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| Plot Synopsis | Interesting or Fun Details |
| Episode Review | |
Plot Synopsis
This episode starts a little differently from the first two. Instead of the opening credit sequence, Meltdown starts with a construction site where one man is controlling several dozen construction Boomers. One breaks down, and while the man is attempts a quick repair, another informs him that it is nearly out of power. The man attaches a power cable to recharge the Boomer, and in the process, the Boomer is reprogrammed by a virus and starts demolishing parts of the building. After smashing up a control console, the Boomer plugs the power cord into another Boomer, which also gets reprogrammed. The AD Police are called, and they arrive only to scatter out of the way of falling I-beams that destroy their vehicles. Other AD Police officers hit the construction site from choppers, and the officers start cutting down the many berserk Boomers with automatic weapons. Then the opening credit sequence begins.
After the opening credits, the news is on, informing the public that there are Boomers going crazy all over MegaTokyo, attacking people and causing riots. Not only that, but the AD Police have received over 3000 calls for assistance in the last 24 hours. Leon and Daley, both in the cafe drinking coffee, are talking about all the recent Boomer breakdowns and worrying about whether the military's combat boomers are still ok when the coffee-serving waitress Boomer go nuts and start pouring boiling coffee down the owners mouth, all while spouting off about the coming Boomer revolution.
Back at the Lady633 building, Nene tells Sylia about the recent rash of Boomer problems, and Sylia comments that if all the boomers malfunctions are related, then the problems are going to get a LOT worse before they get any better. That night, several military combat Boomers are activated and stolen by some unknown person. Underneath the storage building, a figure contained in some fluid, with evil looking red eyes shaped uncannily like those of another evil Boomer in another Bubblegum series are staring out of the water and gloating over the theft. The same voice which had been heard in both prior episodes is thus attached to a real person, and the voice indicates that it wants the Knight Sabers to reveal themselves and thus be destroyed. Up in the city again, the truck pulls up outside the headquarters of the AD Police, and the combat Boomers begin their attack on the AD Police by immediately heading for the armory.
Back at Sylia's apartment, Nene and Sylia have completed an analysis of the Boomer malfunctions and found that the Boomers are being infected with some kind of virus which is based off ADAMA's AI, and so they're able to infiltrate the defenses of the normal Boomers and also the Net itself. Mackie, the first time he is seen in this entire series, appears on the vidphone to tell Sylia that he's analyzed the AI and come up with a way to counter it. After Mackie hangs up, the Knight Sabers see the attack on the AD Police on the news, and they all suit up.
At the AD Police HQ, Leon is facing the three combat Boomers in his K-12s powered suit, and doing reasonably well holding them back when he hears that the guardian Boomers have gone nuts and are attacking the officers guarding the armory. Luckily for the AD Police, the Knight Sabers take this chance to arrive on the scene and relieve Leon of his problems with the combat Boomers. Leon heads inside and while he is making quick ends for the guardian Boomers, the Knight Sabers make a quick end of the three combat Boomers too. Unfortunately, the Boomers were really a distraction, and the Knight Sabers become aware of thousands of Boomers converging on the Central Databank Building.
In front of the building is a single Boomer, with Fusion ability, which starts to take control of the Boomers' minds. It fuses with all the Boomers and then starts fusing with the actual building. Nene, using her scanners to augment those of the jet transport that the Knight Sabers are in, misses the Boomer altogether because it is also using the new AI to shield itself. Sylia, piloting the jet, has Linna and Priss take control of one beam cannon apiece while Nene targets the Boomers AI. The problem is that the countermeasures which Mackie gave her only work for an instant, and then it's Nene herself against the Boomer's countermeasures. Finally, just as the jet is damaged by the Boomer, Nene gets a lock on the AI and the Knight Sabers destroy it before it can take control of the entire city.
