Category: Tsubasa Chronicle

Remember last time? Well, Mokona still holds the feather when he (she?) transports to yet another world. This time, it’s a technologically advanced one. They land on the middle of a desert road. Mokona’s about to give Sakura her feather, though a huge truck is keen on preventing Sakura and the feather from reuniting. What follows is our heroes, trying to catch up with the truck. In this, they get help from a convenient Rail Bus, who happens to be passing by.

At the end of the episode, they’ve missed some valuable chances in getting the feather, and night has fallen. The country has a law which prevents all cars from driving at night, so everyone’s stuck. The feather lies beyond walking distance. A motor gang then comes their way, with their intentions set on two eloping lovers who happen to be passengers of the same rail bus our heroes are on. The episode ends with Syaoran and Kuro-tan about to knock the brains out of these punks, in order to grab their motorbikes and drive to the feather.

Well then, there are a lot of flaws in this story:
– The convenient Rail Bus who happened to pass by conveniently passed by a bit too convenient.
– Same with the truck.
– Same with the truck which crashed.
– How come the rope Syaoran threw actually connected?
– In fact, why didn’t Syaoran just jump on the truck and climb to the feather? He was running right next to the truck, so he would easily have been able to do it.
– The reason for the girl to pay for our protagonists is a bit weak.
– How did Syaoran know where the truck was going to stop?
– A lot of budget was saved by not paying too much attention at the characters running.

Still, all these points don’t matter. I’ve had a very enjoyable time watching this episode, and that’s what counts. I especially liked the fact that each of the passengers of the bus had his or her own story, and they were actually more than just passengers on a bus. I also liked the fact that this is one of the first realistic chases, which just involves using two vehicles, at very long distances with differences of about an hour between them. I also loved it that this chase wasn’t about the tension. Its purpose instead was to keep the story going, and give enough time to explore the different actors.

The old man also was very entertaining. Especially in the beginning, when he wouldn’t say much. He really is hte perfect conversation partner for Kurogane, and it was so funny to see that at one point, Mokona was sitting next to him. ^_^

Oh, and I’ve also managed to discover something regarding the entire series: after the second season is over, a third season will be aired. This will probably be from april 2007 till september 2007. That also is the last season of Tsubasa Chronicle which will arrive. This means that there will be an ending. And the creators know it. I’m happy to know that the creators have set an ending for themselves. Now they really have enough time to plan out the main story well enough. Until then, I’m planning to enjoy the fillers of Tsubasa Chronicle.

Overall, Tsubasa Chronicle excels in its storytelling, which is exactly what this episode was about. While it’s nowhere near the utter brilliance of last time, this episode did remain very entertaining.

Okay.

THAT was awesome!!!

I never would have thought that Tsubasa Chronicle would be able to produce such an incredible episode. The following happens: Mokona transports the foursome to another world, after which they immediately get captured by a feather, which turns them into a story, into chibi-mode. Not only was this extremely cute, Mokona also had total control over this story. That resulted into some of the most hilarious scenes ever! I SO loved that!

Even though Tsubasa Chronicle may be a mess at times, this episode showed that the anime still remains awesome. I really cared for the characters, it really does an incredibly good job in familiarizing the main characters with the viewer. I so kept hoping for Sakura and Syaoran to kiss together. Something that doesn’t really happen often. But ah well, I guess that the dimensional witch put a halt to that one. It seems something will happen once the two of them kiss. Something which will break her spell.

Overall, everything in this episode was incredibly cute, and incredibly awesome. Ranging from Sakura and Syaoran being together to the playful Fye, and of course the ferocious Kurogane in his new outfit. ^^

Memorable moments: the entire episode. ^^

…

…

Duh!

Okay, let’s recap:
– When Ashura and Yasha fought in Sakura’s flashback, Ashura killed Yasha because the latter caught an illness.
– The next day, Yasha showed up like nothing happened, while in fact it was a feather which replaced him.
– Kurogane pretended not to know Syaoran because the latter would not take his training seriously if he did.
– Fye pretended not to know Syaoran because he pretended to be a silent warrior, because he couldn’t understand anyone in the Yasha-country, because Mokona was too far away.
– Something in the Yasha-country changes the eye-color of its inhabitants to black.
– Ashura and Yasha became gods because Ashura asked Yuuko for it.

