Sonic X, Episode 2.05: Revenge of the Robot

Sonic X, Episode 2.05: Revenge of the Robot

Japanese Title: Gamma the Wanderer

Japanese Air Date: November 2nd, 2003

U.S. Air Date: October 16th, 2004

The previous episode of "Sonic X" ended with Chris stumbling upon the white Chaos Emerald and this one begins with him running to find Knuckles. Sonic explores the Mystic Ruins and then discovers Final Egg, Eggman's secret jungle base. Meanwhile, Gamma — freed from his servitude to Eggman by Amy's kindness — embarks on a quest to find his "brothers" in the E-100 suite and free them as well. Amy heads to the sunken Egg Carrier to reunite her little blue bird friend with her family, where our story threads converge. 

When I was looking at the guide for season two of "Sonic X," I was surprised to see an episode between the obvious final battle upon the Egg Carrier and the episode devoted to the Super Sonic/Perfect Chaos battle, the not-so-secret final boss of "Sonic Adventure." This is because, in the decade or so it's been since I last played this video game, I forgot there was quite a bit of story in-between these two points. "Gamma the Wanderer" is an episode devoted to that area, essentially wrapping up any lingering plot points from the first four episodes of the season. This basically means rushing through Sonic's final boss bottle and the rest of Gamma and Amy's stories. 

And when I say "rushing through," I mean it. Sonic's confrontation with Eggman and his Egg Viper, one of the hardest boss battles in the game, is reduced to a brief scuffle here. Basically, Eggman pins Sonic with the machine's tail for a minute before the hedgehog breaks free and wrecks the device. I guess this follows "Sonic X" logic, considering the ease with which this version of Sonic destroys any of Eggman's other machines. The climax of Amy Rose's story, a fight with Zero, gets even less attention. Literally, the entire boss battle is reduced to the robot lunging at Amy and her smacking it aside with her hammer. That's it. This show has got to find a compromise between listlessly recapping the game's event and just breezing through them. 

After Sonic's underwhelming confrontation in Final Egg, the rest of this episode is mostly devoted to Gamma's solo story. "Sonic X" actually takes a pretty interesting approach to that. Instead of hunting his "brothers" down and blowing them the fuck up, Gamma peacefully releases the animal inside each robot without a fight. Obviously, this was done in order to condense Gamma's entire story into one episode. (Really, more like half of one episode.) In execution, it makes the robot look like a merciful savior freeing his kind from enslavement at the hands of their master. Which actually works pretty well. That Eggman has the other E-100s chained up in random places — or, in the case of the previously unmentioned E-105 Zeta, transformed into some sort of engine inside the Egg Carrier — certainly emphasizes the villain's senseless cruelty. 

Of course, there is some robot-on-robot violence in this episode. As in the game, E-101 Beta has been given a heavily-armed upgrade, which Gamma has to tango with. The episode tries to play up the tragedy of the situation, Gamma being forced to fight his brother and being destroyed himself after freeing him. Since these events played out in nonlinear order in the game, another irony becomes apparent here: Gamma and Beta contain the birds that Amy's blue bird has been searching for. So it's still a happy ending of sorts, the feathery family reunited. But I think Gamma's story works better in isolation, where it seems like the robot gives his life to ensure his final brother is free of enslavement. 

This episode also does its due diligence setting up the game's final-final boss. Sonic dives into the Mystic Ruins, gets a vision from Tikal, and sees an ancient placard depicting Perfect Chaos. The very last image of the episode is Chaos attacking Eggman and the sky growing dark. Perfect Chaos' appearance has been so heavily foreshadowed by this point that it would've removed any surprise from the story. (If I didn't know where this story was going anyway.) Kind of makes you wonder why this show — and the game it's adapting too, I guess — went to the trouble of stopping Eggman from feeding Chaos all the emeralds anyway. 

Even when this deep into adapting a plot-heavy video game, "Sonic X" still can't resist adding some bizarre comic relief for seasoning. Eggman dismisses his robot minions. Decoe and Bocoe were left on the Egg-Carrier and Eggman is too tired and fed-up to give Bokkun a cutesy task after delivering a message. Which made me chuckle. The strangest gag is one that only makes sense in "Sonic X." After saving the city, Tails has become something of a celebrity. In order to sneak out of the Thorndyke mansion without being harassed by the press, Ella seemingly disguises Tails as a bundled-up infant in a baby carriage... Before revealing that Mr. Tanaka is dressed up as the baby. Ella then, for no reason, spins a yarn about how she was impregnated in Japan and awaits the chance to see her lover again. (Tails is hiding up Ella's dress, which is actually the least freaky thing about this series of events.) I don't know why that detail was necessary, nor why Tanaka stays in the baby disguise for the entirety of the following scene. But I'm glad the show threw that in. "AoStH"-style surreal humor is even more delightful when surrounded by boring Sega shit. 

I found myself getting some enjoyment out of Gamma's particular storyline, so this episode hardly bored me. But I do feel the "Sonic Adventure" adaptation continues to be rather routine and lifeless. If I wanted to play the game, ya know, I would've just played the game. The times "Sonic X" departs from the "Adventure" script, whether that be through weirdo humor or reinterpretations of the game's events, have been the best moments here of late. [6/10]