Ergo Proxy – 14 – Pino = God

This episode was totally messed up. Not in terms of quality, but in terms of storytelling. We have this Proxy who can change his appearance at will, and he keeps bothering Real, Vincent and Pino with this ability. Pino probably featured her best performance up till now. ^_^

The episode begins with a teaser of what happens at the end of the episode. Real phylosophizes a bit. She believes that the world doesn’t end once she dies, though she used to believe this as a child. She’s a true realist, though I’m dying to see her as a child. Then it seems that Vincent seems to have done something stupid, though he seems to blame Real and Pino for this. Then they approach the dome, which probably will be Moscow, Vincent’s homeland.

We then switch to a lake, in which a dead Real is floating, with Vincent and Pino standing right next to her. At this time, I was beginning to scratch my head, and then to think that that only was the beginning.

The OP rolls, and we switch to Pino and Vincent doing some groceries. It seems that they ran into another abandoned city. This time, not even robots or autoraves are active. Real walks around a bit, and gets some visions of Iggy. The city has a strange shape. Much like a huge crater, entirely populated with houses and with a small lake and lots of trees in the middle. She walks around a bit, takes a look at the ship they traveled with and then she arrives at the lake. At that time, she could’ve sworn she saw something. That’s the first clue we get of the Proxy.

Real then goes back to the supermarket, at which Vincent and Pino just finished shopping. While Pino has fun with cans, Real’s as cold as usual. Vincent wants to stay for a while, though Real scolds him, for not being determined. Then, Pino gets cuter than ever when she tries to present her own assembled meal to her. It looks absolutely disgusting. Real immediately turns this down and leaves, with the excuse of keeping a lookout. Vincent, however, doesn’t. Seeing Pino smile like that was just absolutely hilarious. She’s an autorave, so she doesn’t have the slightest ideas about taste. I don’t think the Proxy was at this scene. Both characters acted natural and said things that an outsider wasn’t supposed to know. (Like Real who drinks a lot of Ginger Ale and Vincent’s goal to reach Moscow) Though it would have been too funny if he actually was pretending to be one of them. ^^

We then switch to Real, complaining about how Vincent and Pino bring her in a bad mood. Back to Vincent, he’s packing and runs into the Proxy, pretenting to be Real, eating the pea soup from before. When he tells her to hurry, she tells him that she’s eating at the moment. Vincent gives her some ginger ale and then goes to get some water, along with Pino (she looked too awesome carrying that big can like that ^^).

Back to Real, the fake proxy gives her a visit, pretending to be Vincent. He brings her the same ginger ale as he just got from the real Vincent. He then suggests to stay here for a while. When you see this, and don’t know about the Proxy, the scene turns hilarious: first, Real tells Vincent to pack things up and leave as soon as possible. Vincent packs, but then he sees Real, taking it easy. Then Vincent comes back to Real, and he is the one again to suggest to stay and Real is the one to suggest to leave fast. Still, when you know about the Proxy, this scene makes perfect sense. The Proxy is lonely, and he hopes for the two of them to stay.

In any case, when the face Vincent set up an incredibly fake speech, asking Real in a very sad tone whether she didn’t love him anymore, I began to suspect something. These feelings only got confirmed when the real Real pushed the fake Vincent off the roof of the supermarket, only to disappear into nothingness afterwards. The fact remains that the Proxy didn’t know about the two of them. He just thought that they were a couple with a child. He also thought they were still lovey-dovey, so that’s why he set up the act he did. He also let himself get pushed off, in order to try and test how Real would react to this.

Vincent, meanwhile managed to get enough water. Then he runs into the fake Real. She sets up an angry voice, and she asks for the autorave. Then she attempts to kill Pino and Vincent locks her in a storage room. When he hears her reasons, it appears that Pino wanted to kill her. Vincent doubts this, of course, though he still asks Pino in a very kind way. Out of her explanation, it seems that Vincent believes that this was because of the food that Pino made. He indeed reckons that Real overexaggerated a bit. What follows is the fake Real, falling off the roof of the supermarket, right in front of Vincent’s eyes. He then sees a figure on top of the roof, and heads there. While he does, he notices that the storage room from before is open again.