Okay, everything makes sense now. Everything felt so incredibly obvious when all was revealed. Maybe a bit too obvious. Still, I’m happy with this arc. Everything was nicely told, not to mention the story was great. Kurogane was awesome once more as well.

Oh, by the way, I’m back again, and I have a lot of catching up to do. I started with Tsubasa Chronicle, as I heard that the next episode will become an awesome one. Apart from that, I’m also very interested in The Third and Simoun, so these ones will come in first, after the rest. Also, as there’ll be a lot to blog, be sure to expect a lot of short posts.

I’ve also discovered that Blogspot stopped allowing hotlinks. That doesn’t make me too happy, as it’ll make my first posts without any images. Fixing this will be a hell, though I’m at least planning to make Mahou Shoujotai to look good. After all, one of the best series ever deserves that.

Last season, the pacing was slow. You’d expect the show to continue this slow pacing in the first season, but instead, it suddenly speeds up. So many things happened during this episode. And even the main plot plays a huge role in this. I haven’t read the manga, though I doubt that things were the same at the manga-arc. Hopeless also noted that Fei Wong did not have a great role int he manga at this point, though right here, his role gets bigger and bigger.

Okay, so what happened during this episode regarding the main plot? First of all: Sakura kissing Syaoran on his glass eye. The two of them were just so cute at that moment! The thing I do like about Tsubasa Chronicle is that the relationship between the two of them gets tighter during every manga arc.

Second of all, it appears that Syaoran indeed is special in some kind of way. We probably won’t hear in what way he is until the second half of the third season has passed, but it indeed has something to do with the fake Syaoran with his eye concealed. This fake Syaoran can control the real Syaoran’s movements, it seems. It seems that the two of them are like mirrors. The anime seems to be giving some very obvious hints towards this.

Third of all, we also learn that Yuuko contacted Ashura, and then she informed her about Syaoran and Sakura. This explains her hospitality. It was her who then offered Yuuko the elixir of eternal life, which gave Yuuko the opportunity to make Mokona do a forced transfer. For some reason, this also caused Fei Wong’s control of the worlds which are to be visited to stop. For some reason, Yuuko really wants to stop him.

Fourth of all, we finally learns some of Fei Wong’s intentions. There is this thing, buried in the ruins of the Clow-Country. That’s what they’re after. For some reason, Syaoran and Sakura have to work for this. The last episode of the first season showed that they don’t want them to find all of the feathers at once. Still, I don’t think that we’ll ever find the reasons for this. Unless the creators decide to end this anime after the third season.

In any case, Fei Wong realized that the Dimensional Witch is the culprit behind the fact that he can’t direct the worlds that Syaoran & co visit, so he’s taken preparations to defeat her. (Interesting note: will this come back in xxxHolic? I suspect not, but it’d be awesome if it were). What follows is his statement that Yuuko is the only woman who managed to use the magic that Clow Reed accepted. Clow Reed appears to be Fei Wong’s lineage. Does that make Fei Wong and Sakura family? This statement was a bit fuzzy, though I think this means that Fei Wong, his minions and Yuuko are the only ones who can travel dimensions. Though then Fei Wong claims that he’ll be the one to grab the power to cross dimensions. But why does he want to do that when he already has the power to do so? (Interesting note: this is the first time we see his assistant smiling).

About the arc: it didn’t make any sense. Why the heck have Ashura and Yasha been fighting, and why did they both show up without an army? Ah well, in any case, it seems that in the past, the two of them were dueling in the castle, and Ashura gave Yasha a scar on his eye. Later, the Yasha appeared in front of Ashura, outside of the castle. Then she realizes that something has happened to Yasha. They end up kissing, and a feather flies by. My theory is that this feather then attached itself to Yasha, in order to keep him alive. At the end of the episode, Ashura kisses Yasha once more, the feather separates and he disappears. Still, it was just a wound on his eye. That’s nothing you’d die from…

Some other unanswered questions about this arc:
– Where are Kurogane and Fye?
– When Mokona pointed out the strongest power source, she pointed towards the castle. Yasha wasn’t there at that time, while he posessed the feather. What could there be stronger than one of Sakura’s feathers?
– Why was Yasha’s statue crying, while Ashura’s wasn’t?

