Episode 17, “Phantasm”

Ok, this is probably the worst episode of the series. It’s bad because basically we’re taken on a wild ride into Rick’s delirium and it’s obvious that deep down he knows that Minmei is fucking with him emotionally. This is such a minor occurrence in the novelization (Yes they made novels of Robotech and they were awesome!) that it’s barely about a page or two. This is going to be another short review because basically it’s another clip show.

This futuristic robot is giving a report that Rick has a concussion, multiple lacerations and minor fractures. So yeah, he’s really fucked up from being shot down. That’s when we head down the rabbit hole and we’re back at the Miss Macross pageant again, but then it switches to her singing a new song called To Be In Love. Actually she sang this in the fourth episode. I love the her singing isn’t in sinc with the actual music. Thankfully she’s interrupted by Breetai showing up. Rick decides to go rescue her and he’s back in the trainer Veritech from the first episode, and he get’s shot down again.

Suddenly he’s walking around Macross city inside the SDF-1 and the PA comes on to completely humiliate him. The announcer tells everyone that he got shot down and they’re auctioning off his flight suit because he sucks as a pilot.

Basically the majority of the episode is him trying to rescue her but he keeps messing up and manages to keep getting shot down. Even flying through the air on a bicycle like he’s E.T. We get a scene from one of his rescue attempts and it’s from the open credits. I only bring it up because it’s just beautifully animated. Kyle at one point shows up looking like Breetai and it’s obvious that it’s Rick’s hatred manifesting itself towards him. He defeats him by ripping off his uniform and tells him that he’s quitting the service. Kyle just melts into a puddle of water, kind of like the Wicked Witch of the West.

Lisa then shows up in the middle of his hallucination and she tells him that he really belongs to her world and the military. So that right there tells us that he’s conflicted between Minmei and Lisa. Even though Minmei has no interest in him at all. Thankfully Rick wakes up and he realizes that it was all just a dream. Too bad we had to endure such a shitty episode. Come on Robotech, you can do better than this.

Again, this was such a waste of an episode, but I promise, from here it just keeps getting better and better. The next two episodes are really can’t miss episodes.

Robotech Death Count: Zero.

Episode 11, “First Contact”

We continue with the story line with Rick, Lisa, Max and Ben being captured by the Zentraedi. Like I’ve said before, for some reason I can’t stand these episodes.

Right away we begin with Breetai hitting Ben’s Battaloid with a huge piece of pipe and he completely flattens him with it. Breetai is so damn strong he knocks Rick’s weapon out of his hands and sends it flying right towards Lisa. She narrowly escapes being crushed like a bug, but she then get’s capture and get’s put into a green smelly looking Zentraedi sack. Max meanwhile is trying to avoid getting killed by a bunch of rifle fire from all the Zentraedi grunts inside the hanger bay. Rick is still struggling with Breetai and the fight quickly ends with Breetai slamming Rick’s Battaloid against a wall with a bunch of spikes in it and he’s completely fucked now because he can’t get free. Breetai notices this and so he starts to completely destroy the Battaloid, ripping all the armor off until he see’s Rick inside of the cockpit. Rick in a panic decides to eject from it, but Breetai acting like he’s fucking Michael Jordan jumps up into the air and easily catches him.

The whole thing ends with Rick’s fighter exploding and Max get’s sucked out into space from the gigantic hole it made in the hull. The soldiers start asking Breetai if he’s alright since the explosion practically happened at point blank range. But he doesn’t even have a scratch on him. He says, “I am not built as weakly as you” Which is true, because not only can he survive huge explosions, he can also withstand the vacuum of space.

The narrator comes on and informs us the viewer how Zentraedi scientists, namely Exedore are subjecting them to a bunch of tests. Breetai notices that Lisa appears to be a female. Exedore tells him that all the tests that he did on her confirms that she is. Instead of you know, just looking at her and being able to tell.

Rick is the first to wake up and he can’t wake up Ben for the life of him because he’s lazy as hell. Lisa then wakes up all disoriented. She asks him what’s going on and right away Rick does a dick move and starts to blame her for being captured. He goes on to say that it’s all thanks to her stupid recon mission even though it was Gloval who gave the order. He then goes on to say that she shouldn’t have been given the assignment because she’s a woman. Right away she get’s all pissed off and starts to tear him a new asshole.

