Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - Episode Twenty-One: What We Can Do Now
Written by: Ichirō Ōkouchi and Shōgo Yasukawa
Directed by: Shouji Ikeno and Yohei Shindo
Storyboarded by: Naoya Ando, Teruo Sato, Atsuo Tobe, Kō Matsuo, and Shinpei Sawa
Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury - Episode Twenty-One: What We Can Do Now (今、できることを; Ima, dekiru koto o)
En-route to Asticassia with Belmeria, Guston makes a call requesting something be delivered to Benerit HQ, saying he has a pilot in mind. Inside the Front, rescue and recovery efforts are ongoing around the destroyed campus, with displaced students living in a refugee camp of prefab shelters. Amidst the misery, Suletta continues contributing what she can, passing out blankets to students in need. Calling out to her, Secelia remarks that Suletta seems to have changed, which Suletta agrees with.
On a call with Guel, Felsi informs him that Petra survived her injuries but is in critical condition, while Lauda has gone missing. Rajan and Kenanji review their findings from the wreckage of the Lfrith Thorn while a news report announces Miorine's appointment as Benerit Group president, having been credited with suppressing the attacks on Quinharbor and Asticassia. Guel finds her near-catatonic in her father's hospital room, blaming herself for all the deaths on Earth and at the school. Guel tells her they need to announce a direction for the Group going forward, as well as that they have Shaddiq in custody. Meeting him in an interrogation room, Shaddiq requests leniency for his teammates, while a somber and despondent Miorine cannot bring herself to condemn him for his actions due to her own sense of guilt.
Back at Asticassia, Suletta shows Earth House a supply of Miorine's tomatoes she had refrigerated in her room, passing them out among the students. After collecting more tomatoes, Martin pulls Nika aside to talk with her, and she reveals she intends to drop out of school once things have calmed down, returning on her own terms after turning herself in and making reparations for her role in Shaddiq's plot; Martin offers her his support as House Head whenever she needs. Arriving at the school, Belmeria and Guston find Suletta, asking to speak with her.
At the headquarters of the Space Assembly League, a press conference is called, the Peil CEOs having come forward to expose the crimes of their peers in return for amnesty as whistleblowers. Emboldened by the public revelations, the League announces their intent to dissolve the Benerit Group, launching a fleet of their own forces with which to do so. With no sign of Prospera and the data on Quiet Zero having been wiped, Miorine's team are left at an impasse when Sarius calls, offering up himself and Grassley as scapegoats to preserve the rest of the Benerit Group, an offer Miorine rejects, tired of sacrifices.
Meeting with Suletta inside a shelter, Belmeria explains Quiet Zero to her and Earth House, Guston asking for her help in stopping Prospera before the Group and League can come into conflict fully. Suletta, however, believes she would be unable to convince Prospera to abandon her plans, revealing her knowledge of the Vanadis Incident, Ericht, and her own nature as a repli-child to everyone gathered. Guston instead suggests having Suletta pilot a Gundam confiscated by the League during the Vanadis Incident - Calibarn, nicknamed a "Monster". Belmeria objects, recognizing that the machine lacks any kind of filter against data storms, drawing Nika's ire, having learned about her experiments with Peil from Elan #5. Realizing that her immunity to the "Curse" was thanks to Ericht, which Belmeria confirms, Suletta resolves to speak with her sister and mother again, asking Guston to take her to the Gundam.
Elsewhere, Aerial is plugged into Quiet Zero, a massive space fortress which intercepts the Space Assembly League fleet. Deploying the Gundnodes to meet the League's own mobile suits, the unmanned drones easily overpower the League forces even before deploying their data storm field, paralyzing and completely wiping out the entire fleet. Watching a broadcast of the one-sided battle, Miorine breaks down in tears, again blaming herself for the loss of life. After Guston learns of the destruction as well, Earth House resolve to join Suletta, with Elan #5 -who had been eavesdropping the entire time- revealing himself and asking to join as well.
In Jeturk House's hangar, Lauda stands before the Gundam Schwarzette, laying the blame for Petra's near-death and Guel's actions upon Miorine.
