Steins;Gate 0 – Episode 15

Maho is back in Japan to get to work on the Time Leap Machine, we saw Kagari in the last episode brainwashed and sneaking into the house. Willing to even attack and slash Suzuha to get the precious item from her mother. With all these pieces coming together, what kind of plot do we get this week? A semi-romantic comedy between Daru and Yuki, as Suzuha tries to see the spark of love between her parents that led to her being born.
Something she was never able to witness in the future she came from.

Not really the episode I was expecting and I honestly feel like it’s coming in a little late in the game. This is by no means to say I disliked the episode. I actually adored it in particular coming into the second half. The first bit of it, i’ll admit, was a little cringy. Suzuha, convinced that at this rate the future was going to change and she wasn’t going to be born sets out to get her father and her mother together. She has Farris doctor up a picture of her and her mother, in which she is fading away to show that the timeline is changing and she might not be born at the rate Daru is going.[“Back to the Future” style] He needs to man up and ask her mother out. She calls in everyone to try to help him make his date with Yuki go well, including Maho. Maho uses some kind of sleep machine to make Daru into a more confident ‘ladies man’ and he acts like a total ham it was just painful to watch. In particular, because you could tell that Yuki didn’t enjoy it at all. Suzuha was sitting there, cheering it on until the point where it become so obvious that Yuki wasn’t into it. You’d need to be blind not to notice.

The episode really shined in the second half. When Daru began acting like himself, when they had a wonderful date together and in his own awkward totally otaku way. He says that he loves her and it’s clear to see that she feels the same way. The Daru that Yuki likes is the awkward otaku, not the suave ladies man that he thought he needed to be. It’s interesting, it really shows that love can come in all shapes and forms. Daru cries earlier in the episode saying that girls like her don’t like guys like him, and while that’s true in some cases. You have to remember, she’s a cosplayer and a bit of an otaku herself. There is also Suzuha, the concrete proof that they did in fact marry and have a kid.

Watching Suzuha see her parents together and happy and showing that loving spark that led to her being born was beautiful and heart jerking. Watching her remembering something, the words spoken to her by her own mother in the future. That she was glad to have given birth to Suzuha was gorgeous.
It was sad to see the death of Yuki. One of the true views we’ve gotten of the future that Suzuha came from. Her memory of her mother being gunned down by a drone to save her daughters own life.

Something unrelated to Suzuha that struck me as oddly painful, was the way Okabe is focusing so intent on his work with the professor that he’s neglecting his friends. He flat out ignores texts from Mayuri. It’s just a little depressing to watch, considering I have had a bad feeling about everyone from Makise’s old university besides Maho.

What this episode lacked in plot advancement, it made up for in spades with character development and I really liked it. I just sort of wish it perhaps happened sooner in the series, i’d like to see where this plot is advancing.