Jesus, that was fucking brutal. I had to cover my eyes because it was hard to watch. Carta went on with her lengthy speech and both she and another guy were still standing outside of their unit, and of course Mika doesn’t give a shit about ‘honor’- especially at this point- and oh my god, it makes me sick to my stomach just calling how the guy was smashed to death in plain sight. 
Then his fellow comrade had the same treatment, but within the unit, and soon enough Carta too was killed, only not completely crushed to death thanks to Gaileo sweeping in to pull her out of the fight.
The game Fareed is playing is truly madness. He is looking for every opportunity to instigate and breed hatred and revenge. He manipulates his friends whom he uses as pawns, he threw Carta back into the fight by saying, ‘Humiliation doesn’t suits someone as noble as her’ hah, so much bullshit right there. Who are you kidding? He was confident she was going to lose. He is in the process of eliminating Gjallarhorn’s Seven Stars, and he doesn’t give a fuck that his pawns are dying in the process. Hell… God help us all if Fareed’s grand scheme is to actually get everyone hooked up to the Alaya-Vijnana system.
Speaking of the Alaya-Vijnana, Ein has undergone the operation and is no longer human. It appears he will now be forced live in that machine, or rather is now one with the machine. And Gaileo? He is absolutely distressed. That was not a face of joy, it was a face of regret. A part of him was happy to hear Ein speaking again, and Ein is of course overjoyed to be given another opportunity to serve him, but Gaileo is clearly disturbed by all of this. And if that wasn’t enough, now he just lost another friend. It is taking a toll on him and now he too wants to strive for revenge- and that might be the tipping point to get him into undergoing the operation as well. I can’t help but feel terrible for Gaileo, because he has no idea his s0-called friend whom he trusts, has been backstabbing and manipulating him for a while now.
It is an understatement to say it was truly a distressing episode. Merribit, as an adult sees what is happening, and she is becoming frantic about the safety of the children. It horrifies her how everyone is having tunnel vision, focusing solely on revenge because it’s the only thing they can do. The kids are determined to stand in the line of fire, to fight for their fallen comrades, and no adult can tell them otherwise. Orga had a moment of self-reflection, acknowledging he is acting reckless which is putting them all in dangerous- which was the reason why Biscuit wanted to quit in the first place. But Mika passes on the message that Biscuit wasn’t able to pass onto Orga: He will only quit when they get home together. But now that promise is lost. It pains Orga that they can no longer do that. Now, all what remains is a single destination.
I am glad how quickly Orga was able to connect the dots of who leaked their secret passage to Edmonton. The one and only answer is Montag/Fareed, and since he has more or less betrayed them, Tekkadan will no longer trust him. I would hope Kudelia has too realized how it was leaked and Orga will now explain to her that Montag is Fareed from Gjallarhorn. But I would suspect Fareed would expect them break all ties with him, so he must be done with them. It seems he is now focused to pulling strings within Gjallarhorn because unlike Tekkadan, nobody knows he is the mastermind.
Mika’s chill button wasn’t working at all this episode…yikes. D:
Man, being McGillis’ friends is suffering.
Poor Carta though. She’s just an insecure lovestruck teenager (she is actually 17) with zero combat experience that was given power to get her to shut up (probably by Iznario so she doesn’t disturb things on earth). Tekkadan humiliated her again and again, and killed her precious subordinates one by one (note that the two guys here are what’s left from her entourage back in ep. 19), then her childhood friend/first crush sent her to what’s basically a suicide mission after what could be said as something closest to a love confession she’ll ever get from him, pretty much exploiting her personality and current mental state. She’s not even malicious or anything like that, just ridiculously naive due to her youth and zero experiences.
She still killed Biscuit (who seems to be Tekkadan’s moral anchor since without him Tekkadan loses their chill pill), but that’s really not out of malice. Despite her…bags of issues, she’s probably one of the few actually noble Gjallarhorn members around. She’s just fucked the moment Tekkadan appears in her post in figuratively Antartica.
This might sound like I’m shilling her too much, but it’s just how this show manages to make me feel sorry for a character I kinda despise for killing Biscuit, looking incompetent, and well, only there as a comic relief in a serious organization in a mostly serious story. The way she went out was brutal. Hell, even if she survived, she would probably be reduced to a shell of her former self once she recovered, though I doubt it.
It’s…funny how I’m rooting for Gali-gali now. I still want Kudelia to succeed, but Gali-gali really deserved something better than being pitted against Mika. A big issue I see right now is, even if Kudelia’s plight succeeded and Makanai got reelected, Gjallarhorn will still be as corrupt as ever, even if they’d have less power. Things needed to change…and it shouldn’t be with McGillis’ hands. And Gaileo’s genuinely likable too, even if previously he’s somewhat linear.
Overall, it’s probably one of my favorite episodes
Apart from weakening Gjallarhorn by removing its Stars, it’s possible McGillis wanted to remove Carta because he felt she was too independent minded for him to control and manipulate for his agendas, whatever they are. Or he felt she was too loyal to the current order. Thats just my theory, of course.
Mika’s utter lack of susceptibility to the usual moralizing is what makes him awesome (to me). Coming from an Asian country that bore the brunt of Imperial Japanese oppression back in the day, it’s refreshing to see a Gundam series not dip too deeply in the “we only fight to protect” nonsense. No hollow remorse, just pure single-mindedness of purpose. I agree it didn’t make the crushings any easier to watch, however.