Ergo Proxy – 21 – Let The Finale Begin

And we’re finally back in Romdeau, in which Ergo Proxy has three episodes in order to conclude its story. So far, strange things have happened, interesting things have happened, twisted things have happened, but these things haven’t been anything amazing yet. Let’s hope that the final two episodes will be able to deliver.

Anyway, we start the episode in the Usagi. It seems that Vincent left first, after he didn’t return after a while, Real went out in order to check up on him. That was Thirty thousand two hundred thirty three Usagis ago. Pino then gets sick of waiting and goes out on her own. It seems crisis struck ever since Raul launched the rocket, and more and more autoraves have been infected with Cogito. It seems that the citizens of Romdeau are fiercely battling against the infected autoraves. For some reason, the autoraves are now referred to as “entourages”.

Back to Real, she’s been wandering around in Romdeau, meeting different people At times, she saw glimpses of Vincent, though he was in Proxy-one-mode at that time. Even after the episode ended we still have no idea why this happened. Anyway, she first meets up with the Autorave Control Department, otherwise known as the department where Vincent started working at the beginning of the series. Next up she meets some kind of government official, who acts a little strange. He just sits behind an empty desk, thinking that it’s full of paperwork, a computer and a keyboard, and he actually moves like he would move if they were actually there. In any case, he mentions the ADW-project.

Next up, she meets with Daedalus. He’s been getting weirder ever since. Meanwhile, Pino is seen, running through the streets and we switch to Vincent. Not as Ergo Proxy, but as Proxy One, mentioned above. He finally arrives at Monad Proxy. He finds the things Donov has done to her horrible, even though he was the one who killed her. He then realizes she has a name tag: Proxy #13. And it indeed seems that every Proxy has its own number. Ergo is #1, Monad is #13. And now that I think of it, remember the late Kazkiz Proxy? He mentioned that each Proxy is some kind of emissary. Ever since that episode, I never saw any traces of those emissaries again. What’s up with them?

In any case, it also seems that every Proxy has a pendant, with its number engraved on it. That explains why last episode’s Proxy had one. Then, the fake Real runs into him. For some reason, she isn’t scared of him at all. Proxy One does show that he still knows Real, when he’s surprised when the girl has the same name as she does. The fake Real then suddenly claims that she also loved Monad Proxy. And she suddenly runs away. I think it was because she was about to lose confidence.

Back to Real and Daedalus. Real apologizes to him that she couldn’t do anything that she set out to do. Strangely enough, Daedalus has really convinced himself that the fake Real has become the real Real, and he sees the real real Real as a traitor. Daedalus then reveals that a mysterious thing called the Eumesis was destroyed. No idea what that might be, but Vincent seems to be behind it. Because of that, the “Aus Der Wickel”-project was started, the human restructuring project. It was bound to fail, and I didn’t really get this explanation. Anyway, the light Raul sent at episode 17 appears to be “Rapture”.

We then switch to Vincent, who plans to invades the city council room. For some reason, the statues refer to him as “The Creator” in a rather cryptic near-monologue. Could it be that Proxy One has created Romdeau in the first place? Anyway, some references to Descartes later, and Proxy One attempts to strangle Donov. Probably in order to get revenge on Monad. Meanwhile, we see Pino arrive at the house where she used to live, hearing someone play piano. Nothing is shown about her afterwards, but when you consider some events that happen at the end of this episode with Pino’s original master, before she got infected with Cogito, things shouldn’t be that hard to figure out.

Anyway, Real has also arrived in the same room, and she sees Vincent, attempting to kill Donov. She tries to shoot her, though she can’t save her grandfather. She’s also very hesitant to shoot him. Vincent then turns to her. Then, Raul comes from out of nowhere and shoots from yet another Proxy-killing pistol. While Vincent is slowly dying, Raul begins to laugh maniacally.

So they did turn him into the main antagonist after all. I wonder what they’re planning to do with the final two episodes. Without a doubt, some huge revelations are about to come. After all, this story has so many unanswered questions left that I won’t even bother to try and list them. But what about Vincent? Surely, the dying process can’t take two whole episodes, or can it? Will he really die, or will he be saved miraculously?