Breetai and Exedore meanwhile notice their arguing and Breetai says that it seems like they have more of a fighting nature then they realized. Shit, if he only knew. Exedore then tells us that that’s what happens when Males and Females get together and that they’ve stopped the practice long ago. Breetai is sicken by what he see’s that he has to turn off the monitor because he’s getting a huge crushing headache. Exedore then suggests that they take the prisoners to see Dolza the supreme leader of the Zentraedi himself.

Back to Lisa and Rick’s bullshit argument, Lisa is now telling Rick what a shitty job he did protecting her and the recon plane and that he handled the Battaloid pretty bad too. All of a sudden they’re interrupted by Ben waking up from his long ass nap. Funny enough outside of the hull of the ship Max is doing the same thing that Breetai did in the previous episode and is slowly making his way back inside. He notices close up the ship is badly in need in repairs and he says to himself that repairing things isn’t exactly their forete.

Inside the little glass sphere where they’re being held Lisa busts out a Micro camera even though it just looks like a regular camera to me. Rick being an asshole tells Lisa what good it’ll do for them while they’re stuck in there. All of a sudden Breetai’s ship does a fold maneuver and off they go to their home base. Right away Rick and Lisa realize how boned they are now and any hope of escape is now dashed. Back on board the SDF-1 Gloval and the bridge crew notice the giant flash and their sensor’s confirm that it was a fold maneuver. Of course they all assume the worst that they’ll never see Lisa again.

Outside the Chinese restaurant Roy is waiting by the door having a smoke and it’s obvious that he’s waiting for Minmei to come home. All solemn, he tells her that he hasn’t returned from flying an important mission. Right away she blurts out, “You mean he’s been killed?!” Roy tries to reassure her that they don’t know that yet and that they’ve just lost contact with him. But she keeps repeating that he’s dead and then runs off crying. She goes to their secret spot where she almost fell to her death and for once thinks about Rick and wonders where he can be.

Back to Breetai’s ship Ben wonders where they’re being taken to and wow. Lisa says that it’s already been 10 Earth days since they’ve left on that fold operation. So shit, the rest of the Zentraedi fleet must be in the other side of the galaxy then. Ben goes on to mention that Minmei must have had some sort of debut and Rick get’s all bummed and starts to imagine how much she’s enjoying her life, even though he’s missing and presumed dead. In a flash back he remembers her telling him that she wrote a song called, My Boyfriend’s A Pilot. Even though not once through out the coarse of the series is there such a song. At least in Robotech that is. Anyways, most of his flashback is him being blown off by Minmei because she’s too busy for him now.

Finally the ship comes out of the fold and all three get scared out of their minds because it’s clear that there’s thousands, millions of Zentraedi ships out there and they realize that the Earth has no chance in hell of winning a war with them. They see some light out in the distance and it’s clear that it’s the Zentraedi’s peanut shaped home base.

The base is so fucking huge that it’s more of a small planetoid. Max meanwhile is wondering around and hides in a giant sized Zentraedi rest room and that’s when some soldier walks in to take a mean huge dump and spots Max. Before he can do anything Max kicks the shit out of him and drags him back inside.

Inside the base the three Zentraedi spies are trying to give their report again and they go on to tell Dolza, who is a huge bald Zenraedi all about feeling funny in their bodies when they saw the female Micronians. Dolza’s stupid theory is that since both male and females work together he thinks that they’ve managed to invent some sort of new reflex weapon. He then tells Breetai that he’s coming aboard his ship to interrogate them. To himself he fears that the Micronians have discovered the secrets of something he calls Protoculture.

We come upon an interrogation room and Lisa turns on her video recorder. Dolza walks in and talks to them in English which amazes them. Right away they order the chubby one Ben to start talking. But Ben says that he doesn’t know shit and isn’t saying a word. Dolza then asks them why they’re attacking them for but Rick blurts out that they’re the one’s who are the aggressors. They then start asking them what they know of this Protoculture stuff. Ben says that no one there knows what the hell they’re talking about. Lisa tells him to shut up and starts telling Dolza that she will no longer subject her and her men to their questions.

Back to Max, he some how stripped the Zentraedi soldier of his uniform and tries to act like one of them, even getting past some random trooper. Dolza in an act of anger demonstrates the might of the Zentraedi armada and destroys a near by planet just for the hell of it. The results are that it turns the once furtile looking planet into a moonscape. Lisa decides to fuck with him and tells him that she doesn’t believe that they have enough power to overtake the SDF-1. Of course this pisses off Dolza and he picks her up, ready to turn her into jelly if she doesn’t answer how they become Micronians.

