The Big O Showtime: The Big Fight

Don't be fooled, the fight is only the first third of the episode.

No screwing around, we start right where we left off. Dorothy's been kidnapped by Beck but before Roger can chase after her in Big O, Big Duo appeared. Its pilot unknown. Roger even wonders who's piloting it, briefly even considering Schwarzwald who's supposed to be dead. He's actually kind of right, but we'll get to that. After getting his ass kicked around, Big Duo's pilot is actually revealed to be Alan Gabriel. He's been wired into the megadeus so Big Duo is effectively his body now and this had the side effect of letting him go totally bonkers, dropping his suave murderous mystery and laughing his head off at the prospect of killing Roger. Big Duo has even been fitted with spinning drill hands to match Gabriel's own.

If nothing else, we've learned that
Crispin Freeman could play a pretty good Joker

You know, it seems like every person who pilots a Big becomes a foil for Roger in some way and Alan Gabriel is no exception. Besides the obvious (Roger uses Big O to defend people, Alan is just using Big Duo to kill Roger) it's shown in their approaches to piloting. Roger and Big O have a mutual trust, they have each other's interests in mind and share similar goals, so neither has to worry about the other being in control. Alan Gabriel on the other hand, only sees Big Duo as a tool he can use. He doesn't care about what Big Duo wants so has created a situation where only one can be in total control of their shared body. Which is what ultimately leads to his defeat. The two characters are also mirrored in their humanity and use of technology. Roger is completely human, but uses technology to further his goals. Very human goals of bringing resolution to conflicts and protecting people. Alan Gabriel is a murderer and a cyborg, he's forgone his humanity to become a better killing tool. While piloting Big Duo he says he hasn't felt this good since he stopped being completely human. So where Roger stays human and uses technology to his advantage, Alan has been consumed by it (literally as we'll see) and now is only an instrument for others to murder with. Not that he seems to mind.

There's no way to say "Boo!" in Nietzschean.

Getting back to the fight, Roger knocks Big Duo around for a while even gatling-gun fisting its head off. But I guess they patched the thing up pretty good because it takes the licking and keeps on ticking. At least at first. Before Alan Gabriel can move in for the kill, Big Duo freezes. Yeah, hooking a sentient robot up to your nervous system works both ways. Big Duo takes control and flies up into the sky, freaking out Alan. Not as much as Schwarzwald's ghost chewing him out for rejecting his humanity and misusing the megadeus though. No, I can't really explain that. If I had to guess I'd say some of Schwarzwald's personality leaked into Big Duo when he piloted him, but it's still a guess. Anyway, Big Duo flies off into the sky and Alan Gabriel is consumed by the very cables connecting him to the megadeus.


With that taken care of, Roger heads off to find Dorothy. He finds her perched on a ledge, with her processor (robot brain) ripped out of her head. Roger takes her back to his trashed mansion where Norman gives him the bad news. Even if they recover her processor, it's beyond his ability to repair her. Only Dr. Wayneright could, and he's dead. That's when Roger gets a letter from Schwarzwald. We don't find out what it says, but knowing Schwarzwald it can't be good. You know for a dead guy, Schwarzwald had an interesting effect this episode. Besides saving Roger from Alan Gabriel, he also gives a short clue-laden monologue. More of how we need to search for the truth, but also how we can't let Rosewater the Elder's book (the one where the Bigs burn the city down) become prophetic. Roger also says that perhaps Schwarzwald's dedication has surpassed his own death, his spirit continuing the search for truth.

They stole her brain!

Speaking of Rosewater, we see Beck has delivered Dorothy's processor to the Younger to fix Big Fau. Rosewater thanks Beck, saying he's someone who understands how Memories should be used. We also finally learn what his plan is. Using Big Fau, he's going to hit reset on Paradigm City again and remake it according to his design. You know people have brought up the idea of Batman as a feudal lord, coming from a wealthy, noble family and seeing his city and its citizens as his own fiefdom in need of his personal protection, and I see a lot of this in Rosewater. But there's another layer to that with Rosewater, something Tarantino brought up about Calvin Candie from Django. Whereas Batman is a more paternal lord involved with his city's affairs, Rosewater and Candie are Caligula-esque boy kings. They see their subjects as their playthings  and use their realm's infrastructures to serve their own whims. Rosewater's remaking Paradigm to his design and making himself its god is just an evolution of his patricide last episode. His dad wouldn't let him do what he wants, so he killed him without thought to the consequences. Because for the privileged rich kid there aren't any. Of course Rosewater's childishness was cemented with the visual metaphor of Big Fau, his giant weapon of mass destruction, as his remote-controlled toy.

All right, Cut! Guys, the camera is in the shot.
Who's the film school dropout running this?

Then we cut to Angel. She's somehow found her way down into the sub-city and is just wandering around, muttering to herself that she'll find the Memories so she can go home to her Mom. The Mom thing calls back to a flashback she had last episode, her as a child in a snowy cabin with her Mom saying her scars make her an angel. Back in the present, Angel sees a mysterious pink light ahead of her. She pulls out her gun and runs forward into it. Given what happens I wonder if the pink light is a Philip K Dick shoutout. He wrote a novel called VALIS where a pink light was beamed into the main character's mind, revealing hidden memories from past lives. Because Angel's pink light reveals...a studio? Yeah, it's a television studio with cameras and sets. Including a set of the snowy cabin from Angel's flashback. Cue another character having an existential panic attack. This show has a lot of those.

Hell, there's about to be another one. Dastun is wandering around Paradigm, Roger put him in a funk about not giving his new purpose his all, when he spies something. A red balloon. But it's not the Union, it's the younger version of the film star from Episode 7. With the younger version of himself. And there going to see the same movie from his memories. A movie starring him? Okay, Angel finding the studio was crazy enough but Dastun seeing his own memories being played out in reality? Yeah, both my theories are out the window at this point.

So the final stage is set. Roger and Bog O vs. Rosewater and Big Fau for the fate of Dorothy and Paradigm City. With the Union's air force closing in as well. Next up dear readers, The War of Paradigm City! And if we're luck, Answers!