Argento Soma Episode Rating Graph

Now with a new persona and a fabricated past, Ryu is transferred to FUNERAL as a SARG pilot with the purpose of collecting classified information for the long-haired man. Ryu intends to try and kill Frank while serving in FUNERAL. Upon meeting the personnel of FUNERAL, Ryu comes into conflict with Dan immediately. Dan senses something about Ryu that he doesn’t like, especially when Dan catches Ryu using the computer system while collecting intel (but Dan didn’t know what Ryu was doing or looking for). The episode ends with the arrival of another invader outside New York (which has already been abandoned because of earlier invasions) and with FUNERAL dispatching everyone except Ryu.

Dan and Guenevere engage the alien with their SARG units, however, during the battle it is discovered that this alien has the ability to stockpile energy and that all of their attacks are merely increasing the alien’s reserve. To engage the alien, it is decided to use Frank to fight but before a plan can be implemented, Ryu takes Hattie with him in one of the SARGs and gets Frank to follow them to the battle zone. After Ryu causes Frank to crash into the alien, they begin fighting with Frank eventually being victorious. However, during the heat of the battle, Ryu’s anger at Frank escapes and he tells Hattie that Frank isn’t alive; this statement angers Hattie enough that she no longer trusts Ryu.

Now that FUNERAL knows that Frank can be somewhat controlled by Hattie, some simulations are being run to determine how well she can give Frank orders and how well he can use them. During the testing, Hattie becomes unnerved once she sees the SARGs firing their weapons because she associates gun fire with losing her parents and her grandfather (her parents were killed 5 years prior during an alien attack and Hattie was left comatose due to ahead injury sustained during the attack). To protect Hattie, Frank escapes from FUNERAL with Hattie and Walton during a nasty storm that prevents anyone from tracking them. Frank brings Hattie back home to Montana where he is mistaken as an invader by a reconnaissance fighter and is fired upon.

The latest alien invader is a dangerous new variant, its approximately 1000 times the mass of a regular invader and is about as tall as some mountain ranges. To make things more interesting its surface can absorb shocks so the Excalibur will be ineffective… oh, and did I mention the FUNERAL base is directly in the path to the “Pilgrimage Point”? After a joint attack with the SARGs and Frank fail, Commander Inez decides to employ the nuclear device attached to Frank only to find out that there was no nuclear device on him, it was a dummy warhead. To make matters worse, it appears that Frank may be knocked out of commission from the damage that he sustained fighting the invader.

With things looking bleak at the FUNERAL base, a massive evacuation is ordered complete with the destruction of all classified information at the base. However, for the pilots and Hattie the base is home and they intend to put up a last stand against the invader. Using the final trump card, the FUNERAL base will use the world’s largest charged particle accelerator underneath the base (code named Fefnir) while Frank and the SARGs run interference with the remainder of the air support on base. Just when the Fefnir fires, they discover that this alien can warp gravity with its hands. The final attack against this behemoth is going to require something special, with all units working together.

Ryu’s cover comes under pressure with the arrival of the latest alien. The latest version of invader is holding orbit above Earth and so the only units that are able to engage it are the Atmospheric Fighter group stationed in Alaska (that Ryu was supposedly a member of before transferring to FUNERAL). To make matters worse, one of those fighters becomes severely damaged and is repaired at the FUNERAL base… but the pilot Rick was a close friend of Taketo (Ryu’s real name). Although Ryu tries to keep his distance from Rick, to avoid his old friend from recognizing him and blowing his cover, Rick seeks him out because he believes Taketo to be dead during the experiment that created Frank. His friend also increases the pain in Ryu’s heart by revealing some secrets to him (such as his betrayal of his friend so that he could try to court Maki) believing that telling Ryu could allay his soul.

With the discovery of Frank’s sentience, as well as the discovery that the SARGs were built from alien corpses instead of reverse engineered from technology has left a bad taste in the pilots mouths, especially Sue who continues to express a fear of using a SARG ever again. Ryu continues to suffer from constant nightmares, especially ones where his past is perverted into beliefs that Maki didn’t love him at all. Making things more confusing is the burgeoning relationship with the healing Guenevere who is pleasantly surprised by Ryu’s new actions towards her and has made her feelings for Ryu known. Despite this pleasantness, Ryu is having trouble differentiating between Hattie and Maki in his mind; especially whenever Hattie is speaking to Frank now that she is trying to teach Frank how to speak.

So much going on in this episode, it’s easy to get lost. Upon arrival at the forward base, the FUNERAL team with Frank is not sent out to engage the alien but instead watch as a new alien fighting team is activated – complete with the black SARGs that attacked Ryu and Frank earlier. With the revelation of the new SARGs, Ryu realizes that his spying was so competition to FUNERAL could be created and that his revenge was merely used to keep him pliable towards the needs of the long-haired man. These new SARGs ruthlessly attack the alien, blowing off all of its limbs until the alien activates its motor which allows it to fly many times faster than the SARG units and move unfettered towards the Pilgrimage Point. At this point, Frank is dispatched to fight the invader and is dragged all the way to the Pilgrimage Point before defeating the alien. During the battle between Frank and the alien, Ryu kidnaps Hattie and also reveals his true identity to all FUNERAL members present. Flying after Frank in the Pilgrimage Point, Hattie and Ryu witness the destruction of the alien and then the subsequent dissolving of Frank’s left arm to reveal a giant ring exactly like the one that Dan and Sue saw on their last sortie.

The first half of the episode is a retelling of Yuri Leonov’s last flight – a married man working in the UN flight program who leaves his wife for another mission only to be unintentionally sacrificed for science when his flight was sent to investigate a gravitational anomaly. He claims that his last memory was of seeing the anomaly up-close before returning to Earth in the form of the alien invaders. The flashback includes some other interesting developments – the long-haired man who turned Ryu into a spy was Yuri’s mission commander on Earth named Colonel David Lawrence who also was a close friend of Yuri (and was coincidentally against using Yuri’s mission to investigate the anomaly).

After returning back to base with a comatose Yuri, the FUNERAL base is seized by the new invader fighting group (the ones piloting the newer SARGs) and Commander Ines is removed, but not before the other traitor is revealed (don’t worry, I won’t reveal it… it’s just too damn good). With the capture of the FUNERAL personnel, the high end staff members are being transported to another base for interrogation; but the group discusses the known facts and are able to trace the extent of influence that this new group has had, running back to their interference with the original creation of Frank at the research facility. Thankfully, David Lawrence shows up in a SARG unit to force down the transport, but his news isn’t good. David tells the FUNERAL staff that another invader is approaching Earth… one that’s over 8,000 km long and possesses enough mass and magnetic forces to destroy the planet.

Another packed episode. The traitor holds Ryu and Hattie at gunpoint, and he suddenly betrays the guards by locking them out of room that they are in. Telling Ryu and Hattie to go on ahead, Dan heads towards the brig area and frees Commander Ines. On the surface, Guenevere is trying to battle the alien but is not having much success. To even the odds, Sue takes control of one of the damaged ZODs and joins the fray. Guenevere spends the entire fight closing on the alien while trying to save the captured pilot on-board the alien. Her SARG manages to free the pilot before failing due to sustained damage. At this point the alien unleashes its’ primary attack, a supernova with itself at the center. Unable to move, Guenevere and the saved pilot are now directly in harm’s way.