Okay, so what we have here are two worlds, somehow linked to each other. The first world is where the previous episode took place. The second world is something like the past of the first world, in which the story of Ashura and Yasha takes place. At the beginning of this episode, Mokona teleported our two parties to the second world. What happened to Kurogane and Fye remains a mystery, though Sakura, Syaoran and Mokona end up with Ashura.

Don’t ask me why, there’ll probably be no reason for this at all, but Ashura immediately takes a liking in Syaoran and Sakura, and invites them as guests of honor in her palace. Sure. I’d do that to any stranger who just came popping in from nowhere. In any case, the concept of the world is the following: up in the sky, there’s a huge floating castle. Every night, certain people get transported to that castle. There’s got to be some way of selecting people, but that isn’t really explained. In any case, Ashura’s and Yasha’s armies seem to end up inside that castle. When the moon reaches its zenith, however, all parties are kicked out again. The legend goes that whoever can conquer the castle, gets his deepest desires. Apparently, Ashura and Yasha have been fighting each other for quite a while now (Ashura talks about centuries).

If we look at the overall story for this arc, I have to say that so far, I like it. The thing with the filler arcs is that they’re just too fast. One of the great points of the first season was its mystery which was put in every arc. The Piffle arc was a bit too fast in order to fully develop this (seriously, I read somewhere that the Piffle arc was the longest chapter in the manga. Why would the creators just reserve a mere three episodes for this, only to air three filler episodes afterwards… that makes no sense at all…) though this arc seems to go into the right direction. There is enough material to make this arc last longer than just three episodes, which will really give the mystery a chance to develop.

First of all, it’s clear that Yasha and Ashura love each other. Then were there differences in their statues? Why was Yasha’s statue crying, and Ashura’s not? Why did Ashura’s statue display an eye, while Yasha’s did not? In fact, how did the two of them even fall in love when they only see each other at the castle, in the middle of people fighting? Second of all, the Kurogane and Fye-clones. If they’re really different people with the same soul, then how the heck did Kurogane get his sword? If they actually are our Kurogane and Fye, why the heck aren’t they at least recognizing Syaoran? Third of all: Mokona mentioned a number of really strong powers. That means more than one, with the strongest one being in the castle. Will this be a country with two feathers as well, or is there any other huge power existant? In any case, it’s not Ashura. After all, when Mokona told Syaoran about this, he would’ve immediately poited at Ashura if she actually was one of the strong powers. If we consider Ashura just as strong as Yasha, this means that there really is more to this world than what was actually shown during this episode.

The way the art was managed in this episode was rather strange. On global level, everything looked awesome, though when you start to look at the details, some of the eyes of the characters recieved very little attention and thus looked horribly off. Still, evil-Kurogane looked just totally awesome, Ashura looked just beautiful, and Sakura, getting embarrased looked just so extremely cute. ^^;

Some interesting details which happened at the beginning of this episode:
– Fye calling Kurogane “Kuro-sama”, and not even in his joking way, but in his serious way. That’s a new one.
– Fye smiled in an evil way when he found out that there was something horrible going on at the second world.
– The leader of the circus troupe hopes that Ashura is not the one to blame for what’s happening, otherwise, she won’t be able to see her lover again. This means that the two worlds are linked in some kind of way, other than just future-past.
– The tears of the leader of the circus troupe are the ones who caused the Ashura statue to open up her third eye, after which the portal to the other world allowed Mokona to get in trance (first time he did that, by the way) and teleport the four to the second world.

Some interesting questions which will probably be some errors on the creators’ side:
– Mokona sent the bottle to Yuuko, but doesn’t she have an eye-for-eye tooth-for-tooth-policy? I wonder what she sent back.
– Why did nobody freak out with Syaoran’s crossdressing? I mean, it isn’t that often that you’d run into a guy, dressed up as a girl, now do you? O_o

This episode started up another one of the arcs, after the countless fillers that preceeded. That, or we have a two-episode filler arc here. After all, all of the events that happened were just enough for one more episode. Then again, the Outo-arc also had a few surprises left.

I’m wondering where Tsubasa Chronicle is going. The bad guys seem to have given up on directing the destinations for our heroes. This probably means that they’re preparing for something big, but what could it be. The fourth episode showed hints that they’ve given up the methods they used in the previous episode, so we might be in for a couple of twists in the future. After all, the show even has a third season, so something has to happen.

