Sonic X, Episode 2.11: Robotnik’s Revenge

Sonic X, Episode 2.11: Robotnik’s Revenge

Japanese Title: Battle on the Space Colony ARK

Japanese Air Date: December 14th, 2003

U.S. Air Date: November 27th, 2004

The majority of "Sonic X's" on-going plots converge on the ARK for a final showdown. Tails plans to install a fake Chaos Emerald into Eggman's Eclipse Cannon, disrupting the entire scheme. Yet Eggman discovers this. He then captures Sonic, who is holding the fake, and launches him into space before exploding the pod. Tails, driven into a rage by his best friend's apparent death, attacks Eggman. Meanwhile, Knuckles retrieves the Master Emerald from Rouge, who was in the process of downloading some secret files on Shadow. After he learns Sonic survives the blast, Shadow races off to destroy his rival. Eggman activates the Eclipse Cannon anyway... Which activities a secret video where Gerald Robotnik reveals the ARK's final purpose: To crash into the Earth and destroy all life. 

If the above plot synopsis didn't make it clear, "Sonic Adventure 2's" plot gets increasingly convoluted in the final stretch. This episode has about four or five dramatic twists. The secret documents Rouge downloads reveals that two escape pods were launched from the ARK that fateful day fifty years. That multiple prototypes for Shadow exist, which leads to the suggestion that Shadow might not even be the real Shadow. Is any of that going to be relevant? The mix-up between the real Chaos Emerald and the fake Tails makes is needlessly contrived. Once you introduce the phony MacGuffin, that is only half as powerful as the real MacGuffin, you officially have too many MacGuffins. 

All of this is before Gerald Robotnik's secret video plays, a plot point that raises a lot of question. So Gerald correctly assumed someone would attempt to fire the Eclipse Cannon in the future? And decided causing the space colony to crash into Earth would be a preferable fate over whatever this future person had planned? And he somehow recorded this message from the comfort of his hyper-secure jail cell, as the video clearly shows the wall of crazy formulas behind him that appeared in an earlier episode. How did he get the video file from Prison Island back to the ARK? It's a mess of events designed to make sure the last third of the arc is hyper-dramatic and not so concerned with any of it making sense. 

And yet even this is not "Robotnik's Revenge" biggest bullshit move. The scene where Sonic seemingly dies is pretty dark. Eggman tortures Amy by squeezing her inside a giant claw. Sonic jokes that he doesn't care if Amy dies, which is really fucked-up. This is right before Eggman captures Sonic, launches him into space, and blows him the fuck up. Obviously, Sonic isn't really dead. His name is in the title of the show! But it is a decently unexpected moment, Tails and Chris both being moved to tears by their best friend apparently being exploded. 

It's such a good death trap that there was really no way for Sonic to escape it. The solution the "Sonic Adventure 2" writers cooked up — that the "Sonic X" team felt the need to replicate, even though they could've rewritten it to make more sense — is that Sonic somehow uses the fake Chaos Emerald Tails designed to Chaos Control himself out of the pod. Yes, our hero who has previously never displayed the ability to teleport somehow gains and masters that superpower within the span of thirty seconds. And he does it by using a fake Chaos Emerald. Will Sonic's newfound ability to teleport ever be brought up again? What do you think? This is such an egregious ass-pull that I've been mad about it since 2001. The writers just gave Sonic a new superpower to get him out of a bad jam! You can't do that, man. It's against the rules of writing or some shit. He didn't get out of the cockadoodie escape pod! (Equally insulting is the implication that Sonic and Shadow have some sort of connection, even though Sonic was born forty-five years after Shadow was ejected into space.)

"Sonic Adventure 2's" story, and the "Sonic X" adaptation of it, shambling apart near the end is almost besides the point. The game had to find some excuse to get Team Hero and Team Dark on the ARK at the same time, so they could fight it. Each hero's story needed to end with a big battle with their dark side counterpart. Knuckles battles Rouge, Tails fights Eggman, and Sonic and Shadow duke it out. This is a requirement that couldn't be denied. So even if it makes no sense that Rouge stops in the middle of downloading the Project Shadow files to fight Knuckles, it had to happen. Even if it seems slightly out of character for Tails to start blasting machine guns at Eggman while grieving Sonic, it had to happen. Even if Sonic escaping death to have a final dramatic race with Shadow is completely nonsensical, it had to motherfucking goddamn shit-eating happen!!!

Anyway, I want to talk about that Rouge/Knuckles fight some more. Apparently Rouge really did steal the Master Emerald, an event this show previously did not feel the need to clarify. It's been on the ARK the whole time. I guess Angel Island has been slowly sinking into the sea these last few episodes, something this cartoon did not deem important enough to depict. As I said, there's really no reason for this fight scene to happen. Rouge has practically abandoned the façade of being an Eggman collaborator and Knuckles should probably recognize her as a good guy at this point. 

The fight is actually there to insert more belligerent sexual tension between Knux and Rouge. This is especially true of the moment where Knuckles rescues Rouge after he knocked her off a scaffolding. Obviously, Rouge can fly and in the game, it's implied that she just let him save her so she could tease him about it later. (Either that or the video game was just badly written. But, no, that's impossible.) That doesn't really work in this show, since Rouge and Knuckles haven't flirted as much here. Also, Knuckles bloodies Rouge's face the minute before knocking her towards the edge, which has to be one of the few instances of blood appearing in official "Sonic" media. She's pretty pissed with him afterwards and it seems sincere. Granted, any attempt to ship-tease Knuckles and Route was always going to fail, since Topaz and Rouge are obviously already dating, but the whole scene is ill-conceived. 

About the only subplot that pays off in a satisfying way is Mr. Stewart and Scarlett Garcia's on-going investigation into Project: Shadow. They hunt down the guy they've been looking for at a nursing home. It turns out he was one of the G.U.N. soldiers that was on the ARK fifty years ago. In fact, he was the guy who shot Maria. He's still traumatized by it five decades later. I guess murdering an unarmed child in cold blood will do that to you. It's a scene that serves the plot, as it reveals Shadow's recollection of this event is false. But moreover, it's just effectively written. Even if it's surrounded by bullshit like Scarlett revealing her dad was a G.U.N. agent, a worthless revelation, or a karate fight with some secret agents in black suits. (Though that scene at least clarifies that the MIBs appearing in the last episode wasn't just this show's random-access humor at work.)

About the only other thing I really liked about this episode is the brief scene where Knuckles nearly crashes the space shuttle into the ARK, because he detects the Master Emerald and jerks the controls out of Sonic's hands. That scene had big "JOO TAKE MAH EMMERROWDS" energy and it made me laugh. Overall, this is another episode that proves "Sonic X" is at its messiest when following the video games closely. The "Sonic Adventure 2" adaptation was stronger when it strayed more from the video game, possibly because the game's plot wasn't that good to begin with. But at least it's almost over... [5/10]