RnY really slammed on the brakes this week, finishing the job it started last week of bringing the story’s momentum to a screeching halt. What had been a thrilling, sprawling fantasy adventure tale is now stuck in a square room with a lame mystery, pacing around, tapping its foot; scratching its head, and yawning.
I know; seven Braves when there should be six isn’t that bad a mystery. It’s more that the way the mystery is being investigated saps all of my interest. First we get another set of introductions, along with their stories of where they were when the barrier came up. We hear Adlet’s monologue as he sizes people and their stories up, but aside from learning Fremy is half-fiend (which is actually pretty interesting), we don’t learn much of note.
From there, everyone starts chiming in with their ideas about what happened and who they suspect the seventh Brave to be. Now, I’m a big fan of 12 Angry Men, but they were a jury deliberating a verdict; these guys are supposed to be legendary heroes kicking ass and saving the world. The fact that they’re holed up in this room pointing fingers at each other for an entire episodes diminishes their splendor along with our patience. When Chamo yawned, I said to myself “You and me both, kid!”
Thankfully, the seven do eventually get somewhere, though I’m not yet satisfied with where that is: Hans (whose cat-speak and constant cackling is really annoying, BTW) says once the temple doors open they cannot be closed, calling into question Adlet’s story about having to blow the door open, which immediately preceded the activation of the barrier. Even though Fremy is in chains, Hans seems on the cusp of turning everyone against Adlet.
Yet we witnessed what Adlet did, from start to finish, and at worst, he activated the barrier accidentally. He doesn’t work as the culprit, since we’ve been following him the whole time, before even Nashetania showed up. So unless the show itself was lying to us, he can’t possibly be the enemy.
Because the deliberation is far from over, it’s guaranteed that the Braves won’t be leaving this room for at least part of the next episode. Smoke if you got ’em…