He squeezes her so hard that she passes out. Rick begins to explain that they’re actually born that way. Exedore all confused says, “Yes, but born from what is the question?” Man, these guys are seriously repressed. Rick and Ben then explain how humans are actually born from females. Instead of talking about boning, Ben says something about the Birds and the Bees and love being in the equation. Breetai wants to know how one expresses love and Ben says by kissing. They then tell Ben and Rick to kiss but they’re both all, “Fuck no!” Lisa then volunteers to kiss Rick because she wants their reaction on the video recorder. Rick asks her why doesn’t she do it with Ben but she’s obviously put off by him. Stupid Rick finally agrees to it after she makes it a direct order and once they go for the kiss he says in his mind, “Forgive me Minmei.” I don’t know why he’s thinking this since she practically friend zoned him and made it clear that she’s not interested in him.

Their little romantic moment is interrupted by all the Zentraedi in the room making disgusted noises like they wanna throw up. Dolza mentions Protoculture again and then orders them to be taken out of his sight. In some corridor Max spots them being taken away on a rolling cart and decides to follow them to their holding cell. Inside all three are amazed at how the Zentraedi reacted like they were scared to death at watching them kiss. Shit imagine if they saw a porno, end of the war right there. Lisa notices that there aren’t any civilians in their society and that the sexes are segregated.

In the interrogation room Breetai is wondering out loud why they all reacted the way they did. That’s when Dolza decides to tell them a little bit about their history and Protoculture. It seems that Protoculture is the power source for their technology and that their ancient ancestors discovered it. He goes on to say that in the beginning they were once the same size as Humans and that they also lived with females in something they called a society. Everyone in the room can’t believe that they were once like the Micronians. Dolza goes on to explain that through the use of Protoculture they were able to evolve, but through out the years and wars they’ve lost the secrets of it. So finally after all these episodes we find out why they want the SDF-1 captured intact and it’s because they believe that all those secrets are on board the ship.

Back on the battle fortress Minmei is in her dressing room getting ready for her big TV debut. Surprisingly she’s still down about Rick missing in action, but she doesn’t dwell too long. Someone tells her that she’s almost on and she get’s this big cheery smile on her face. We get a quick shot of Roy and Claudia and we can tell that he looks very worried thinking about Rick. Minmei get’s introduced and you just know that Rick is completely forgotten to her now. She goes on to sing this song called Stage Fright and it’s a song that we’ll be hearing for the rest of the series. So much so that you’ll get sick of hearing it over and over.

Like, I’ve said, not one of my favorites, but still far from the worst episode. At least we the audience now knows why the Zentraedi have started this war to begin with.

Firsts: Zentraedi Fleet Headquarters first seen as well as first appearance of Supreme Commander Dolza.

Robotech Death Count: Zero.

Episode 7, “Bye-Bye Mars”

Well if you haven’t guessed it already, this episode takes place on Mars.

The narrator comes on and tells us that the Zentraedi has sent a recon ship to Mars so that they can then stage an ambush since it’s pretty obvious that the SDF-1 is going to try and land at a deserted outpost called Base Sara. So wow, many months must have passed by because clearly they’ve passed Jupiter and the asteroid belt.

In Breetai’s flagship Exedore is explaining to him why the outpost is destroyed and he goes on to say that it seems that they killed each other there and the people who survived didn’t last long. Breetai then informs him that he’s ordered the 7th Mechanized Division of the Botoru Battalion to assemble there at once. But Exedore objects to this big time because their leader Khyron is a maniac who will kill his own men in order to win a battle. He goes on to say that they call him The Backstabber. Breetai seems to like this for some reason, but that’s when all these collision alarms go off. All of a sudden this even stranger looking ship comes out of a fold and scrapes against Breetai’s massive flagship. Right away Exedore is beyond pissed and says that Khyron is completely with out discipline. To make his argument he comes on screen and his dumbass 2nd in command Grel says, “Ha just as I thought, we crashed into four ships total, you thought it would be three at the most. I win the bet.” Khyron instantly get’s super pissed and yells at him saying, “Be quiet you fool our conversation is being broadcast.” That’s when Breetai can’t take anymore and tells him that if he keeps pulling this shit that he’ll take away his command. Then he gives him his orders that he is to land on Mars and that he wants the SDF-1 trapped with gravity mines and to capture it intact.

