Code Geass R2, Episode 05

Lelouch… we need to talk. Lately, I’ve been hiding a secret from you.

Yeah. See, things between us haven’t been moving as quickly as they used to… we had a good thing going before this spring, but now I need someone who can really make things happen. There’s no point arguing – in fact, there’s already someone else. Lelouch… I’m leaving you for Suzaku!

And… I have to do this episode review now!

Seriously, Lelouch is a great main character, but he can’t carry the plot of season two by himself, and episode 5 proves it. The return of Suzaku is all we need to turn a plain school episode into something great.

But that’s later. Episode 5 starts off back at the Chinese Embassy. While the formerly-captive Black Knights reunite with their comrades, Lelouch and Xingke make sure to spirit away Rollo and his Vincent before anyone finds out too much about them. Then it’s time for Lelouch to make a public appearance as Zero and reassert his authority with a short speech and some clutch assistance by Toudou and Ougi.

It goes off without a hitch. Lelouch is getting so good at speeches that he probably doesn’t even break a sweat anymore. But even if that wasn’t a problem for him, going to school and seeing Suzaku in the classroom definitely is! Viletta even makes sure to give the two seats right next to each other! As we quickly learn, Suzaku doesn’t know that Lelouch’s memory has returned, but he’s suspicious, and he knows exactly what Lelouch should and shouldn’t remember.

And that’s not all. Suzaku brought some of his buddies from the Knights of Round with him! We cut to Gino Weinberg and his Gundam Kyri- I mean, Tristan hamming it up in a non-lethal duel with some of Guilford’s underlings, and Anya Earlstream and her Gundam Virt- I mean, Mordred arrive right as the party’s ending. Suzaku comes to meet everyone right there. He’s pissed when he learns that Gino didn’t bring the Lancelot like he said he would, but Gino gives Suzaku a hug and says he’ll make it all better soon. Wait, more yaoi bait?

Next thing we know, everyone’s back at Ashford Academy, doing something different to celebrate Suzaku’s big homecoming festival. While Gino and Anya rush around taking pictures like a couple of tourists and Viletta helps run the swimming club’s swimsuit cafe, Lelouch gets busy peeling potatoes with Rollo and playing the brotherly love card to make sure he doesn’t get stabbed while he sleeps. Rollo takes the opportunity to confess to Lelouch that his Geass has a weakness, but we don’t get to hear what it is. I’m sure we’ll conveniently encounter a situation that makes it perfectly clear next week.

Things start moving when Suzaku, busy making small talk with Milly, has a feather pen that Euphie gave him stolen by that stupid cat Arthur. As the two rush to catch the cat, Suzaku drops a clipboard with the plans to make another giant pizza on it. Gino finds this just seconds later, and reads it with a mischievous grin on his face.

Meanwhile, Lelouch gets away from peeling potatoes just long enough to catch up to C.C., who’s come looking to satisfy her pizza fetish with a slice from said giant pizza. Ignoring this, Lelouch takes her aside to have a serious conversation, during which we learn that C.C. is willing to risk death for pizza and that it was, in fact, V.V. who gave the Emperor his Geass. There’s more to say, but the conversation is cut short when Shirley starts to come around the corner. Lelouch has to hide C.C. and decides the best way to do it is to shove her into a giant crate of tomatoes.

Lelouch’s attempts to shoo Shirley away are in turn interrupted by Kallen, who is wearing a goofy mascot costume and needs to know where C.C. is so she can help her get the hell away from this crazy school.

Suzaku and Milly interrupt this when they show up looking for Arthur, and then Gino sends everything to hell at once when he rolls by in an antique Knightmare frame and grabs the tomato crate with C.C. still in it! Arthur runs past everyone going in Gino’s direction, and the chase is on!

To cut a long story short, Suzaku demonstrates more of the athletic skill that lets him run on walls by catching up to Gino’s Knightmare on foot and snagging Arthur and Euphie’s pen in one smooth dive. Gino dumps the tomato crate onto the giant pizza dough, but Lelouch manages to Geass one of the event coordinators to activate some bubble mist devices around the stage so that C.C. can escape unseen, although her precious pizza is ruined once again. Kallen gets away, and Shirley trips running after her, leaving Anya free to take a picture of Shirley in a compromising position. Wait, yuri bait?

