“Insane Father.” What a succinct episode title. And not misleading at all. That man is indeed insane!

A doozy of an episode for sure with lots of information to unpack. While the hero squad fights the nega-hero squad, Emi is off having an inter-dimensional conversation with her estranged father. My main take away from this episode long conversation is that I’ve never seen choosing milk over coffee be so significant and symbolic. Drinking a glass of milk will never be the same.

Mostly for myself, but I suppose for you as well, I want to sort through some of this, so forgive the summary-esque writing.

10 years ago Emi’s dad stumbled upon? Built? a device that allowed him to travel between dimensions. While dimension hopping and, I can only assume, getting into all kinds of shenanigans he starts to notice that Emi dies in every world as a child. And somehow his existence was a cause for that? I didn’t understand that jump in logic. Regardless, he begins ‘harvesting’ choices and uses The Case to create infinite possibilities so Emi can never die. He takes those possibilities, overwrites them in the world she’s living in now, and thereby can essentially grant her eternal life. Her possession of the case is royally messing that up and the heroes we’ve come to know and love are simply ‘intruders’. Then, using magic dad powers, he uses past memories to sway Emi into giving him back the Case. Ok, I think those are the main points. Thanks for sticking with me.

Now, what kind of anime viewer would I be if I didn’t extrapolate?

Emi’s entire history of being a rebellious youth is now being threatened. Her feelings of boredom which led to extreme risk-taking have now been unveiled as completely calculated movements put in place by the man she was more or less rebelling against from the start. No choice she’s made has been her own, according to her father. That’s sooooo infuriating. I may never have woven in and out of high-speed traffic on a motorcycle, but I’ll be darned if I didn’t do my best to rebel. Sometimes, I wouldn’t even push my chair back in after I finished eating dinner! Ohhhhhhh, snap. Take that, mom.

With Zed back in the reigns, it appears as though the mission of destroying universes has resumed. The shows use of flipping the humanity and relatability of the cast, especially the villains, is just brilliant. We saw a similar thing with Raja a few episodes ago and even Dammy ended up just being a really personable, but twisted, guy. Emi’s dad has extremely valid points and his ultimate goal really is the salvation of his daughter. Similar to how we saw Raja and Casshern or Dammy and Takeshi clash in ideology, we can see the same thing between Emi’s dad and the heroes goals as a whole. When Zed declares that everything is to protect her, Emi can’t help but flashback to Ken saying the same thing. If the proof is normally in the pudding, it’s only fair to say that the method is in the milk this time. Wow, that’s an awful line, but not untrue. Infini-T Force‘s usage of showing two sides of the same coin appears as a recurring concept connecting everything from the large plot points to the minute details and characters. Even in this episode, Zed seems like a totally rational person. Then there’s always a split. Raja flipped and tried to kill them after turning to them for help, Dammy tortured them psychologically after almost being swayed by friendship, but Zed’s switch was on an entirely different level. As he flies away with the newly reacquired Case, the smile that creeps across his face can only be described as that of an extremely determined but insane person.

It’s funny to think that the nega-heroes and the whole cutting back and forth between conversation and battle was probably put into effect to satisfy people with short attention spans. When it comes to dialogue heavy episodes there are some people that absolutely love it and others that can’t stand it. Usually, the important thing is reading your audience so, for all intents and purposes, I think having people get socked in the face in-between lines was the right call.

I believe I reiterate this every episode post, but this show has a way of reinvigorating my interest each week. The direction and scale are incredibly satisfying.

All that’s left to wait for is to see how Emi makes out. Her smokescreen of apathy and selfishness has slowly been eroding and it looks like the last support has fallen, what with the news from her father. If her words about not caring whether the universe gets destroyed weren’t already empty enough, the tears really show what she’s thinking. I know I’ve given her shit for being too dramatic in the past, but circumstances have changed! It’s just about time for the real rebellion to begin.

This was only episode 7 though. It looks like succubus-Hitler-“I want your genes” girl is waiting on a reward from Zed after bringing in the nega-squad. Hijinks and shenanigans are afoot. I can feel it in the air.