All of a sudden we switch to Vanessa telling Captain Gloval that she has enemy ships coming up on her radar. This being Robotech we get another big battle with Veritech’s and Battlepods getting into this massive dog fight in space. Rick see’s a couple of Veritech’s get blown away near him and he thinks to himself, “I can be next!” Just as the fight is getting thick the Zentraedi all of a sudden break their attack and retreat.

On board the Prometheus Rick tells Roy that the daily battles are tiring him out. Roy suggests that he go into the city and have himself a good time. As he’s walking along in Macross city Vanessa comes on the PA and tells the people that they were attacked by a 120 enemy pods but that their air wings were able to drive them off with light casualties. The people murmur in approval but Rick makes a shocked face and he knows that they’re being lied to now. Just then Minmei says hi to Rick and she actually notices that he seems upset. Rick tells her that they hardly hit half of the pods and they had way heavier casualties than the enemy. But she’s so damn annoying. All cheerfully and giggling, she just blows him off and says that it won’t help anyone by staying depressed about it. She doesn’t seem to realize what kind of situation they’re really in.

In the bridge Kim is telling Gloval that they seem to be getting a message from Sara Base. Lisa for some reason sounds like she’s full of hope that their might be some survivors there. Why? We’ll find out soon and it’s sick! Anyways, Gloval orders them to change course to Mars because he wants to land the ship to do some repairs and get resupplied if possible.

We cut to Lisa and she’s having a flash back thinking about her fiance named Carl Rieber. Carl’s talking about Mars and the fact that he’ll be shipping off there the following week. But here’s the fucked up part. Lisa looks like she’s about 12 and Carl around either 19 or 20. Carl complains about all the fighting that’s going on because the Global Civil War was raging at the time. Right then and there Lisa decides to enlist when she’s older so that she can go up to Mars to be with him. Carl tells her to keep it a secret from her father. Not because he’s an Admiral in the armed forces, but because he would cut off Carl’s balls and send his ass to jail for having an inappropriate relationship with his very young daughter. He tells her good bye and stupid Lisa says, “And remember I love you!” Back on the bridge Lisa is near tears while looking at Mars.

Gloval orders a recon unit to make a fly by of the base, but they don’t detect anything on the surface. Turns out that Khyron and his forces are hiding in a canyon with all their power sources turned off. Slowly the SDF-1 lands nearby the base. But Khyron’s 3rd in command Geraro tells him that they didn’t land where the gravity mines are at, but Khyron tells him not to worry about it because he knows that eventually they’ll move in closer. We see a bunch of Destroids coming out of one of the carriers to secure a supply route while the Veritech’s give them fighter cover over head. Anyone who’s seen this show before knows how completely useless the Destroids are.

Now that the convoy is fully supplied Gloval orders the SDF-1 to move closer to the base and now they’re pretty much screwed here because they’ve now fallen into the trap. On the bridge Lisa asks Captain Gloval for permission to go down to Base Sara to check the source of the signals. She practically begs him to go down because she’s so desperate to meet her pedo lover again. Inside his Battaloid Rick asks Roy if he can get a day off next week. That’s when Roy tells him that the whole squadron has asked for the same day off too. Apparently Minmei is having a birthday party and she invited practically the entire air wing to it. So Rick right now must not be feeling pretty special. She probably even invited Otto the garbage man to attend because she’s so starved for attention.

Lisa has finally made it inside the base and right away sees that the computer is turned on all by itself, but can’t figure out how it’s on since there’s no one around. Back at the canyon Khyron is getting impatient and is asking Geraro if the gravity mines are set yet, but he tells him that they’re only at 70%. All of a sudden this voice comes in and he tells Khyron that he can’t wait anymore and he’s going to attack now. We then see a Battlepod taking off, that’s when Khyron tracks it in his Officers Pod and shoots his ass down, not killing him, but seriously damaging his pod. He goes on to say, “Listen to me you empty headed idiot. Don’t you ever disobey an order of mine again. Or I shall kill you next time. You understand” Yup, they don’t call him the backstabber for nothing.

Right away the radar in the SDF-1 detected an explosion and Gloval sends a Cat’s Eye recon plane to head on over there. The recon report comes in and they can all clearly see all the Battlepod’s waiting in the canyon. Gloval orders a recall and they sound a red alert. They SDF-1 then tries to take off, but they’re not going anywhere because the gravity mines have a hold of them now. They detect that a power source underground is keeping them from escaping.

