In which we discover that Gundam Wing has reached the point of genre self-parody.
Zechs is in his submarine, musing about how even OZ's most bad-ass underwater suit, the Pisces, was defeated by the Gundams. One of his subordinates wonders if the Gundams are really that bad-ass, and Zechs remarks that he's already lost five pilots to them, which is far too many for his tastes.
Heero has gotten himself captured by the Federa... I mean Alliance forces, having been hauled out of the surf by Relena and taken to their hospital. They've got him strapped down to an examining table and are monitoring him, but he manages to wake up without triggering the monitors to that fact (being, after all, a tremendous bad-ass). The Feds realize he's clearly up to no good, and can't wait to question him - they also try and bust the encryption on a disc they found on him, but fail, which annoys them. Where's Duo?
Meanwhile, Zechs' superior, Trowa, is shooting birds and talking to Zechs on a video phone. Zechs reports that there are lots of Gundams about, and they're unexpectedly bad-ass. He suspects that he knows where they'll strike next, and manages to hint strongly enough to Trowa about this that Trowa authorizes him to go kick some butt.
Meanwhile, Duo holds a phone conversation with someone, using lots of wheat analogies. Ok, code, right...
Inexplicably, we're plunged into a bit of exposition about the 'Specials', which Trowa and Zechs are in charge of. They're an elite military unit that has kicked so much butt in previous battles that they're reputation is unassailable and they pretty much ignore the corrupt and useless chain of command in the Alliance military. They're charismatic, they're the ones who insist on people using those darn goofy giant robots, and they have flashy uniforms. Okay, enough exposition, already, where's the story?
Meanwhile, Wu Fei blows some stuff up and complains that he's not being taken seriously.
Relena shows up at the hospital and... will someone please give her a clue? Please? Someone? Anyone? Look, it's really simple, Relena - Heero is a sociopath! He tried to shoot you! He said he's going to kill you! He's not a nice person! Stop acting like he's your friend, you idiot! Ahem. Sorry. Relena wonders why Heero's being held, and pesters people until they fetch down an Alliance officer to have a chat with her. The officer allows her to go see Heero, but probes her with questions, which she dodges, insisting that there's nothing weird about Heero. She does, however, figure out that Heero's not part of the Alliance military. Relena, why ARE you a moron? "I'm [the foreign minister's] disobedient daughter!" Oh. Well, actually, I can see that. Just admit to yourself that you're compensating for being neglected by your father, and we can go from there...
Duo, meanwhile, breaks into the facility, lords it over Heero for a bit, and then busts the other pilot out, much to the annoyance of the Alliance officer and Relena. Heero and Duo blow a hole in the side of the building and jump out - thoughtfully having put on parachutes first. It's a very tall building, conveniently. Duo uses a James Bond helicopter-like gadget to fly graceflly down, while Heero plummets. Yep, he's trying to kill himself again. Sheesh. "I'm going to have nightmares about this..." Duo complains, watching. Relena, peering out through the hole, yells Heero's name, which startles him into pulling the cord and opening his parachute in time to save him from becoming a skid mark on the pavement. Heero is annoyed at having failed - again - in his attempts to off himself, and Duo bitches at him about how if he's going to kill himself, he can at least do it on his own time. And then they're both spirited away by a convenient boat. Conveniently, there are apparently no Alliance forces around to give chase, possibly because Duo already cleared this level... er, I mean, already wiped them all out last episode.
Meanwhile, in Movie B, Zechs heads for the Alliance's manufacturing center on Corsica. He's managed to locate Wu Fei's gundam, and knows it won't be showing up, as it's off wreaking havoc elsewhere. So he suspects there are four others that will be able to attack Corsica (of course, really only two, but he doesn't know that). He arrives along with a unit of elite troops, and gets snarked at by the commander of the base, who's decided to hold an opening ceremony which will involve him going up in a giant blimp. Gee, why don't you just paint a big target on the side, you moron?
Zechs gets shown around by the commander of the Specials unit, who looks up to him, and who Zechs apparently personally trained. The fellow has located something interesting in one of the Corsica store-houses, an incomplete, but still large and bad-ass, Gundam. Zechs realizes this is far more important than anything else, and his follower offers to give it to him. Zechs wonders if being willing to transfer this machine out of the Corsica base means that this fellow expects to die. Sure enough, the Specials' leader does.
The base commander goes up in his blimp, remarks that nobody could be stupid enough to attack such heavy defenses, and promptly looks annoyed as things start blowing up. The Gundam piloted by the-guy-whose-name-I-can't-remember starts gleefully laying waste to the Alliance defenders. Tanks, planes, mecha, gun emplacements, all are destroyed with cheery little 'boom's. The Specials finally intervene, saving the base commander, who finally realizes what a big oops he's made, and apologizes. Meanwhile, at Zechs ship, another of his followers asks to be allowed to go join the fight, but Zechs declines, realizing he can't possibly win, and unwilling to sacrifice another of his good pilots. The Specials pester the Gundam, using the unique tactic of... letting their enemy shoot until he runs out of ammo. Shockingly, it works. They get ready to pop open a giant can of whup ass, only to be unexpectedly attacked by a *second* Gundam, which lays waste to them. Quatre and his legion of minions (where the hell did he get all these guys from? They sure didn't come from space with him) lay the smack down on the Specials, with Quatre personally taking out their leader.
The Specials have, however, bought enough time to evacuate the stupid base commander, as well as allowing Zechs to retreat with his new prize. This appears to have been their objective, anyway. Quatre is prevented from going after Zechs' ship by... the other Gundam! Yep, SNAFU rears its ugly head again as the two Gundams, not knowing they're on the same side, smack each other around a bit. Quatre (who seems to be a nice guy) finally manages to stop the fight, realizing something's screwy, but by that point, Zechs is long gone. "Crap," Quatre comments as he sees the shuttle escape. Egads! You can't say that on television!
Meanwhile, Duo has retrieved a giant rig and is hauling the two downed Gundams up from under the water and... hey, wait a minute! They weren't out in the open sea! They were in the middle of a military harbor! Sheesh.
Ahem, anyway, Duo hauls them up, while Heero casually sets a broken bone he received in the botched parachute landing, something that totally grosses out poor Duo. Duo decides he's not going to hang around this weirdo any longer, and hints strongly that Heero should take his Gundam and bugger off. Where is Duo getting all this supporting equipment from, anyhow? I mean, sheesh.
Anyway, it's clear by this point that the reason Gundam Wing is so wacky is it's reached the point - possibly intentionally - of self-parody of the giant robot genre. You've got sociopathic, suicidal angst-ridden teenagers in unstoppable battle machines lazily obliterating dozens of elite pilots. At best, they're anti-heroes. But really, the only heroic ones are the supposed villains, who haven't a chance in hell of coming out alive, and are actually aware of it, but throw themselves into battle out of loyalty and honor. Certainly, there's no bravery involved on the part of the kids, and the show doesn't even bother to pretend like they're under any threat. IT's as if all the "power munchkin" rants on the net had been distilled into raw, bilious surl and sent hurtling across the astral plane to lodge deeply into the mind of some poor, unsuspecting Japanese writer.
Sheer brilliance. It's got to be - to at least some degree - intentional. Someone still needs to smack some sense into Relena, though.
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