Back on the ground, what feels like a minor earthquake which is indentified as something big moving underground. Leon and Daley feel it and track it heading out toward the bay, taking off in a helicopter. The Knight Sabers also feel it and take off in an attempt to catch it before it destroys the fusion reactor under Tokyo Bay, the explosion of which would be a far greater problem than any full-scale Boomer rebellion. While the Knight Sabers are attempting to catch up to the borer, the figure within it talks about destroying MegaTokyo and replacing the entire human world with a Boomer world.
Inside the reactor, Leon and Daley try to convince the head manager to shut it down, but not only won't he, he literally can't - it takes 3 hours to shutdown the reactor. Unfortunately, that's when the borer decides to hit the supposedly indestructible bulkheads protecting the reactor. And the full magnitude of the situation really hits home when the true villain is revealed to be none other than Largo, the SuperBoomer supposedly killed in Red Eyes.
Back at the borer, the Knight Sabers are facing off with what appears to be three copies of Largo himself. After a quick fight, the copies transform into their true Boomer forms - really big, mean looking, and nasty Boomers, and while the other three Knight Sabers attempt to deal with the Boomers, Sylia leaves to find the real Largo himself. In the combat between the Boomers and the Knight Sabers, Nene's suit reveals that it can somehow deflect incoming laser attack. Unfortunately, the attack is from a Boomer which has lasers studding every surface of it's body, and it simply overwhelms Nene's defenses. Linna faces off against the 4 armed Boomer, and does well until the Boomer's legs split to become two additional arms, and then she is captured and held by the Boomer, which starts to tear her apart. Priss, in an attempt to help Nene and Linna, lets herself be snuck up on from behind. She is tossed around, and then gets three railgun projectiles shot through her legs and one of her arms, hurting her very badly. While this battle goes on, Sylia finds a way into the borer and then finds herself in Largo's inner sanctum where Largo offers to join forces with Sylia to rule the world. In response, Sylia again identifies Largo as the Boomer manifestation of Brian J. Mason, and Largo identifies Sylia as being a Boomeroid like him - neither human nor Boomer, but superior to both. Unfortunately, Sylia is not particularly thrilled about the concept of joining Largo, and he tells her that he should have killed her when he killed her father, but that his love for her stopped him. That Mason was in love with a 12 year-old girl, no matter how cute she was, is rather sickening.
Back in the control room of the reactor, Leon and Daley are chuckling about the VIPs who are attempting to escape MegaTokyo using their own personal orbital shuttles, and Daley makes a comment that maybe it makes sense for human beings to be replaced by Boomers. This comment really pisses off Leon, and then sees a fuzzy image of Priss pulling the railgun projectiles out of her legs on a control room screen. Back at the borer, Priss is actually trying to pull the railgun projectiles out of her legs, and succeeds. Nene is hurting badly and, because of the new AI, can't scan the Boomers they've been fighting. Priss actually stands up, all the while dripping a lot of blood. Inside the borer, Largo confesses his love for Sylia, who responds by blowing a large chunk of Largo's head messily off. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to hurt Largo much, and he starts fusing himself with Sylia and her hardsuit, something that a supposedly fusion-resistant hardsuit shouldn't allow.
Outside the borer, Priss decides to die fighting as a proud woman. The Boomers are totally unimpressed and disdainful, yelling that the Knight Sabers are stupid bitches, out of line, and that they don't know their place. Priss, using her sword, Nene with her "sonic" lasers, and Linna with the electrospines and thermoribbons go into combat again, and this time do a little better. But inside the borer Largo is fusing with Sylia, and Sylia is being taken into a realm reminiscent of the Net, where her armor disappears and where Largo tries to convince her that humanity will destroy the world and itself in the process, leaving nothing but a dead planet. His solution is, of course, replacing humanity with Boomers because Boomers can live in any environment. Back on the outside of the borer, Priss takes one of the railgun projectiles that the Boomer she's been fighting shot into her and drives it into the Boomer's head. Linna cuts off all the arms of hers, and Nene attempts to hack into her opponent, but all three Boomers start fusing with the Knight Sabers as well. Sylia, still controlled by Largo, nearly agrees with him until the mental voices of Linna, Priss, and Nene remind her of her humanity. Sylia immediately regains her control, aims at Largo, and puts enough beam cannon shots through him to literally shred his body, killing him. Freed from control, Nene orders her Boomer to activate its lasers, but to fire them all with the armored laser ports closed, essentially causing it to self destruct. Priss uses her sword to cut hers in half, and with the death of all the Boomers, the borer grinds to a halt just after breaking through the final defense bulkhead.