Geraro tells Khyron that the mines are now at maximum effect and Khyron gleefully orders his forces to attack. We see that there are thousands of Battlepod’s appearing on the horizon and it appears that the SDF-1 and it’s crew are so fucked. It turns out that the device that is keeping them down is about three miles underground. Once again we get a big huge battle with Destroids, Battlepods and Veritech’s being destroyed. Khyron mad with battle lust laughs and says, “They fell for it, now kill them!”

Jesus, right out of the gate three squadron’s have already been wiped out but Gloval tells the bridge crew to calm their asses down and that he has a plan. Apparently the base has a Reflex furnace in it. If Lisa can get to it and blow it up, they may have a chance to escape. Lisa get’s the order and she goes off to do it. Gloval not helping matters puts all the pressure on her by reminding her of the 70,000 people who are on board the ship.

She finally finds the control room and puts everything into overdrive to blow the base up. Right away Gloval orders a recall of all their forces to get back on board the battle fortress. In her helmet’s comm’s Claudia is telling Lisa to get her ass back on board. Just as Lisa is running to escape, the corridor seals itself off. As she turns around to look for another way out, she spots Carl’s room. It simply says Rieber on the door. She walks in and starts crying saying, “Oh darling, I’ve finally made it.”

It seems like Lisa has decided to just stay behind to die because she’s not answering Claudia anymore. Back to the battle Roy orders Rick to go and pick up Lisa. We then see Rick coming into his own and killing a bunch of Zentraedi with ease. Roy points out that he’s gotten a lot better. It’s funny how he spots Lisa just sitting there like an idiot through the window of Carl’s room. He tells her to stand back because he’s going to punch through the window using the Guardian’s fist. Lisa get’s all pissed off and she tells him that she’s not leaving the room. When she see’s that he’s not listening she tries to make it an order. But Rick replies with, “I have no idea what’s happening but my life is at stake now too, so come on!” After she tells him no again, Rick literally man handles her and says, “No way, you have to come.”

Rick blasts off with Lisa yelling, “Rieber!!” All of a sudden we see the base beginning to explode until the whole thing goes up. Battlepod after Battlepod are being destroyed by the explosion and debris it’s causing. Through what looks like a tornado on Mars, the SDF-1 painfully, slowly takes off from the surface. Shit, if Carl wasn’t dead before he sure is now. In Mar’s orbit Lisa is still in the fist of the Guardian and is crying over the fact that she couldn’t die like an idiot in Carl’s room.

Back on the surface Khyron opens the hatch to his now destroyed Officers Pod and starts to punch the shit out of the control panel yelling, “I HATE TO LOSE A FIGHT!!” But then laughs cause he’s totally insane and says, “But we’ll meet one another again and next time I’ll win.” On board the Prometheus’s flight deck Rick is standing there gawking at Lisa and now feels torn because he finds himself being attracted to her. But at the same time he still wants to call Minmei his girlfriend. Even though she completely made it clear that she friend zoned him and their relationship is going nowhere.

Again, this was another good episode. For some reason I’ve always remembered since a kid that they fought on Mars, but I had completely forgotten about the creepy relationship that Lisa had with Carl.

Firsts: Khyron, Grel and Geraro are introduced.

Robotech Death Count: I would say maybe 100 Veritech and Destroid pilots got killed while the Zentraedi once again had their casualties in the 1000’s.

Episode 3, “Space Fold”

We get yet another recap of what’s happened in the last two episodes. We already know what happened, so why repeat everything again? The SDF-1 is heading up towards space surrounded by a fighter escort, and in the next frame where we see Roy’s fighter, Skull 1 flying up to catch up to it, we notice how the animation has gone down hill big time. I mean what is up with that? It was beautifully animated in the first two episodes and all of a sudden it’s like they said fuck it and made it look very mediocre at best. But thankfully, this is the only episode where it looks like a big pile of donkey shit. Sure other episodes could have been better, but this one takes the cake. Towards the middle and the end, the show once again is going to be gorgeously animated.

Anyways, Roy radios Rick, but he won’t answer back. So Roy tells Lisa that he’s going back to the island to look for something he left behind. Lisa being pushy, she demands to know why he wants to go back so bad for. Roy tells her all about how Rick is a civilian and that’s why she can’t find his name in any military registries. She knows she fucked up big time because these Veritech’s and what they can do are very classified.

