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.
Robotech Reviewed 