I SWEAR TO GOD— ADAM IS SUCH A FREAKING JERK MAN! Obviously he can get away with that bullshit stunt he pulled on Cherry because he’s the god damn host, but fuck that dude! Seriously! He is terrible! He didn’t even finish the god damn race, he just hopped off his board and batted Cherry in the face with it to “disqualify” him because he was “too boring”! Ugh! BUGGER OFF YOU COWARD!!!!
I knew this wasn’t going to end well for Cherry. It’s actually a tragedy how hard both Cherry and Joe have tried to reach out to Adam because they valued him as a friend. Unfortunately it seems he has no intentions of rekindling their friendship as he just fucking blows them off! But frankly I think they are better off without him.
That’s why Joe told both Langa and Reki not to let this fallout ruin their friendship for good. But things aren’t going to be patched up as easily as some of us may have hoped. Reki understands his frustration, but he is also ashamed of his inability to genuinely cheer and be happy for Langa’s success. As result, he decided to turn in his “S” membership with no intentions of returning to the arena again.
Meanwhile Langa seems to have finally realized that skating is not the same without Reki. His heart wasn’t in it when he was racing against Joe, and only got a morale boost when Reki showed himself cheering him on from the sidelines. Unfortunately he wasn’t able to find him tonight afterwards because Reki had left, but at least they go to school and are in the same class, so it’ll be harder for Reki to avoid him there.
Another thing that might help them is the fact Langa’s board was destroyed in the match. He pushed it to its limit and it snapped it half. For Langa, this board is special and cannot be replaced, that’s why Joe encouraged him to go to Reki to ask if he can fix it. Although the board is as broken as their state of friendship right now, it can still serve as a bridge that can bring the two together again. In order for Reki to get over this guilt of these ugly feelings he has in his heart right now, the two of them need to have an honest talk about their feelings, apologize and address Reki’s insecurities.
That said, I was a bit surprised that we didn’t actually get to see their reactions to what Adam did to Cherry. But it in a way it makes sense given Reki had already left the area, and Langa was too preoccupied trying to find him. The only time Langa did stop and looked up was when Adam called out to him, announcing to everyone that he is the Eve he has been waiting for. Had he actually witnessed it, I think he would’ve been startled, but it does look like Langa is at least starting to feel uneasy about Adam’s infatuation with him. And although Joe likened Langa to be a monster skater, who has the potential to outdo Adam, there is a stark difference between the two. I said it last week, and I’ll say it again: Unlike Adam, Langa is not a monster and he realized that it’s meaningless to him to skate alone. That’s why he is looking for Reki.
Overall, despite the horrific incidents, I would say this was probably the weakest and most underwhelming episode to date. The fact that the outcome for both Joe VS Langa, and Cherry VS Adam’s was already obvious and set certainly watered down the buzz that comes with race. It didn’t help how the resolution to Joe’s and Langa’s match was pretty cheesy and lackluster. But I will say it did make me laugh a few times because some of the crazy stunts was entertaining to some extent. The part when Langa jumped over the swinging steel beam and it was flying back to him scared the daylights out of me because it was stressful watching that thing swinging towards him again.
Anyways I do hope that we’ll see Reki and Langa finally have the much needed talk, but I have to say I do like that we aren’t see the two patch things up right away. This mess has a lot of complicated feelings that needs to be sorted out. As for Tadashi, we didn’t see much of him today, but he did reveal he that feels responsible for Adam turning out this way. So he probably feels like it’s his responsibility to put an end to this before more people get hurt in the process.