Back on Macross, the Battlepods and Battloids are still fighting it out. We then see that Rick is still being a big bitch about all the fighting, but he finally comes to his senses. He then notices that Minmei is actually alive. Bummer. He tries to move away from the giant alien corpse before she notices it and has a big hissy fit. But the Zentraedi has an iron grip on the foot of the Guardian. So they’re not going anywhere. They both start to panic when they see this giant shadow coming out of all the smoke, but it turns out that it’s just Roy. Man, these Veritechs do everything. Roy some how disconnects the cockpit area of the fighter and attaches it to his Battlloid’s arm. They get chased by some Battlepods but they easily get away and off they go to the SDF-1 which is already in orbit.

Finally all the Veritech’s seem to be getting recalled back to it, except for Roy and Rick’s fighter. Gloval’s next move is to link up with Armor’s 1 and 10. Lisa notices that the aliens don’t appear to be attacking them anymore, ever since they left the ground. Gloval admits that it’s bothering him too, I guess Russians have a more acute danger sense than the rest of us.

Back to Roy, Rick and Minmei. Rick is busy telling Roy that Minmei doesn’t want to go to the ship, She wants to go back to Macross Island. Roy tells them that they’re out of their fucking minds if she thinks that they’re going to go back down there. She starts to whine and Roy tries to reassure her that she will go back and he’ll take her down personally. Rick let’s on how attached he is to her already and blurts out, “What do you mean you’ll take her back? I will!” Which really makes him look like a stage one clinger already. Roy tells them both to please shut up as he’s trying to get in touch with the bridge. Lisa of course comes on the screen and she says, “So that’s our civilian pilot, I was wondering why he didn’t know how to fly his plane.” Rick then calls her an old sourpuss which really pisses Lisa off. She starts to threaten Roy about being court martialed for giving one of the Veritech’s over to a civilian pilot, even though she was the one who ordered him up there. She then tries to threaten Rick, but Rick is all, “Yeah, yeah yeah.” Roy finally lands in one of the landing bays. Thank God, that was going long.

Back on Earth the Zentraedi  pick up what remains of their ground forces. Exedore with his giant head point’s out that only half of them made it back. Exedore is afraid that if they leave Earth’s orbit then they’ll be able to execute a hyper space fold and get them far away from them. Breetai decides to apply a little pressure, Zentraedi style. So this of course means more killing. Oddly enough, the scenes with the Zentraedi looks like they’re the only ones that are animated quite good.

On board the SDF-1 Roy is driving this weird looking six wheeled jeep and takes Rick to his goofy looking plane. Rick can’t contain his joy of seeing it and is so thankful that he makes Roy embarrassed for him because he’s doing this in front of Minmei. They’re interrupted by an announcement saying that they’re about to dock with Armor’s 1 and 10 so Roy needs to go back to his station. So of course he just leaves them there, but he warns them not to wonder off cause the ship just happens to be really fucking massive and they would easily get lost.

Just as they’re about to dock Breetai orders the Earth fleet to be destroyed except for the SDF-1. So they just let loose and the Earth ships are easily taken out. Gloval wants to know where all the firing came from and Vanessa the tech nerd tells him that it came from Lunar orbit. The other bridge girls tell Gloval that the ship received no damage at all. So it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out that the aliens want the SDF-1, especially since they’re leaving an SDF-1 shaped firing pattern and destroying everything else. Gloval then orders Claudia the sassy black chick to take them back down to Macross Island and at 2000 feet to execute a Space Fold jump. Where you may ask? To behind the moon of course. But that makes no sense at all, because the Zentraedi are in Lunar orbit. Claudia then fucks things up by continuing to question his orders. But who can blame her, the system hasn’t even been tested so I’d be nervous to use it too. But she gives Gloval too much lip so the Rasputin he has inside of him comes out and he tells her to shut the fuck up and to do as she’s ordered. She says all pissed off, “Yes sir Captaiiin!” Really, she says captain really weird.

Back to the hanger where Roy left them. Rick is trying to act like a big shot and he tells Minmei that he’s going to take her back to the island like he promised. Minmei asks him what a fold is, but all stupid Rick says is, “Oh, nothing to do with us.”He totally planned it this way. The cockpit is way too small so Minmei is forced to sit on his lap. Rick you slick bastard, I’m impressed! And yeah, he’s lucky that they were back on Earth because he just opens the bay door and if they were in space they both would have been sucked out and killed immediately. But all he see’s are the clouds and it’s windy as hell up there. He takes off and is rocked about with the high air currents.

