ReviewsThe Big O

The Big O Act 5: Bring Back My Ghost

0
Summary

At night a military police car transporting Maj. Hillary drives through Paradigm City. The driver wants to make a detour to avoid the fog, fearful of two other officers who recently died in the area, but the Major is dismissive of it and tells him to continue on their current route. Suddenly a gigantic white ghost-like object appears before them. The car turns around to avoid it, only to come across it again in the other direction. The car swerves out of control and crashes. Later, at his mansion Roger meets with a well-known Paradigm lawyer, Rick Frazier. Roger quickly asks Rick to leave, thinking he lacks sincerity. Roger changes his mind and decides to take on Rick’s request after all since the actual client is his mother Melissa Frazier, an elderly billionaire who is celebrating her 70th birthday the next day. Norman questions why Roger is still going through with negotiations since Melissa has had shady dealings in the past as well, but Roger stops him. Dorothy simply thinks that Norman is worried. Roger goes through with negotiations due to having a policy of valuing women and the elderly. Roger drives out to Easttown, a luxurious dome, and arrives at the Frazier mansion. Roger meets the blind Melissa, who is sitting in her bed. Melissa talks about her son Bonnie, whose picture is on the mantelpiece. She wants Roger to find Bonnie and bring him back for her birthday the next day. Roger sees Rick on the way out, who thinks it is a waste of time since Bonnie died a year before after falling into the Hudson River following a shoot out. Roger states that his remains never surfaced and drives off. Roger flashes back to his conversations with Melissa, who claims that Bonnie had a strong sense of justice and left after finding out the heinous things she did in her past. Roger thinks of how a year ago riots over land buyouts outside of the domes resulted in Bonnie falling off a bridge to his death. His death ended up being a main factor in bringing peace regarding the buyouts and riots. Roger heads to the Speak Easy bar where he meets with Big Ear. Big Ear tells Roger about rumors of ghosts who killed three top officers in the Military Police. Roger asks if there is a connection to the riots the year before. Big Ear tells Roger not to push things too far if he wants to live long, angering him. Big Ear says Bonnie had stumbled upon something and was eliminated because of it. He says the three officers were pulling the strings behind the buyout and there was a fourth officer involved, Col. Gaust.

At Roger’s mansion, Norman tells Dorothy that Roger will be late and that they should have dinner. Dorothy joins for form’s sake. Roger sees Dastun, who refuses to tell him where Col. Gaust is. The two are talking about Bonnie’s death when Dastun receives a call about Col. Gaust’s car being lost. At that moment Gaust asks his driver what’s going on as they have lost their escort and have headed into a deep fog. The driver reveals himself to be Bonnie and confronts Gaust, who was involved in throwing him off the bridge a year ago. Gaust fires all his bullets at Bonnie to no luck and flees, but the giant ghost appears before him and he falls off the bridge to his death. Suddenly a group of boats led by Dastun appear and fire at the ghost. The bullets pass through it with no effect. The ghost fires shots at the boats. Big O suddenly appears out of the water. The ghost fires shots at Big O, missing it. When Big O fires back with its lasers the ghost simply disappears and reappears behind Big O. Roger fires at it only for it to disappear again. The ghost successfully hits Big O many times. Big O avoids another shot from the ghost and spots the origin point of it. Big O fires, destroying the Mega Deus that was projecting the ghost-like images. Big O realizes the Mega Deus was generating both the fog and the ghost-like image. Big O walks away and Dastun tells his fellow officers to not bother going after it. Later, Bonnie walks down the street and is confronted by Roger, who asks him where he found the Mega Deus. Dastun and two fellow officers watch from nearby. Bonnie says he’s not really sure about it himself. He says that a year ago he was outed as being the leader of the protestors and shot during the riots, falling off the bridge into the water. Underwater he was grabbed by the Mega Deus and when he woke up realized he could operate it. He says at that point he simply wanted revenge for what happened to him. Roger tells him about his mother looking for him. The next day Bonnie returns to the mansion to wish his mother happy birthday. Outside Roger waits with Dastun and the military police. Dastun is surprised he’d negotiate with someone like Rick Frazier. Rick and Bonnie embrace as Bonnie leaves the mansion. Dastun says he’ll do his best to make sure that Bonnie gets a fair trial.

Commentary

This is probably the most standalone and unnecessary episode of the series, featuring very little of Dorothy and none of certain key supporting characters like Angel and Alex Rosewater, but is overall still a good episode, just highlighting how high quality as a whole The Big O is throughout its run. Roger enabling Bonnie to return and see his mother one last time is a heartwarming story and it was good to see that they didn’t eschew realism and will still prosecute Bonnie for the murders he was responsible for. The big unanswered question from the episode is why Bonnie waited an entire year to start taking revenge, since he found the Mega Deus he was operating right away. Seems a bit too convenient that he started taking revenge right around his mother’s birthday. Still, despite that unanswered question it’s still overall an enjoyable episode.

Overall Rating
3.5/5
The Big O Info


Director:
Kazuyoshi Katayama

Writer(s):
Chiaki J. Konaka
Kazuyoshi Katayama
Keiichi Hasegawa
Masanao Akahoshi
Shin Yoshida

Mechanical Designer:
Keiichi Satou

Character Designer:
Keiichi Satou

Musical Composer:
Toshihiko Sahashi

Format:
26 episodes

Airdates:
Japan 10.13.1999 – 01.19.2000 (S1); 01.02.2003 – 03.23.2003 (S2)
U.S. 04.02.2001 – 04.18.2001 (S1); 08.03.2003 – 11.02.2003 (S2)

Comments

Comments are closed.