Anyway, now that the festival has been ruined in hilarious fashion, it’s time to take care of some business. Lelouch, Kallen, and C.C. regroup on the Academy roof, and Kallen casually mentions that Viletta looks a lot like Ougi’s old girlfriend. A wink and a nudge from C.C. all but confirms this, and so Lelouch grabs Rollo and together the “brothers” spend some quality time blackmailing Viletta to join the Black Knights at gunpoint. Aww.

By the end of the night, Lelouch has pimp-slapped Xingke into driving Kallen and C.C. home in his limo on top of everything else, and is standing on the roof once again, wallowing in his own satisfaction until Suzaku appears. Suzaku talks for a while about how important he is, and to prove it he tells Lelouch that he’s going to call a random important person for no reason. Someone like… Japan’s new governor-general! For extra lulz, he decides to let Lelouch make the prank call himself – but Lelouch stops laughing when he realizes that the voice on the other end is NUNNALLY!

At this point I almost choked on my own amazement. What a way to end an episode!

In fact, this was just a well-done episode from beginning to end. The introduction of the new mechs and characters was handled pretty well, and the school scene was actually funny without feeling drawn-out or overly cheesy. On top of that, Sunrise gave me pretty much everything I asked for in my last entry – getting Viletta out of the picture; more screentime for Suzaku and Rollo; and finally, NUNNALLY! At this point I didn’t really care how they found her, so long as they did – but reintroducing her as the governor-general is just awesome. Not to mention, this means that Suzaku is holding all the cards now and has Lelouch all but trapped.

I can’t wait to see how Lelouch handles this next week. I might get back together with him in the future, but right now my affections belong to spicy Suzaku.

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4 comments

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  1. ah yes, I probably should have blogged this ep if it weren’t for my exams for which I actually spent dozens of hours hunching over books studying for =P.

    Suzaku climbed to unprecedented levels on my hate list, I don’t think I need to explain why. That move at the end, while BRILLIANT, was pure douche.

    Lulu’s explanation to the Black Knights was just… disappointing to say the least. It shouted of being a plot device cause sunrise’s scripters couldn’t come up with anything better. I also wished he’d reveal his identify to at least his core followers, guess Sunrise wants to save that bomb for later.

    Gino breaks every law ever established for the proper conduct of a military commander. I won’t be surprised if he gets abandoned by the rest of the Area-11 army at a crucial moment later on in the series when he actually needs them (but then, given the char role assigned to him by Sunrise, that’s not likely to happen).

    Anya isn’t what I expected at all for a round but… SHE’S AWESOME! I got great expectations given the few frames of her seen thus far.

    • SomeRandomChick on April 15, 2009 at 10:12 am

    Here is a couple things I would like to say:
    1:Gino has to be a yaoi because in a great anime series, there has to be a gay blonde. Gino proudly takes this role.
    2: Suzaku clearly isn’t gay. He still loves Euphie. Remember the episode in season 1,when Euphie died. When she got shot, Suzaku’s pissed off meter went off the charts. Also the famous death scene- He was crying a river of sadness….Poor Suzaku.
    3: Anya is a awesome person. She is a perfect combination of C2 and Lelouch. She has no emotions and can bring some major ass kicking. Go Anya!
    4: The ending to the episode was great! I was surprised that the writers brung Nunally back! Didn’t it look like Lelouch was going to cry?

    • Citrus on April 16, 2009 at 1:38 am

    Oh wow, seeing a new comment here takes me back. If episodic reviews weren’t such a drain on the writer, I’d be doing them more often. I’m proud of this review right here.

    @SomeRandomChick: Excellent points, all of them. I don’t believe Suzaku is gay either – I was writing some parts of this post using a fangirl persona. And yes, the ending to this episode WAS great, although I think Lelouch looked less like he was going to cry and more like he just shat bricks.

    Oh, Code Geass R2. Good times, even if the endgame was a mess.

    Citrus´s last blog post..Umineko Anime due out July!

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