They don’t even get close to making it down because just then the Fold jump happens and holy shit it’s all violent. This sphere appears and covers not only the SDF-1, but Macross island and even the waters around it. Which means the aircraft carriers that were there in the bay are caught up in it too. It flashes and then it just disappears. It leaves this giant wake where the water used to be and it quickly fills back up. So Gloval probably started a huge Tsunami with that little maneuver.

The Zentraedi then see this big flash on their screen’s and Breetai and Exedore can’t believe what they’re seeing. Apparently, it’s a big no-no to execute a Space Fold that close to a planet, let alone the surface of one. They act all pissed off, but what do you expect of someone who doesn’t know how to use the goddamn thing?

The sphere all of a sudden appears in deep space and then disappears. The waters around Macross instantly turn into ice. But not only that, Ice covers the entire city and the air craft carriers as well. Rick and Minmei are instantly in deep shit, because the canopy get’s all frosted over so he can’t see shit out of it. Vanessa tells Gloval that there’s this huge object right beneath them and Gloval just assumes that it’s the moon, but Vanessa tells him that it’s too small for it. They see it on the monitor screen and they quickly realize that it’s Macross Island and they’re heading straight towards it. They try to turn away from it, but they can’t. So they crash right into the city. The SDF-1 destroying a bunch of buildings in it’s path. Shit, pretty much the entire city really.

Minmei points out how beautiful the view is and talks about how romantic the situation is. But she must be retarded or something, because she doesn’t seem to realize how much deep shit they’re really in. Especially since they’re stuck in Rick’s lousy propeller plane. But Rick definitely knows. It doesn’t help that debris hits them and it cracks the canopy a little. Minmei notices a hiss sound and Rick tries to reassure her that it’s normal. I guess she’s too stupid to realize that it’s oxygen escaping through the crack. Luckily though, the boosters on Rick’s plane still work, so he’s able to maneuver just a little.

Finally they spot the battle fortress and by the look of things, it seems that the fighting has started between them and whatever Zentraedi were left on the island. Rick tries to get into one of the landing bays, but he forget’s that they close them during combat. So they’re fucked. All of a sudden, this Battlepod comes flaming by and explodes on the side of the ship. Rick get’s a bright idea and guns whatever’s left of his thruster’s into the big fucking hole the explosion made. Just as they’re about to make it in, this big metal panel comes down to close the hole. That’s a pretty convenient thing to have on your space ship. It’s self repairing! Anyways, they land upside down why being tangled on a bunch of cables above the deck. They start laughing like maniac’s because they can’t believe they’re alive.

Back on the bridge Gloval asks them if they’ve been able to get in contact with headquarter’s yet. But Claudia tells him that she hasn’t been able to raise them. They all don’t understand why they’re all in the black, especially since all their systems are functioning normally. Gloval then orders Vanessa for a reading on where they are. Vanessa tells them that according to the computer, they’re around the planet Pluto. Gloval can’t believe his ears, because he’s realized that he’s fucked up big time. Claudia being a bitch says, “I was against this Fold system all along!” He tells them not to panic since they can simply just Fold back to where they came from. Or so he thinks. He get’s a phone call and says, “What it can’t be? It’s not possible!” Once he get’s off the phone the bridge girls ask him what happened and he tells them that the fucking Fold system has completely vanished into thin air. Kim and Sammy start to cry because they realize that they’ll never get back to Earth space. But here, they look like they just spontaneously decided to make out.  Anyways, Gloval steps out of the bridge, lights up his pipe and says, “Well, it’s gonna be a long trip.” Yeah, no shit. It’s going to be years.

This was a pretty good episode too. But the poor animation really brought it down.  Thankfully, it get’s good again in the next episode. Well actually, this episode was spotty at best, went from being really bad, to good again. The next episode though, is one of the most boring episodes of the series. Because yes, we follow Rick and Minmei’s misadventures as they’re lost inside the ship. Stay tuned for next time. But that really doesn’t make you want to read the next entry huh. Oh well.

Robotech Death Count: Let’s see I would say a couple of hundred to a thousand people with the Earth fleet being destroyed in orbit like that. I’m telling you, almost every episode at least one human being dies.