Anyway, the episode was once again light, but still enjoyable. This time, Sakura, Mokona and Syaoran are separated from Kurogane and Syaoran. Both parties end up with two rivalling parties. One is a group of traveling circus artists, and the other seems to be the owner of a japanese-like temple. Both parties value a god, which has its own statue. One of battle and misfortune and one of the night and the underworld (interesting note: Fye didn’t know what an underworld means). Both parties have leaders, and guess what? Yes, they’re secretly in love with each other. At the end of the episode, both statues lighted up, the sky split open, Sakura fainted and Mokona noticed another feather.

The comedy didn’t come from Fye and Kurogane, this time. They were like spectators to everything. No, the funny moments came from Syaoran, with Sakura helping him a bit. He was just thrown in such embarrassing situations. For example, the group of travelling circus artists he ended up with consists only of women. Men aren’t allowed. First of all, all of the women get all giddly over him (thank god he’s not a pervert or anything) and second of all, he has to crossdress in order to be able to stay. I especially loved the scene at which he first arrived in his girl’s costume. Especially Sakura’s reaction was too cute. ^^;

Anyway, we recieved another couple of subtle hints about the main plot. First of all, Sakura isn’t the only one with amnesia, as Syaoran also seems to be troubled by this. It’s probably the same day when he lost his eye. Something happened, when he was young that poked out his eye and made him lose his memory. When, why, how and where this happened remains a mystery. Korogane also comes from the Japan-Country. The temple he wound up in really made him nostalgic. This only shows how much he wants to be with Tomoyo again. Fye’s world also seems to have a god called Ashura (one of the two gods, the one the circus artists worship). He’s also been more serious than ever in one episode, instead of his usual playful and cheerful mood. This can suggest three things:
1: It’s an error of the creators. He’s supposed to be cheerful, but they kindof forgot.
2: This world is making him nostalgic as well. He just tries to hide this, instead of Kurogane.
3: The last episode still haunts his mind.
4: He’s unconciously beginning to see that it’s no use to conceal his feelings, or he’s getting less and less motivation to do this.
Okay, four things. Who cares? In any case, the episode was enjoyable, but nothing really more. It wasn’t anything outstanding, or something.

The past three episodes have really been messing up the overall pacing of Tsubasa Chronicle. What once was arc-filler-arc-filler-arc now got turned into arc-filler-filler-filler-possibly even more fillers-arc. The overall pacing of the second season now seems way faster than the first one, which took its time in telling the stories it had to tell. I hope that I’m not smelling budgeting problems.

There are shows at which fast pacing is the best option, for example Noein, Ergo Proxy, xxxHolic. There are also shows which benefit more from a slow pacing, like Mushishi, The Third, Saiunkoku Monogatari. And Tsubasa Chronicle. This show isn’t meant for arcs which only last one episode. It needs to build up a bit.

Anyway, about the episode, it was pretty interesting to see how Fye reacted. He got put in the same situation Kurogane was in the third episode and Syaoran in the fifth episode of the second season. Fye reacts better than Syaoran. Where Syaoran was heavily convinced of the fact that his father was his real father, Fye did understand that Chii wasn’t the same Chii as his Chii. Still, you do see that he’s having trouble remembering this. Still, I do believe that his Chii managed to transport her feelings to this Chii, in order to tell Fye that she wanted to go with him. He gets the message in the end, and then comforts this Chii, hoping that his words will reach his Chii.

It was also great to see all of the Chobits-cameos again. Especially Sumomo and her dances were awesome. I liked the way this world was designed, by the way. It’s an interesting goverment system at which at a certain night, once a year, everyone has a dream about who is to become the next king. This king will reign for a year, until his or her replacement comes. In order to ensure the king’s purity, his or her memory gets temporarily removed. Though indeed, at times, this can backfire when a totally incompetent king gets chosen. Logic is indeed missing from every possible direction, as people should be abl ot do great things with their given magic, though there are absolutely no signs of brilliant ideas, but whatever. Like I said: when you think about it, the show doesn’t make any sense. Solution: don’t think about it.

Tsubasa Chronicle seems to be reluctant to introduce new characters or something. During the entire season, all we’ve seen is either the same characters as in the first season, or copies of those characters, wearing the same soul but existing in a different world. Especially now, that it has been carried over the top, it’s beginning to bother me more and more. It’s a great concept, though the creators really need to look at series like Noein and Higurashi.