LAM's (end card illustrator)’s official Twitter
What We Can Do Now provides examples of:
- All for Nothing: Miorine succeeds in becoming president of the Benerit Group (thanks to the horrific violence of recent episodes being attributed to her leadership and her rival Shaddiq being arrested), just as Prospera wished, but Miorine's own hopes of using the role to broker peace with Earth are seemingly dashed with the Space Assembly League announcing their intent to forcibly dissolve the Benerit Group. Then Prospera reveals that Quiet Zero, which she claimed she needed Miorine as president to keep under wraps, is already complete. And to top it all off, Miorine's entire motivation for going along with Prospera, betraying Suletta to keep her safe and away from the conflict and Gundams, is rendered moot as the sequence of events have led to Suletta agreeing to pilot another —extraordinarily dangerous!— Gundam so she can confront Prospera and Aerial.
- Attack Drone: The Gundnodes are this, similar to After War Gundam X's G-BITS. They are highly mobile, armed with beam cannons with added beam machine guns and can link together to form a data storm sphere and obliterate their now-helpless opponents. The sphere suggests that there are hundreds of Gundnodes at this point.
- Beware the Skull Base: Adding to its sinister, coffin-like appearance, Quiet Zero prominently features Tron Lines that resemble crowned human skulls across each of its facets.
- Beyond Redemption: Suletta loves her mother, but has no illusions she can talk her out of anything—mostly because she knows Prospera doesn't care about her much compared to Ericht.
- Break Out the Museum Piece: In order to deal with Prospera and Quiet Zero, Guston suggest that they bring out Gundam Calibarn, a machine mothballed over two decades ago for being too dangerous.
- Call-Back: The girls Chuchu gives tomatoes to are the same girls she beat up way back in episode 4, with Suletta likewise giving some to the girls who teased her in episode 1.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Aerial Rebuild, now hooked up to Quiet Zero, manage to easily wipe out the Space Assembly League's approaching fleet in mere moments at Prospera's command.
- Heel–Face Turn: Elan #5, who's been revealed to have somehow escaped back into Asticassia after his attempt to flee following Norea's death, decides to join up with Suletta and company to help stop Quiet Zero. His only conditions are that he's allowed to go free afterwards and that he outright refuses to pilot a Gundam in the process.
- Heroic BSoD: Miorine is showing signs of this from Quinharbor, sporting bags under her eyes. Prospera’s Curb-Stomp Battle of the Space Assembly Fleet makes it worse.
- Internal Reveal: Suletta tells Belmeria, Guston, and her Earth House dormmates of her mother and Eri's past all the way back to the Vanadis Incident, how she's a Repli-Child, and that Ericht is actually Gundam Aerial. Belmeria subsequently helps her realize she was able to survive the Gundam's "curse" thanks to Eri processing the data storm for her. Nika also shares what she learnt from Elan #5 regarding Peil's Enhanced Person project, with Suletta now knowing #4's fate.
- Irony: Prospera and Aerial uses Quiet Zero to disable the Space Assembly League's mobile suits much like how the Witch Hunters use their Antidote weapons against the Gundams.
- It's All My Fault: Miorine is shown to blame herself for everything that happened, with the guilt becoming close to crushing her. She's barely able to keep it together after Quinharbor, and is shown to be crying and implied to be on the verge of vomiting after Quiet Zero massacres the Assembly League fleet, unable to handle all the death she holds herself responsible for.
- Meaningful Name: “Calibarn” seems to be a combination of “Caliban”, a character from The Tempest, who was locked away by Prospero and vowed to kill him once freed, and “Caliburn”, the iconic sword King Arthur took from the stone, sometimes conflated with his second sword Excalibur.
- Misplaced Retribution: After having spent much of the series projecting hatred onto Suletta for his family's decline, Lauda now lays the blame for his father's death, his brother's shift in attitude, and his girlfriend's life-threatening injuries upon Miorine. This despite Shaddiq having been publicly arrested as the conspirator behind all these misfortunes. Shifting the blame from Suletta makes sense, however, since, as far as he's concerned, the "Mercurian wench" is no longer a threat to worry about, so he's just shifting his projection towards the next person he finds culpable.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Miorine's guilt grows even worse after the League's fleet is wiped out thanks to Quiet Zero, which she had part in helping Prospera to complete.
