Episode 41, "The Moment We've Waited For! Son Goku is Revived"
*****SPOILERS*****
Synopsis: Vegeta smacks Gohan out of the way of Freeza's beam, saving him. However, he only does so for more audience for what he feels he can now do: defeat Freeza. With supreme confidence, Vegeta powers up to his fullest extent, surprising Gohan, Piccolo, and Kuririn. He challenges Freeza, but it doesn't impress his former employer, who is more than capable of avoiding and deflecting his attacks. Regardless of what is thrown at him, Freeza endures, shaking Vegeta to his core. Freeza than attacks Vegeta, easily overpowering him, then slowly torturing him. Meanwhile, Goku has fully recovered. 
Comments:
(Sorry about the clock in the screenshots. I couldn't find a RAW without it.)
So, we finally get to a meaningful battle here, as Vegeta insists that he's a Super Saiyan and attacks Freeza with immense power. Hell, the powering up took long enough, it looked like if he farted the planet would explode. However, obviously, it wasn't enough to hurt Freeza in any real way. Even Gohan had better luck and he wasn't anywhere near Vegeta's level. But the point of the fight isn't that Vegeta is damaging Freeza, it's that he thinks he's a Super Saiyan but his pride is dealt quite a blow by Freeza being so much more than he can handle even then.
Freeza really beats him, too, and casually so. This is what makes Freeza a good villain, that he doles out such cruelty with ease, as if it was just natural for him. It makes Vegeta's loss so much more harsh, because Vegeta was giving everything and it was doing absolutely nothing. I love the part where Freeza has Vegeta by the head and he just casually picks a crab off of his shoulder and eats it as he's telling Vegeta just how unimpressed he is. It's even hard to tell whether or not Freeza is even angry sometimes because he goes from relaxed to enraged and back in a matter of moments, despite him clearly having the advantage.
The episode concludes with Goku finally recovering in the tank from his injuries from the Ginyu battle. Come to think of it, Goku spends a hell of a lot of time on the sidelines, either training or recovering from something. How can we be expected to buy him as the main character of the series when he's barely in it? Oh well.
Two insert songs were used in this episode. The first, played while Vegeta was powering up, was "Saiyan Blood", sung by Vegeta's VA, Ryo Horikawa. And yes, he pronounces Saiyan as "SIGH-AN". Beat you down! It's a pretty fun song, but as an insert song, it's not so good. It ended up distracting me. At the end when Goku recovers, "Super Dragon Soul" played. Now, I had thought they were saving this one for Goku's first Super Saiyan transformation. I hope they don't use it now that they already have. It would have really worked, but now that they've already used it, it will be cheapened.
Ease off the insert songs, Toei.
Overall Score:
3.5 out of 5
