FULL EPISODE SPOILERS AHEAD
If I told you there'd be a car chase in SAO a couple weeks ago, would you have believed me?
Such is life, my friends.
This seems to be the final arc of character for Sinon. Like, this episode sets up the ending of her character's development. Just by the way that she acts, with all of the various forms of Sinon (minus happiness, can't have that on TV anymore, duh) coming into the episode. Kirito's character also seems to be coming to a head. Both, we can safely assume, will come to a head when the final battle against Death Gun/ unofficial Sterben approaches.
As far as the episode goes, it starts off very fast-paced then significantly slows down back to exposition we've known about all season and gets kind of boring. I mean, let me put it to you this way: half the episode is the exciting escape from the city, and the other half is Kirito and Sinon sitting in a cave.
Gets the blood boiling, right?
Almost reminds you of the entire previous season of SAO, too.
The episode also totally teases us by making us wait more until after the opening to discover the fate of Sinon. Son of a gun, episode.
After the opening--the one time I don't want to watch the opening, what the heck--we see that the gun shot came unsurprisingly from Kirito, and after throwing a grenade, Kirito is able to force Death Gun away and rescue Sinon. I'll admit that the shock of "oh my gawd Sinon" is pretty quick once you realize that the Protagonist himself (Kirito) is around, but, it's still exciting and now they have to get away from the man who can kill someone with a handgun. Oooooh.
Kirito gets them in a buggy and begins to run away, Sinon still shaken from seeing the gun and nearly being killed for realsies by Death Gun. Kirito urges her to shoot one of the mechanical horses by the buggy--it looks totally silly by the way--but Sinon finds that she is unable to pull the trigger. Thus, the chase begins.
It's a fun chase, not gonna lie, with a lot of tension over Sinon being able to shoot down Death Gun, but it is kind of brought down by the fact that: 1) The road they are on stretches forward forever and 2) The vehicles are CG and don't really mix too well with the background. I still don't get why they couldn't just use regularly animated horses. Heck, Kirito rode a horse momentarily back in Season 1 at the end of Episode 6, why couldn't they use that animation again?
Even the buggy from Episode 3 didn't look as CGI as this one! Gah.
Anyway, Kirito--without looking where he's driving, though there's no one else on the road apparently--turns around and helps Sinon out by holding her hand as she pulls the trigger. She shoots and apparently misses before realizing that she hit a car's gas tank and it explodes, apparently taking Death Gun with it.
Yeah, he's totally dead...???
It's pretty obvious that wouldn't kill Death Gun for many reasons, the least of which is that Death Gun and Kirito have to fight sometime in the show. You just can't do that to us. So, yeah, even they know that he's not dead and decide to flee the city to a cave in the outskirt desert, laying low and are even able to avoid the next satellite scan while hiding in the cave.
There, Kirito tells Sinon that "Gunner X" was really name "Musketeer X"--I guess a mix up in the translation?--and that Musketeer was actually a girl. Kirito took her out anyway then stole her gun and her grenades, despite Kirito probably having both. And so much for that thing about him not killing women. What, does he only save the protagonist women?
He then tells Sinon that he's going out to fight Death Gun alone, forcing Sinon to nag and ask why he would do that if he's scared of Death Gun. She then tells him that it'd be easier to take the coward's way out, I mean, stay in the cave and wait things out until the tournament wound down to a close and someone else took care of Death Gun. Kirito disagrees, obviously I mean come on Sinon don't you know who this is (no, apparently no one does), and then Sinon tells Kirito that she's going with him. Kirito tells her, again (jeez, show, we've seen this exchange like a million times already!) that he'd rather he not follow him.
Sinon then has a total breakdown, but, you know what, I think it's important for the character and I don't have a problem with it. She tells Kirito that he has to protect, that he has to keep her safe, and that he has to save her life. Obviously, she doesn't mean any of it. What she means is for him to step into her shoes for just a moment. She's telling him to know what it means to protect yourself, to keep yourself safe, and to live a life riddled with guilt and trauma, with no escape from it in sight. Honestly, watching Sinon break down and cry after a near-death experience is alright by me because, well, who wouldn't do that? Think about it:
Sinon only intended to join this tournament so she could make herself stronger in both the game and in real life. She wanted to be the best. The game is harmless, she thought. Then, all of a sudden, she sees someone get killed from within the game to real life, and then has the same gun she used to kill someone--which provides nightmare fuel to her everyday--pointed right at her in what is supposed to be a safe environment. All the while having to struggle with her own personal strength and issues coinciding with Kirito's.
Yeah, that warrants a bit of stress, don't you think?
Crying it out might not be the best way to deal with a problem, but, it isn't the crying that's the point. The point is that she is telling Kirito "help me help me help me" because she is totally lost in her pain and in her past. It's really tough for someone to overcome their PTSD through any means, and there is definitely a certain amount of aid required from people around that person. The perfect person for that would in fact be Kirito, who has suffered through a similar situation and has had to deal with this in the past. The difference here is that Kirito had people to talk to, he had a family to talk about this with. Sinon really only has Shinkawa, and maybe her family. But even then, they all seem very distant from her, and she seems to want it that way.
It's moments like these that give serious range to Sinon's character. She is still showing signs of strength. She isn't crying because she's giving up, she's crying because she doesn't want to give up, she wants to keep being stronger, to keep living. She's scared and there's someone looking to kill her (specifically I might add) in the game, so there is a moment of weakness that can be warranted. What matters is what has mattered throughout the season: that Sinon--or Kirito at times--is able to get up, walk out, and face Death Gun in battle with a level head and with the past where it should be: behind them. You know, it's like a wise man once said:
The only downside to all of this is that we get retold the events that happened to both that puts them both, clearly symbolically, in the cave: Sinon at the post-office and Kirito in SAO. It is important for the characters, but for the audience, it's kinda boring. Thus, it's difficult to find fault with it's placement, as I can't really find a way out of it.
Sinon also snuggles up to Kirito, that's a thing (but apparently hates him...girl get yo head straight!).
The episode ends, then, with Kirito telling Sinon he has no choice: he has to finish what started in SAO in GGO to save the lives of all the players, as well as a pretty cool visual seeing SAO Kirito standing in battle against GGO Death Gun.
So, yeah, if you're really not all for breaking down Sinon's (really great) character, then, this episode once they escape the city might be a bit of a snooze. But if you are watching this intently and using your noggin, then this is a heck of an intriguing episode that puts all of the cards on the table. Getting to see Sinon finally come clean and let it all come out is really great and really important for her character and you can really feel the emotion flowing out of her. Great voice-work, too, it makes me excited to see whoever does it in English (I have no actress preferences, really, because I would say Chermi Leigh but she's already Asuna...).
Overall, good times that are going to bring Kirito and Sinon together.
Now, with a tighter bond than ever before, can our two heroes figure out a way to stop Death Gun...and will they find out just how he's killing people in game?! I don't know (yes I do), so we'll have to find out tomorrow! See you then.
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