Episode 42, "Defeat Freeza, Son Goku! The Proud Vegeta's Tears"
*****SPOILERS*****
Synopsis: As Gohan, Piccolo, and Kuririn look on, Freeza continues to torture Vegeta. Goku detects where all of their ki are and flies to where they are. Goku tells everyone he will take on Freeza himself. After a short exchange where Goku easily deflects Freeza's beams, Vegeta laughs and insists that Goku is a Super Saiyan of legend. Fed up, Freeza fires a beam through Vegeta's heart. Dying, Vegeta tells Goku that Freeza killed their race, and with his pride wounded, begs him to bring an end to Freeza by his Saiyan hand. Goku buries Vegeta and declares he will defeat Freeza.
Comments:
Well, Goku's finally arrived on the scene, just in time to watch Vegeta die. Maybe if he had, I don't know, attacked at full force upon arrival, maybe Vegeta wouldn't have died. He sure took his sweet time with his little breathing excercises on top of Freeza's ship. Nice, Goku.
Vegeta's first death is in this episode, and it's pretty dramatic, I guess. Freeza beats the shit out of him first, and even grinds a rock into his wounds (which are magically not there thanks to editing) on top of everything. This sort of thing is why Freeza is probably my favorite villain of the series. He's just fucking brutal. When Freeza finally delivers the killing beam, he does it so casually, as if he's just silencing a small creak in a door, like it doesn't even matter, he's just tired of hearing Vegeta. But we knew Vegeta wasn't going to survive this fight. Even if this was your first time watching this story, it was clear Vegeta wasn't long for this world... or that one.
You have to hand it to Ryo Horikawa in that death scene. His voice usually isn't as strong in Kai as it was in Z, but it's just as good, if not better here. It's probably because it's more weathered quality works in Vegeta's final breaths. The only thing that bothered me with the scene was Kai's soundtrack. The usual death music for Vegeta's actual passing didn't bother me, but the generic tune that played when Goku was burying him was annoying, especially when in Z, it was a great piece that was used in the third DBZ movie. I think there was a piece here in between those two parts of the scene, too.
Can you recall the Funimation dub version of this scene? God, what a fucking mess. First, they made Vegeta's final words all about whining over what he's become. He was talking about how Freeza is why he became who he was, that Goku had to stop him before he did it to anyone else. Then when he dies, Goku forgives him for his cruelty because Freeza never gave him a chance to be anything but who he wanted him to be. Where, in the original material, did they get this?
Vegeta is proud of who he is. That's why he cried when he talked to Goku, because it was hurting his pride to ask for help, to ask for somebody else to carry on his desire, to defeat Freeza. He didn't particularly care about his family being slaughtered or his race, per se, just that the Saiyans had been servants to Freeza and been treated beneath him, the wound to their pride was what was important, not that they were killed. It wasn't the lives of the Saiyans that needed to be avenged, it was their pride.
The point of the scene wasn't even particularly Vegeta, either. It was more about Goku than anyone else. Here he had been sort of shrugging off the fact that he was a Saiyan himself, not really embracing it, because, well, they were a brutal race of douchebags. But here, he called on his Saiyan pride to keep him going, even admitting he was starting to understand Vegeta. It wasn't about avenging the dead race, but their pride, and even he knew it, as dense as he is.
That's what makes the scene so powerful. It doesn't take the easy route of "Oh, I'm sorry for what I've become, Kakkarot, don't let it happen to another!". No, Vegeta isn't asking for forgiveness. He's not making that leap in characterization. He never quite does. He does redeem himself somewhat in a later arc, but that can't come so soon. What makes it powerful is that it's not a simple act of contrition, it's a call to carry on one's pride. As destructive as Vegeta's and the Saiyan race's pride has been, Freeza is certainly an unforgiveable villain, and if Goku was to start having the pride of a Saiyan, now was the time.
So now is the big event, Son Goku vs Freeza. I hope Kai does a good job compressing some of the needlessly long bits of this, but maintains the quality of the best parts. 
Overall Score:
4 out of 5
DERP HERP DERP.
