review

SPOILERS

We’re getting somewhere here. Going to a place where all series have gone before, the continued build up to series finale fraught with intensity and uncertainty.

The show nails it from start to finish with this episode. Without much muss or fuss, we know something is up when Rowe is assigned to guard Noelle and Jack is nowhere to be found. Seeing the dynamic of a solo operation with one of L/R is welcome, especially at this juncture. Rowe does the best he can, yet he is bested by a mysterious Jude McManus, a new DTI hire who for some reason kinda sounds like Jack (30 years down the line thanks to smoking) and also looks like him. There’s a nice scene where Rowe gets routed by his means to protect Noelle, and the show delivers a nice guessing game on the whereabouts of Jack. Sure he seems to be Jude, but two similar-looking individuals enliven things up a bit. read more

Now here’s an entry to the Profiling section of your brain: White men in white collared shirts wearing suspenders and speaking in Irish brogue. I suggest placing it a bit higher over “Bearded Brown Men in robes.”

Of course the people most critical of the English-accented Ishtar would sound like Irishmen. Of course.

This episode pleasantly proves me wrong when it comes to expectations. I was bored last week, yet here I am rather intrigued once again. There’re no L/R antics to be had in this episode, since the two parts of it go off on their own to figure out the Angel situation, never mind the shocking revelation about Mister. Jack goes off in that direction, seeking to corroborate Claire and Dez’s claims of the night vis-à-vis any new revelations. Nothing much to be said there, since this episode is not going to be the Hofner Half-Hour. read more

It seems popular foreign television doesn’t make its way to Ishtar much these days, for Des seems to have only heard OF Get Smart, but has never watched it. Cute cultural gags which are funny in and of itself without one knowing the existence of Get Smart, goes a long way.

So this week is where Noelle gets to hang out with Jack and Rowe again after the events of Episode 7. To the show’s credit, it does not waste any time with having to set up the situation where Noelle escapes her bodyguard’s watch. Right off the opening, Claire has already replaced Noelle, who is supposed to be at Ishtar’s first baseball game. So what wacky adventures do those three have now that the princess-in-waiting’s on the prowl? read more

They’re still having that staring contest since the week before last. Man alive…

In a moment of serendipity, it seems that two week gap between this article and the last coincides with the time passed in the show. L/R’s been doing their thing, and Noelle’s been doing her own thing. The thing is, they haven’t doing a thing involving each other since Angel Island. The former has been keeping a guarded distance from her due to the Angel matter, which is unfortunate for the latter who wants to see both of them. You can tell Noelle’s trying her best given the circumstances, but it is also prevalent how she feels like a caged bird given her new status. Interesting, given her more than affable acceptance in the last episode. Maybe she didn’t anticipate it’d be this difficult? read more

Man, Jack and Rowe must be having a most intense staring contest with one another in that shot.

Jumping into the thick of things, it is up to L/R to continue their mission to find and detain the elusive Angel, who was not Jack’s old flame after all. After some detective work, given the use of old Ivory Island songs, they decide to well… go to Ivory Island. This means we not only see Noelle again, but also get a ground-level view of her island. I guess Ivory Island is supposed to be a takeoff on the hinterlands of the UK, given Ishtar’s propensity to appropriate Anglo-Saxon culture? It makes me wish I knew where Ishtar was on a map since it has already ran the gamut of various geographic locales from mountain ranges, deserts, and now temperate island zones. This all seems very ill-defined and as a result is off-putting, at least to me anyway. Ishtar is such an isolated microcosm. read more

Talk about your super serial episode here, folks. I think we might be picking things up given the goings on here. Ivory Island is back in the show again, with major terrorist attacks on a mining facility and a major official of the corporation who owns it. Now it’s up to L/R to figure out who this bomb maker is and put a stop to him/her before they destroy their next target.

Nothing TOO intense occurs throughout the investigation of the threat. Instead, it is dedicated to more world-building than anything else. It looks like the Ishtari Royal Family is not the only important group in the nation, but this DTI Corporation who has its hands in every pie (including the Princess contest mentioned weeks ago). The show does an effective enough job (wouldn’t necessarily say it’s GREAT yet) in making the audience dislike them, with the most damage done by the toady representative featured here. Suffice to say, there has to be great catharsis at series end in order for this treatment to be a success aside from well-executed plot goings on. read more

The PG rating’s a good thing by the way. This means no chance of insinuation over whether or not an act of taboo is being proffered. However, if it were the OTHER Professional, the one who is also an animu, then this episode would be kinda boring. His surliness has to go hand-in-hand with the sleaziness of his world.

Almost Animu for All Ages up in here, yo.

This is as of yet the highest point when it comes to an overall solid episode. Tension is right, the pacing is right, and the kind of conflict this episode presents is welcome. The fact their antagonist is a sniper, a profession involving pretty quick results unlike the plotting and planning of previous foes, helps matters. So this sniper comes to Ishtar for some job after killing off some celebrity of sorts, and it is up to L/R to stop him from killing his target. Matters get complicated when his daughter, unaware of his job, makes friends with Cloud 7 (beginning with a might bit cute scene with her and Rowe), allowing them to use her to their advantage in figuring out who he is going to kill. read more