Rem is celebrating the twin's first birthday, and dotingly looks at the video she took of that day. She hugs her boys and promises to celebrate another birthday with them next year.
After seeing the destruction Nai orchestrated, Vash tries to look for Ship Five, only to run off in terror after a moribund human grabs his ankle for help. He apologizes profusely over his role in the Big Fall, leading him to trip and fall. After some time, he's found by a man named Brad, who takes him to see Luida Leitner, who leads the survivors from Ship Three. She quickly discovers he's an Independent Plant. While Brad is overtly suspicious of Vash, Luida tries to offer the boy some comfort and asks for whatever help he can offer.
Tropes that appear in this episode:
- All of the Other Reindeer: Vash quietly puts up with the people of Ship Three seeing him as a monster and shunning him from behind the door, too guilty about the Fall to make any protest.
- Bearer of Bad News: Vash asks about Rem's whereabouts and if it's possible she survived the crash. Brad ends up searching Ship Five for over a month, only to come back with Vash's family photo and some recordings. Luida has to break it to Vash that Rem is most likely dead, having sacrificed her chance at escape to save whoever she could aboard the crashing ships. Vash quietly hangs his head at the news.
- Big Brother Instinct: Despite Brad's wariness bordering on hostility towards Vash, he slowly grows into protecting the boy (explicitly being called Vash's "bodyguard" by Luida) after he heals the Plant, subtly menacing other groups of humans as Vash heals their Plants too to make sure they treat him right, and even offers the kid water and endures playful teasing during their travels.
- Caught on Tape: Brad and Luida play back the audio they recovered from Ship Five, revealing that Vash lied about Nai dying in the crash, as well as Nai's assertion that Vash is his "accomplice".
- Denied Food as Punishment: Vash chooses to forgo all the food Luida insists he eat. He claims that since he doesn't need to eat anyway, it's a waste to give it to him. After healing the Plant, he starts to eat again, which cheers up Luida.
- Doting Parent: Rem insisted the boys celebrate their first birthday with party hats, food and a cake, though Nai calls it a waste since he didn't need to eat. Rem is later seen lovingly watching the video she recorded, and Nai outright calls her doting.
- Dramatic Drop: As he's carving in another tally into the wall, Vash stops what he's doing as he hears the Plant calling out to him and drops his spoon. This was before the alarms of the ship went off to warn the humans on board.
- Expository Hairstyle Change: Vash loses the bowl-cut he had as a child to the undercut he now has in present day. One of the pictures shows Luida cutting it for him.
- Fantastic Racism: Brad and most of the crew on Ship Three are fearful of Vash, with some of them outright saying Vash should be killed, since he doesn't do anything and they can't be sure what he's capable of as a nonhuman. When Vash as a teen goes to heal Plants from other ships, Brad is quick to shut down any suspicion of Vash.
- Foreshadowing: When Luida tries to find more information on Independent Plants, she can't access the files because they're classified. That such things have appeared before and the knowledge of them being hidden comes into play in future episodes.
- Found Family: Vash slowly comes to consider the people of Ship Three his family and the place as his home. Luida agrees and decides to rename the ship "Home".
- Haunting the Guilty: Nai calls Vash an accomplice to the Big Fall because he learned the SEEDS access codes to crash the fleet from him. Although Vash couldn't have known what Nai would do with the codes, he feels fully responsible and absolutely horrified. As he flees from his brother to find Ship Five and Rem, he stumbles over dead and dying people in their dozens and starts to hallucinate them chasing after him. Vash screams apologies as he runs, then finally falls to the ground and waits to die himself.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Luida tells Vash not to take Brad's harsh words to heart, and he's actually a pretty good guy. She even brushes off Brad with a handwave when he tries to act tough, and it turns out he helped talk the crew into giving Vash quarters of his own instead of a cell.
- Lying by Omission: Luida asks Vash if he was the only Independent on Ship Five, and Vash admits there was another but adds that he is probably dead. Years go by without any further sign or mention of his brother... until Brad gets the black box working and learns Nai orchestrated the Fall with Vash as his supposed accomplice.
- My God, What Have I Done?:
- Vash's expression when Nai calls his brother his accomplice in the Big Fall. He's absolutely horrified and guilt-stricken that he inadvertently caused the deaths of Rem and thousands, possibly millions of other humans.
- Brad looks shocked when he enters Vash's cell and sees the markings on its walls. He does the same when they find Vash's handwritten goodbye note, thanking the ship's crew for helping him, apologising for the deception and promising he'll "atone" for his brother's deed. Brad asks Luida to apologise to Vash for him in turn when she finds him, remorseful about showing so much hostility to a traumatised, guilt-stricken child.
- Mythology Gag:
- In previous versions of Trigun, all Plants were held in containers that looked like giant lightbulbs. This episode establishes that the Plant containers that were aboard the colony ships looked like lightbulbs.
- Eagle-eyed fans noticed one photograph on Vash's wall is an homage to a panel from the manga — a tree surrounded by small group of people, one of whom is a child running to grab a ball held out by an adult. The difference is that the manga had Vash in the place of the adult, while Stampede has Vash as the child.
- In the manga, Luida and Vash had very similar hairstyles, and the same is true in Stampede, but with the added explanation that Luida cut Vash's hair when it began to grow out of his old bowl cut.
- Parental Substitute: Luida has similar views as Rem, and takes on the role of a parental figure to Vash as he grows up.
- The Power of Trust: Luida decides to let Vash out of the cell because if Rem believed in Vash, so will she.
- Precious Photo: Among the tiny collection of things Brad managed to recover from Ship Five was a family photo of Vash, Nai and Rem. It's the only photo Vash took once he decided to leave Home to find Nai, and he continues to hold onto it (now framed) a hundred and fifty years later.
- Tally Marks on the Prison Wall: Vash uses the spoon from his uneaten tray of food to mark something — unlikely to be the days he was imprisoned, since he doesn't show any signs of his accelerated maturation. Given the marks resemble crosses more than tally marks, he's more likely counting the people who died in the Fall, his "victims" in the crime he was accomplice to. The tally nearly covers an entire corner.
- Unwanted Rescue: Vash sorrowfully tells Luida and Brad that he didn't want to be rescued and he wanted to die out in the desert.