The final scene has Sylia flying off to join Mackie in Germany and to start their research into Boomers where their father, Dr. Stingray, left off. Sylia promises to return the following month, and Linna, Priss, and Nene hijack Leon with an order to pay for their lunch. As the jet takes off, Sylia is looking sadly at a picture of her and her father.
However, at the end of the credits, Sylia is looking out over the planet and she hears Largo's voice asking her if humanity befouling the planet would truly satisfy her, a question he asked while he was fused with her.
Interesting or Fun Details
- In the opening credit sequence, it appears to me that Sylia is driving a red Mercedes. I believe that she is driving a white one in the other two openings.
- Daley and Leon mention combat Boomers in the beginning at the cafe. Aren't combat Boomers supposed to be illegal to build or store on Japanese soil?
- The beam cannons on the jet transport which kill the fusion Boomer look and act a lot like a Macross style reflex cannon.
- Priss uses a detachable beam cannon in the fight against the Boomers. Too bad it looks really funny....
- Fusion is supposedly impossible with organic, living matter. Yet somehow Largo fuses with the fusion resistant hardsuit of Sylia, and then seems to do so with her as well.
- To the best of my knowledge, nuclear reactors, even fusion ones, are incapable of exploding in nuclear/thermonuclear explosions, yet the Knight Sabers fear that the reactor in Tokyo Bay will do so. Oops....
My Review
I think that this is probably my favorite episode of Bubblegum Crash, for several reasons. First is that the Boomers of this episode are generally more intelligent than they were in prior episodes. In addition, they look much cooler, harking back to the HyperBoomers which Largo designed in his attempt to discredit and then destroy the Knight Sabers in Red Eye's. These are even nastier, and I like that. I also happen to like Largo as a villain. Nene hacking a Boomer's AI is something I had wanted to see for a very long time, and she finally gets a chance to do it in this episode.
I also like the way that the concept of the "State of the Art" is examined in this episode. The Net is supposedly protected from viruses and other unpleasantness by unbreakable systems. But the development of the new AI for ADAMA enabled the creation of a new type of virus based on the AI. Since the Net hadn't been upgraded with a new system that took the AI into account, it was able to penetrate and subvert the programming of various Boomers. The race between security and countermeasures goes ever forward.
In addition, the episode seems to reveal a little social commentary, or possible commentary, at the end. When the Boomers attack the Knight Sabers, they show disdain for strong, willful, and proud women. In Japan, a proud and willful woman has historically been frowned upon heavily, and only recently has this started to change. And Largo's berating humanity for destroying a beautiful planet begs the question of how a machine could understand the beauty of the planet so much better than the humans which created it, as well as how this very machine understands the beauty and yet is still willing to destroy it.
Finally, the final scene of Sylia on the plane asks several questions. The first is whether Largo is truly dead, or if he somehow lives on in Sylia or even independently somehow (i.e. was the comment a memory or a transmission or perhaps another personality within Sylia) But the far more important questions are these: Would it satisfy any of us to allow the world to be destroyed by pollution, overcrowding, war, famine, disease, global warming, etc? And are we truly any better than the Boomers who destroy beauty and life, heedless of what it is we destroy or caring not a whit for it?
The episode offers no answers, and perhaps there are none.
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Revised - September 21, 2000