Why? Because they seem to have the strange idea that a person remains the same person, and that certain occurrences in his life don’t have any effect on this person, and he or she will just continue living on like he or she was destined to. They made a good attempt at fixing this with the magician, who appeared as a friendly captain on a ship, but he really has been the only copied character who experienced such a change. All other characters just share the same personalities, while they all have experienced different things, which turned them into the characters they are. When you see people like the king and his advisor in the desert world walking right next to each other in another world, then you could blame this on the fact that these were destined together, but what if the two grew up in an entirely different neighborhood? Then they never met each other in the first place. How would they act when a thing like that happens? And I haven’t even started about the physical appearances of the characters. Why does everyone have the same haircut, in all of his or hers different bodies with the same souls? And how about some scars that some characters might have encountered, while their counterparts have not?

This episode also showed me another flaw in this concept. Apparently, characters in different worlds with the same soul can differ from age. What we have here, is a genious concept. But why the heck is Syaoran’s father the only one whose age is different? The creators’d better have a very good reason for this, because at the moment, I’m blaming it on laziness. Another thing is: why haven’t we seen any copies of Syaoran? Or Sakura? Kurogane? Fye? The bad guys? The guys associated with Fye? Clow Reed? The creators can blame this on luck for a single season, though it’s beginning to bother me that they haven’t shown up yet.

Tsubasa Chronicle remains an entertaining anime, despite this. This is mostly because of the individual stories to be told, the great looking art (whenever it’s not suffering from low budgets) and some great characters and character interaction. Still, the fact remains that there’s extremely little time spent on the main storyline, which seems to be the most worthwile story of all. It’s great to see different worlds like that, I’m enjoying the creativity put in it, but I’d also love to see some more time being put into the main story. And I’m also hoping that this show will actually end at with the third season. Obviously, it’s been building up, though I wonder if you can build up too much.

Anyway, rants aside, the episode was an intermezzo again, in which Syaoran meets up with a child-version of his father. Despite their predictable reactions, the rest of the episode was enjoyable to watch. Especially Kurogane played a great part again. No bad guys this time, though. It seems they took a coffee break. The only thing is that the creators wasted yet another potentially good scene. The fact that Syaoran’s father isn’t really Syaoran’s father never gets questioned. I would’ve loved some interesting debates about this. After all, Syaoran is getting all hopeful on just an illusion. His father remains dead, though during the episode, he seems to have forgotten this. Is it really true that you can just replace an important person with someone from another world, who just happens to share the same soul? Then what value does this important person have? Interesting questions, which never seem to surface.

Before I begin with the review, I’d like to bring the great news that this is my exact 250th post! Yay!!!! In a bit more than half a year, I managed to produce quite a number of material. Now, up to the 500!

This episode was a very interesting one. Remember the last episode of the first season? Well, it seems that the spirit world last episode talked about was actually this world, there seems to be another feather at this place, and we have another arc which only takes up one single episode. It brings up some nice discussions, though I believe that this was mostly meant in order to flesh out the main bad guy a bit.

The thing I loved about this episode is the fact that we didn’t get to see a happy ending. The characters who died and got revived back last time, are at the verge of disappearing again. They hope that a second feather, located in the horn on the nose of a dragon will be able to please the statue from last time, so that it’ll be able to stop the people from disappearing.

The feather is obtained, thanks to a smart plan from Kurogane, though then it appears that the statue won’t be saving those people. The wish Sakura made last time appeared to have been a temporary wish. The power of the feather wasn’t enough to accomplish it. What follows is a sad scene of people who have died vanishing once more, saying goodbye to their loved ones for a final time. Even though this didn’t mean a lot in terms of the plot, I found myself enjoying this. It really reminded me of Mushishi in some way.

But then we have the bad guy. He’s first seen when the statue refuses to grant Sakura’s wish, at which he seems in very deep thoughts when he sees this. We get to see him again at the end of the episode, after which the persons have vanished into thin air, or green sparks, in this case. While holding a wine glass, he says the same thing that Sakura’s father (or Clow Reed) said to her when she was young: you can’t bring people back once they have lost their lives. We switch to Syaoran and Sakura for a bit, and when we return to him, the woman arrives. They both agree that everything went as they expected. The wine-glass, however, has fallen and the bad guy looks very annoyed. This suggests that our bad guy has once lost someone he dearly loved. This someone probably has something to do with his reasons for acting. I wonder who it could be, and if we already had this person introduced.

