Recap: Argos and Team Russia split up to restore communications and slow down the BETA from activating Red Shift. Standing in their way is Major Christopher and a squad of TSFs. Back at Anchorage base, the threat of the Red Shift is causing dissension among the terrorist ranks.

Jel’s Thoughts: Is this it? Is this my reward? Did I die and go to mecha heaven because that’s exactly what Total Eclipse episode 24 felt like. FINALLY after 23 episodes the series lived up to its potential, delivering tons of action, suspense, and political intrigue.

I think I’ve said this before but let me say it again: Satelight knows how to do mecha fighting. It was awesome seeing Yui finally hit the battlefield with no restrictions, no longer the quivering school girl mess they painted her as for most of the series. Even when it came to putting Yuuya in harms way, she was the cool, capable woman she should have been the entire time. Also surprising, Yuuya himself wasn’t acting like a total tool and worked within his limitations, staying far enough away from his Plot Armor to keep things interesting. It would have been a whole lot more satisfying if they developed as characters to this point in a much more smooth, not terribly written way but whatever man, we’re here now.

Tossing in a big, bad, clearly evil dude to fight was also a smart move, as Major Christopher makes a much more worthy opponent than a bunch of E.T. rejects. I thought Leon was going to fill that role eventually but I liked how things panned out with Team America even better. It made more sense with the idea of Yuuya accepting both his American and Japanese heritages, in fact even Russia seems to be coming off pretty clean in all of this. That will remain to be seen as I still don’t entirely trust Sandek, but he does at the very least seem to want to prevent the Red Shift with everyone else.

Can one really good episode change your entire perception of a series? In this case, no. While Total Eclipse does deliver a near flawless episode this week, ultimately it just makes me angry. They’ve shown what they’ve been capable of this entire time and have not been delivering. All those episodes wasted on shoddy character development, boring pretentious speeches, and bad attempts at harem comedy and we could have a really good, intense action show all along. THANKS Total Eclipse, I’ll take whatever awesome stuff you’ve been saving until now, but I can’t forget all the bad things that led us here.