1. Yut-Lung Lee is REALLY hot, like oh my god. I know he’s evil, and I know I already sort of loathe him for threatening Shorter and trying to get Eiji kidnapped but hot damn. I just, I have no words for how amazing his character design is.
2. We confirm at last that Banana Fish is a drug of sorts, with the basis being LSD but there is some unknown substance mixed in with it that causes the other effects.
3. We discover that that US government is probably in on this, at least the military, because Griff was not the only person in the military to be affected by the drug. They have a death report and autopsies.
4. IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO MAX’S FAMILY, I’M GOING TO RIOT. LEAVE THEM OUT OF THIS, LEAVE HIS SOMEWHAT BITCHY SOON TO BE EX-WIFE AND HIS ADORABLE SON OUT OF THIS YOU MONSTERS!
So, the episode starts with us dropping by Max’s families home in California. He seems to be in the middle of a divorce, but it’s his son’s birthday so they drop by so he can see his kid and leave a present for him. His wife isn’t too happy to have him there, but his son is thrilled, though he is depressed that it doesn’t seem like his dad can stay for long. After they stop by for that, they set off to the address they’ve been given. From the very start though, something seems distinctly wrong to Ash.
He’s right to feel wrong though, Yut-Lung Lee, brother to the Chinese Mafia group that was speaking with Golzine in the latest episode is set in the house posing as the adopted son of the Scientist Dawson. Ash doesn’t feel right about this, so he goes to have Shorter ask around, but Shorter gets threatened into having to work for the Lee family. He has to protect his people in the Chinese mob back in New York, and his sister.
So he reports back to the house and unmasks Yut-Lung Lee for what he truly is.
Meanwhile, Ash and Max are discovering just how deep the rabbit hole goes and are trying once again to get Ibe and Eiji out of the line of fire, not to mention they are sort of violating their Visa’s by traveling across the country when they were supposed to be reporting a story in New York and they have to adjust things not to get in trouble. It’s probably better for them to go back to Japan just based on that, but Ibe is worried that Eiji will freak out again and run off. Ash goes to play the villain and flat out tell Eiji that he’s being a burden.
Which is immensely painful for the poor boy. He’s older then Ash and still Ash needs to keep protecting him. He’s upset, and who could blame him. He can only wonder why he came here in the first place at this rate.
Meanwhile, Ash feels horrible about having to be mean to Eiji. He has to protect him though, he wants him to live a happy life and understand that the worlds they come from couldn’t be any more different. Ash learned to carry a gun so he could defend himself and survive. He’s jealous of the world that Eiji lives in that doesn’t require such a thing.
I feel so bad for both of them.
Most of all though I feel bad for Shorter. Who is disgusted with the Lee family, a family that his parents had always taught him to respect. So no matter what horrid rumors he heard about them, he tried to justify them, but it hurts and frustrates him to know that they are really no better than Golzine.
The episode ends with a group of men busting into Max’s families house and I return to point 4. I will be so upset about this! They did nothing! Nothing at all! They weren’t even harboring them or have extensive knowledge of where they were and what they were up too. They did nothing but be related to Max and I will be SO mad if they have to die!
Anyway, we’ll see how the LA trip ends and then I believe it’s back to New York.
I also felt really bad for Shorter this episode, but at the same time happy that this character who was kind of just drifting around the edge of the story was given such clear purpose and development (although like most every other main character in the story it seems that being the focus of attention here is a sure sign that you are about to encounter something painful).
Don’t you guys think that this episode has a rhythm different from the others?(it was a bit strange for me)
I think that’s because up until now there has been a lot of action each episode, while this episode was a lot of set up for things to go to hell in the next one. I think it was just a brief slow down in the action that made the episode flow a little differently then the ones before it. The most action we got was the brief scuffle between Shorter and Yut, which by this shows standard is pretty slow.