- Mythology Gag:
- Kenanji mentioning about them being unable to identify Lfrith Thorn's pilot mirrors that of Earth Federation being unable to identify the Zaku II Kai's pilot who damaged the Gundam ALEX. The differences are their fate: the Lfrith Thorn got severely damaged though remained mostly intact but Norea is possibly fully vaporized by a beam weapon while the Zaku II Kai is fully destroyed and Bernie's remains are reduced to something similar to a "pile of hamburgers".
- Quiet Zero essentially being a massive space fortress that can deploy an entire army of unmanned Mobile Suits which are all controlled by a central intelligence at its core is similar to Alus' moonbase. Quiet Zero's ability to shut down any Permet links caught in its data storm field also calls to mind the Trial System, which was used to shut down rogue Gundams or Innovade Mobile Suits connected to the Veda supercomputer.
- The Gundam Caliburn being mentioned as a Super Prototype that is also very dangerous to pilot, to the point that its use can produce fatal results, drew some comparisons to the Wing Gundam Zero.
- No Kill like Overkill: Aerial's unmanned mobile suit drones, the Gundnodes, already had the Space Assembly League forces on the ropes in a regular confrontation. Then they activate their primary systems, expanding Aerial's data storm to encompass the entire battlefield, disabling all mobile suits and battleships inside, leaving them to be shot down like fish in a barrel, cutting an already one-sided fight even shorter.
- Ominous Pipe Organ: The reveal of Quiet Zero as a colossal, gothic space fortress is scored by a sinister version of Aerial's theme featuring organs aplenty.
- One-Woman Wail: The Gundnodes attack on the Space Assembly League's forces is accompanied by a haunting theme using this.
- Opportunistic Bastard: Standard behavior for Peil Technologies, but they've now escalated to throwing the rest of the Benerit Group under the bus to ensure their own survival, having caught wind of its increasing disfavor with the Space Assembly League.
- Recruit Teenagers with Attitude: Looking for a solution to Prospera's machination on the Space Assembly League's behalf, Guston turns to Suletta. He first asks if she could possibly talk Prospera down, which Suletta doesn't believe possible. Then he asks her to fight with Gundam Calibarn, as Suletta is the one best able to withstand the GUND Format at the intensities necessary to stand up to Quiet Zero, not to mention an excellent pilot even by adult standards. The rest of Earth House end up coming along with her.
- The Reveal:
- Quiet Zero is finally revealed: a massive asteroid-sized space fortress with Aerial Rebuild installed as its controller, protected by an army of Gundnodes, which demonstrate their stated ability to expand Aerial’s Data Storms, almost instantly massacring an entire fleet of ships and mobile suits.
- There Is Another Gundam that was built by the Vanadis Institute, the Calibarn.
- Rule of Symbolism: Miorine's tomatoes have consistently been used in the series to symbolize relationships, trust, kindness and affection. Suletta turns out to have stockpiled the greenhouse's harvest and enlists Earth House to pass out the literal and figurative fruits of her and Miorine's relationship to support her shaken fellow students, paying the kindness forward.
- Shoot the Dog: Sarius encourages Miorine to do this, offering himself and Grassley Defense Systems as a scapegoat to ensure the survival of the rest of the Benerit Group. However, Miorine refuses to see anyone else sacrificed for her own gain again.
- Start of Darkness: This episode serves as this for Lauda, after learning the truth about his father's death and with Petra in critical condition, he decides to take his anger on Miorine.
- There Is Another: Guston proposes that Suletta pilot another Gundam named Calibarn that was confiscated by the Space Assembly League during the Vanadis Incident to fight against Prospera and Aerial. Belmeria is horrified as the mobile suit doesn't have any sort of data storm filter meaning anyone who pilots it will take the full brunt of the damage.
- Unbroken Vigil: Felsi appears twice in the episode, both times sitting outside of Petra's hospital room. The second time, it's clearly night and she's still sleeping there.
- Warts and All: After everything, Suletta still loves her mother for bringing her to Asticassia, where she met all her friends. Suletta also knows Prospera doesn't love her back and has sinister machinations that can only be defeated by force.
