Another “decent” episode this week.
But first, props to [adultswim] for airing Viva Namida. Now I wish for the ending to show up.
While a dog being hinted at the title of the episode gives away that the episode will contain of a lot of potential sentimentality, it really depends who you’re asking. Don’t get me wrong here, the “feels” were felt right here in my chest but in all honesty, it could have been delivered a lot better. Then there’s the second half of the episode…
Allow me to explain myself.
Dr. Gel is showcased Bea’s new technologies in finding Dandy whilst expressing Admiral Dormammu’s Perry’s cheap tendencies. Perry channels in as soon as Gel and Bea find Dandy and the two warp drive while Perry goes off on their damage expenditures and fires them.
Dandy’s crew arrive on Machinia, were everything is legitimately made up of junk from machine parts. There were rumors of an unidentified species here but then QT goes off on a spree of spare parts while Meow finds some mysterious meal from a faraway fridge. Dandy has nothing to do but eventually comes across a dog. While the rest of the crew go off on their spree of enjoyment, Dandy plays with the dog for a while and quickly grows attached to it. The crew follows with appreciation but Meow gets distanced because Dandy doesn’t like useless cats. It turns out however that the dog has been on the planet for a very long while, and from old age, passes away after telling everyone that she enjoyed her last moments being loved.
The crew decides to build a grave for he and sends her off. The narator takes this time to explain that the dog is basically the dog the USSR sent up into space. Moving on, Little does the crew know that the unidentified species were a pair of little creatures that inhabited the Laika’s fur and had transferred onto Meow. QT notices this and the two give chase and the aliens make their way to Dandy’s hair as he is combing it. One of the aliens die and the other hacks into QT and causes a rampage. Cue up a killer-robot-slasher style chase until Dandy disables the mind control after chucking a beverage on QT and the three try to stop it from hacking the ship. Meow accidentally steps on it and it turns out that the entire planet was kept together because of these aliens.
The crew scrambles to get off the planet’s eventual process of turning into a blackhole and realize that they are goners. Dandy is invigorated by the promise of all the boobies and QT reminds them that they can still warp. The only thing inhibiting them being Dandy’s dislike for warping. As soon as they warp though, they cross paths with Dr. Gel and the unfortunate Gorilla and Cucumber duo bite the dust once more.
I honestly didn’t feel that much sadness from Laika’s passing. I was rather surprised when she passed away that quickly into the episode. I thought they were going to deliver the death at the very end and have some more weight behind to her life. I mean yes, she has a sad story of accidental neglect and all but she had around 5-6 minutes of screentime. Personally, I would have definitely felt more sad if the death was delivered at the end. Sadness and sentimentality were all there, but I think it would have gone to its maximum potential if it was done at the end. Then again, this is the guy who felt feels at the end of Episode 2 with the ramen alien.
The feels were quite gone as we delved into the miniature aliens part of the story. It wasn’t the most memorable in my opinion. I don’t think it felt right about having something sad happen right before either. If anything told me that this was really meant to be, it was Dandy’s face after his shower and smiling at the mirror. Let bygones be bygones, it truly seems. Anyways, that’s just me but I felt the episode could have been done a bit better.
I have to say though, Dr. Gel and Bea are climbing up the ranks. Now I actually feel bad when they get killed off everytime they show up. P.S, did anyone else catch the Toys in the Attic (Bebop episode with the fridge monster) reference?
Lair of the Idle 