On a side-note: it’s great to see that the quality of the graphics has turned up again. Last episode was just a bit too horrible.
On a side-note-2: Yuuko looks more like xxxHolic-Yuuko than ever.
On a side-note-3: Why the heck doesn’t xxxHolic have Tsubasa-Chronicle references? Or will these just appear in the later episodes?

Compared to the first two episodes, this one was kindof meager. Nothing special really happened, the art looked weird, and everything just seemed to go according to plan. I found myself thinking this after thee quarters of the episode had passed. Then the last part came, and totally waltzed me down with total awesomeness. I felt a huge urge to scream during these scenes.

We start with the crash from last episode. Syaoran and Ryuuoh are indeed out of the race, which makes clear that Sakura was meant to win this race. She manages to catch up to the contestants, and we finally get to see her use some of her power, while she’s aware that she uses this power. For some reason, she’s able to avoid all of the obstacles the other contestants except Kurogane have difficulties with. Kurotan was so cool at that moment.

Anyway, Sakura and Kurogane end up flying next to each other, and the bad guy aims to take out the both of them. Kurogane then sacrifices himself for Sakura, a very noble deed. Syaoran and Ryuuoh, meanwhile, found the location of this culprit. They make clever use of the first-aid zeppelin to bring them there. Kurogane and Fye meanwhile managed to make their way towards Tomoyo, who confesses that she indeed was the one who put nanomachines in the air during the qualification match. She did this in order to make Sakura win, as a certain person told her about the day that our heroes would arrive and about the fact that the feather rightfully belongs to Sakura. Her reasons are quite good, though before Kurogane can ask who this person might be, Tomoyo’s security managed to find out the location of the one who messed with the vehicles in the final round, as there seems to be another party attempting to sabotage the race.

This gets clear once the bad guy attempts to disable Sakura as well. He aims a couple of lasers at her, though Syaoran and Ryuuoh manage to stop him in time. Then it appears that the bad guy is Piffle’s president himself. This explains how he managed to be able to manipulate the race at such a level. His reasons are never given. Though I have a few assumptions. Anyway, Sakura eventually manages to reach the finish in first place, so she wins the feather. Syaoran realizes that there’s still one culprit left, who hasn’t shown himself yet. I wonder how he made that assumption.

Anyway, at that point, my enthusiasm wasn’t really big. The only thing keeping me from getting demotivated were the mysterious person from Tomoyo and the mysterious culprite. The episode had nothing really special, and it felt a bit incomplete. The character art also took a turn for the worse, especially the faces of the characters.

Then, the two missing links got revealed. Holy god, everything suddenly makes sense. The culprit appears to be Dr Kyle from the Jade world. That’s what the woman meant in the first episode when she assumed that he’d be viewed as the same character in a different world. She wasn’t talking about the Syaoran-clone, she was talking about Dr Kyle! My assumptions from last episode were totally wrong as well. Tsubasa Chronicle indeed made a great use of this.

And if things weren’t great already, the one who informed Tomoyo was actually Tomoyo-hime! I found myself having the same reaction as Kurogane at that moment. It really seems that Tomoyo is interfering with Sakura’s quest as well. This also explains why Tomoyo found out about the exact time that our heroes would be showing up, and the fact that Tomoyo trusted Sakura immediately.

Anyway, Mokona demonstrates one of her 108 secret skills: Super Suction Power, in order to protect the feather from Kyle. Sakura gets her feather, Kyle teleports away, the different parties say goodbye and Mokona teleports our heroes to a different world. Then we see the bad guys having a small talk. Cryptic as ever, but we do learn a few things. They are indeed able to direct the world Mokona teleports to. Next time, it’ll be the Spirit World. Sounds scary. Still, what does direct intervention mean? They also begin to see that trying to get the feather for themselves won’t work at all. They also talk about some kind of miracle, what could that be? And why are they so eager to get Sakura to get all of her feathers back, while they try to take the feathers for themselves?

Overall, I liked the Piffy-arc. Especially the first two episodes were great, and the plot twists at the end of this episode also totally made up for the weaker part of the episode.