When he gets to the top of the roof, the fake Real is gone, only to appear behind him. She then asks him a few questions, which Vincent can’t answer and runs away. Pino, meanwhile, gets visited by the fake Vincent, carrying the real Real’s unconcious body. They head for the lake, and the fake Vincent drops the body of the real Real in the lake. It sinks, only to rise again. Pino then thinks that Real has died.

When the real Vincent, meanwhile checks up on the Centzon (the ship they came with) he notices that it’s gone. He then thinks that Real and Pino left without him. And that he’s alone again. He then notices that something’s happening at the lake. Back to Pino, she totally manages to pwn the Proxy when she unmasks him. She also mentions something very interesting: there are two real Reals. Does the other Real mean the Proxy, pretending to be Real, or does this mean that Real’s got another appearance? Then, the fake Vincent attempts to strangle Pino, but then he sees that she’s an autorave, who can’t be strangled. Still, when he acted as Real, he did mention the fact that Pino was an autorave. What’s up with that?

The real Vincent meanwhile arrives at the lake, and then he sees the fake Real, sinking into the lake. Vincent dives after her, and manages to save her. She then opens her eyes, and attempts to drown him. This looked pretty amusing. ^^

Pino meanwhile managed to save the real Real from drowning. The two of them realize that both of them aren’t the proxy, though Real realizes that something’s happening. What follows is Vincent and the Proxy, floating in the depths of the lake and finding out about the facts that they both are Proxy. The Proxy then tells Vincent about his loneliness. Everywhere he appeared, people fled. Nobody acknowledged him. He then killed everyone in the city, in the hope of disappearing, though it didn’t work. He hopes to eliminate himself, along with Vincent. He then tries to break Vincents mind, in tricking him to die along with him.

Vincent then surfaces, only to see the fake Real standing before him. She yells at him, and he realizes that she’s the fake one. This scene repeats for a while. During this, the fake Vincent also shows the bodies of all of the former citizens he killed, stored in the middle of the lake. I think this all happens in the head of the Proxy, as Vincent then sees the same scene of Real standing on the shore. He decides to go extreme by strangling her. Though then Pino comes to her. This makes Vincent think that he really killed the real Real, while in fact, they’re just standing on the other side of the lake, watching the two Vincents talk to each other. Real noted exceptionally well that the fake Vincent didn’t have a reflection in the water.

Then, both of the Vincents sink again. Then, Vincent surfaces yet again, as yet again the same scene happens. though this time, the fake real is the real real. We then switch to the ship again, where the episode started. Apparently, Vincent caught a cold after being in the lake for so long (you’d wonder why Real didn’t, as she also was dumped into the lake). The Proxy probably cut the ropes which were holding the Centzon at its place, so it drifed off. Vincent then managed to recover it. Vincent then relates himself to the Proxy. They were both lonely. Though Pino and Real managed to save him. They managed to give his life meaning. We also see Real smile for one of the first times in the series.

Each Proxy’s ability and way of thinking is entirely different from the others. Some of them have a human form, like Ergo and Kazkiz, while others don’t, like the one from episode 12 and Senekis. Some Proxy can really think for themselves, like Kazkiz, Ergo and the one from this episode, while others are just killing machines, like Senekis and others are just savage beasts like the one from episode 12. Some Proxy have two minds, like Ergo, while others have just one mind, like Kazkiz. Some use their hair as weapon, others like to change their appearance to confuse the enemy, others just use their hands in combat. And I can keep going on like that for a while.

Overall, I just love the mind games that this anime is playing. I wonder what’ll happen when the characters reach Moscow.