Metallic Rouge – 13 (Fin) – All’s Well that…Ends

I was officially checked out of Metallic Rouge last week, and this finale didn’t offer a whole lot to change that position. Everyone basically stands around in a room for the entire episode while the Puppetmaster, revealed to be a Nean version of Roy Junghardt, explains how he always had a firm grip on the Immortal Nine’s strings.

Silvia tries to go against the “settings” he’d set for her, and pays the price. He inhabits Cyan’s body, but Naomi merges her consciousness within Rouge and fights Roy-in-Cyan’s body. Cyan also fights Roy and rejects him, enabling Rouge/Naomi to defeat him. Rouge then activates Code Eve, which I thought she didn’t want to do, and it triggers a Usurper trap.

A virus is sent to all Neans everywhere, making them pliable soldiers in an imminent Usurper war against humanity. But Gene, who is Noir’s human son somehow, predicted something like that would happen and uploaded an antivirus. Now Neans can push humans who push them, but aren’t automatically killbots, I guess.

The episode and the series end in abrupt and thoroughly unsatisfying fashion, with Rouge (with Naomi inside her) engaging a huge horde of Usurper killbots led by the clown girl Opera, who was never really a character. Naomi says “all’s well that ends well,” but I’m just glad this mess is over. Metallic Rouge started strong and had some fine moments, but it kinda completely fell apart at the end there.

 

Metallic Rouge – 12 – Live for Love

…Could we maybe not?

Here we are, back to having to hear the Puppetmaster drone on in his insufferably avuncular tone about puppets and plays and performances. I’m at the end of my tether with this stuff, frankly, and my worry is that if Code Eve can’t be extracted from Rouge, it will be extracted from the captive Cyan.

Rouge and Naomi run around the maze-like facility some more, encountering a Gene who’s a bit too energetic to be the real one. The two ladies calling Giallon out was one of the more chuckle-worthy moments of the episode, but then he has to start going on about how the proverbial play is boring and he wants the two of them to make things more interesting.

While he says he’ll take them to the real Gene, he instead takes them to Silvia, who offers Rouge one last chance to surrender her id willingly and sacrifice herself for the good of all Neans. Rouge declines the offer and a duel ensues, but Silvia can regenerate her lopped-off limbs, and stabs an open Rouge through the chest, extracting the id she needs to create her world.

At first Naomi leaves the id-less, fading Rouge on the floor and rushes to fulfill her duty as First. If Rouge lost, which she did, she has to initiate the self-destruct of the entire facility to prevent Code Eve from getting out. But as she’s going over the protocols, she has a change of heart, runs back to her friend, and lends her her own id to have another go at Silvia.

~dun dun dunnnnnn~

Meanwhile, Gene and Ash have convinced Aes/Alice to help them, and Eden has killed Grauphon, leaving Silvia with fewer and fewer allies. That said, she’s so certain that her cause is right she doesn’t seem to care. They all meet where the Puppetmaster likely intended them to meet, and he finally removes his mask to reveal that he’s Dr. Roy Junghardt himself.

I hate that it’s come to this, but like a Nean without an id, my energy and enthusiasm for this show has simply cratered. I’ll stick around for the finale to see if Rouge, Naomi, Cyan, and I guess Ash make it out of this, but I honestly don’t give a hoot about anyone else.

Metallic Rouge – 11 – Strings Attached

The Alters are all in attendance for the curtain to go up on the New World Silvia intends to lead. With the help of the Puppetmaster and Opera, the ship carrying Rouge and the others is being made to crash land at the Venus complex, ensuring they have no reliable way back home. But as Noir is also with them, Silvia asks Grauphon to give him back his id, and with it a second chance to join his bretheren.

Opera also sees to it that Rouge and Naomi are separated from Noir, Cyan, and Ash. Naomi knows the way, while Rouge busts up any guardbots that get in their way. But while they do a lot of running and bot-busting, you get the distinct feeling that they’re like rats in maze, their movements being largely controlled by the strings of their hosts.

Cyan is determined to meet back up with her sister, and make her own choice should she hear the voice again, but when the Clair de Lune plays in her head once more, she’s unable to fight it, and falls into a trance. She heads towards the Puppetmaster, her “masked father”, as Ash follows, while Grauphon gives Noir back his id, and prepare to fight.

Once Cyan arrives at the spot where the Puppetmaster summoned her, he knocks her unconscious, removes his mask, and places it on her before snatching her up and heading off we know not where. Ash might have managed to catch a glimpse of the Puppetmaster’s face. Is it Jung, whose death was faked? Or someone else?

While Aes takes Gene to his room where he’ll stay for the time being, Silvia orders Giallon to intercept Rouge and kill Naomi, but doesn’t specify how. He disguises himself as Gene in hopes of lowering Rouge’s guard. It’s a simple trick, but that may be all he needs against someone as pure and simple as Rouge.

I’m not feeling too great about Naomi’s life expectancy, to be honest.Just about everything this week goes Silvia’s and the Puppetmaster’s way. We even see that there’s a factory churning out both new Neans and the Nectar to fuel them, which means Silvia doesn’t have to convince all extant Neans to follow her; she has a pliable army waiting in the wings.

We’ll see if Gene can make any headway with Aes/Alice, or if Naomi can stay alive long enough to keep Rouge and Code Eve out of the Alter’s hands. If she can’t, the Solar System will likely be Usurper territory within a year.