At last, thanks to Black Swan, we were given the remaining pieces of the timeline between Victor and the Heroine. They lured them into a trap set up under the pretense of having the two of them special guests in HBS “special program”, forcing them to relive the event of their escape from the facility. We learned the day the two of them and the other children were trying to escape the facility, the Heroine protected him by taking a hit from one of the grunts. Victor tried to prevent that from happening again, but because was overwhelmed she ending up taking a hit for him anyways which rendered her unconscious. (However I found it to be a bit unclear whether this hit was played a part for the heroine’s memory loss.)
So it turns out the reason why Victor has been looking for the Heroine all this time is because the two of them are in fact childhood friends. They met at the park when Victor had accidentally destroyed the Heroine’s sand castle. He was a good kid and was apologetic and made up to her, and when he gave her pudding in return, they hit it off ever since. And the day he had used his powers to save her from being hit by a car, was also the same day both of them were kidnapped by Black Swan.
In all honestly, it surprised me that Victor wasn’t more prepared for this incident. He knew coming into this that Black Swan was one of HBS’ largest investors. He was hoping to play their hand against them by using this opportunity to investigate. However just like Kiro, he mistaken himself to be the target, when in fact he was just another pawn being used to awaken the Heroine’s powers.
What they were able to get out of it however, was a crucial clue correlating to her purpose as “Queen”. Neither one of them fully understand what her powers entails and what Black Swan hopes to achieve with it, but the very least Victor is aware that is she has been their target all long. As result, in attempt to protect her from further danger he increased security around her and tried to keep her cooped up in the hospital for as long as possible, which ended up being four weeks!
But as much as I understand Victor doesn’t want to scare her with things he is not fully certain of, he ought to tell her she is Black Swan’s target. It would at least give her some self-awareness, unless he’s afraid she would be foolish enough to directly confront them about it. Hilariously though, just by keeping her in the hospital doesn’t guarantee her safety. For crying out loud, you have Lucien, a member of Black Swan who not only knows her whereabouts, but has access to visit her!
Speaking of Lucien, (I can’t help myself, my bias for him is definitely growing. I can feel it in my bones!) when he came to visit the Heroine today. I do find his reactions to her persistence to uncovering Black Swan’s true objective to be quite facinating. In fact when she says her resolve is even stronger than it was before, he seems quite troubled or at least conflicted about it. I suppose one of the biggest and most obvious reasons for it is that he knows she will be hurt by the truth, both by her purpose and his affiliation with the organization. Although I have to say, he kind of subtly (or rather not so subtly) gave Victor a warning by telling him they can’t run from the truth.
Overall this was good episode in terms of getting us up to speed with everything, but it definitely had some problems. Of all the episodes we have seen so far, this was the one that felt the most rushed. It felt as though they were forcibly trying to cram everything into this episode. I was also quite irked by how they delivered Victor’s scene when he had said he had lost control of his powers. Initially I thought it so-so because the presentation was kind of wonky and it didn’t help that I wasn’t feeling the dialogue either. But it became a problem to me when once they discussed how he lost control of his powers. The reason why this piece of information really bothers me is because it made the scene come off as a contradiction to his statement. He says he has never lost control of his powers before, even when he gets emotional–and yet, how are we supposed to notice that when they made it look like he was in complete control? He literally went on about how he was going to be her shield and just stood there as the grunts were sucked into the blackholes. I mean come on, at least show us that he recognizes his powers are out of control through his expression, because it sure didn’t look like it bothered him at all!
As for Victor’s character, as I much had hoped he would finally grow on me, this episode pretty much solidified he is likely to stay at the very bottom of the ranks (unless one of the guys were to royally mess up). Unfortunately I just can’t bring myself to care about him. Again, he is not a bad character, it’s just that his type tends to bore me. But what I do like about his character is the depth of his past relationship with the heroine. By making the two of them close friends prior to the kidnapping incident, it explains why it was so important for him to save her, and why he couldn’t give up searching for her after they were separated when they were finally saved.
Lastly, it is important to note that while the Heroine recovered a big portion of her memories of the kidnapping incident, she still hasn’t unlocked the memory she shares with Kiro. Or perhaps maybe she just doesn’t have a clear enough memory to remember him. I’m not sure, but it does make me a little sad that she still doesn’t know that he was a victim too. But I suppose a big part of that is because he has chosen not to say anything at all. Hopefully it won’t be too much longer before they get on the same page though because I would like to start teaming up properly instead of her charging head-first into danger.
Now that the Heroine’s powers has grown to the point she is able to experience visions while she is awake and through contact with people or objects. It sure startled me when they made that cut to the fiery room and seeing Gavin unconscious on the floor. It seems this will be part of the consequences of having uncovered a portion of the Special Task Force’s secrets, and to make matters worse, it looks like Gavin’s father may end up having a hand in this as well, ugh!
