A few months later, the survivors of the crash are now in a community. One desperate man lunges to the front of a line to get water. Knives comments on how animalistic their nature is. He begins overloading one of the plants with his mind, but Vash stops him. Ten years pass, and they encounter a ship. Knives goes in to reclaim his guns. One year after that, Knives is shown testing the weapons. He tells Vash they will use the them to wipe out the rest of the humans. Vash tackles him, but is cornered by Knives. He picks up the other weapon and shoots Knives in the leg. Knives is shocked and begins crying in disbelief. Vash runs away screaming. Two years later, Vash is wandering through the desert and is found by the crew of the only ship that was able to stay in the air. The rest of his history is shown in clips as he gets his trademark red suit and travels from town to town. Eighty years later, Vash discovers that Rem's lover is still alive in July City. When he goes to find him, he instead finds Knives standing over several bodies. Knives jokes that now Vash has no more ties to Lem. They fire at each other and Vash's arm is shot off. Knives triggers Vash's gun, transforming his arm into an organic super weapon. He is unable to control it, and it wipes out the entire city. Next is a clip show of the Gung-Ho-Guns going out to defeat Vash.

Now in the present, Knives asks Vash if it was fun living as a human. Vash replies that it was and draws his gun. They are pretty evenly matched and evade one another behind trees and rocks. They end up shooting each other's guns out of their hands. They both retrieve them at the same time and end up aimed at each other's heads. Knives shoots Vash in the shoulder and then steps back, transforming his arm into a large gun. Vash does the same and cancels out Knives' blast. They fire again and the same thing happens. They transform back to normal, exhausted, and Vash drops to the floor after he tries to fire his empty gun. Knives shoots him several more times and kicks him in the face. He now has both guns and transforms both his arms into organic rifles. Vash is lying there in awe when the voice of Nicholas tells him to pick up Nicholas' gun. Vash does so and is able to shoot Knives before he fires. He gets back his other gun shoots Knives in the shoulder. When Knives misses with a poorly aimed shot, Vash shoots him several more times, sending him to the floor in a pool of blood. He raises his gun to Knives and says that he wants to live on. Meanwhile, the well Milly was working on is finally complete, causing a shower of water to rain down. Milly says that Vash should be returning soon since he's got such a good woman waiting for him. Vash bandages Knives, throws off his coat, and walks away with his brother on his shoulder. He tells Lem that he will try to find his own civilization. The series closes with Vash disappearing into the desert.

The last episode proved to be quite a letdown. The only interesting parts involved flashbacks explaining what Vash and Knives were doing during the past century. Knives justifies his actions by referring back to the butterfly metaphor, "you have to kill all the spiders to save the butterfly." There were some totally pointless filler clips of Vash fighting the Gung-Ho-Guns. Knives is developed very little in the series, so I thought they would flesh him out in this last installment. They didn't, however, as he says nearly nothing in the present scenes. For all the destruction Knives has caused, he needed to be destroyed. I thought Nicholas' death in some way showed Vash that total pacifism wasn't always the best way to deal with things. We also never learn why Vash and Knives were created to begin with. It's such a shame, since the series was very strong for the most part, especially towards the end.

Overall Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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