Sonic X, Episode 2.23: The Beginning of the End

Sonic X, Episode 2.23: The Beginning of the End 

Japanese Title: The Day the World Stood Still

Japanese Air Date: March 7th, 2004

U.S. Air Date: March 12th, 2005

After saving the world from the ignition of the Earth's Bellybutton, Sonic and friends have returned to what they do best: Mooching off their rich friend! Sonic is running around the world, performing random acts of heroism, while his friends just chill at Chris' mansion. But an ominous threat lurks on the horizon: The merger of Earth and Sonic's world is going to cause an apocalypse. The only solution is to use Chaos Control to separate the worlds again. Chris, who realizes this means he'll never see Sonic again, is sent into a panic. He hunts down Eggman, who he is convinced is responsible for this latest impending disaster. 

Before we go any further into this review, I have to unpack the completely nonsensical threat this episode presents. The idea that Earth and Sonic's world being Chaos Controlled together would have unforeseen, disastrous consequences seems reasonable enough. Even if Sonic just teleported a big chunk of land into the water around Station Square, that would probably wreak havoc on the local ecosystem. If he really did fuse the two worlds, all sorts of crazy shit can be expected to happen. But this is not the approach the episode takes. Instead, a scientist named Chaco Bankissy – who has the slightly less insane name of Kim Bickley in the dub – delivers a rambling explanation that the separate time frames the two planets existed in will cancel each other out and will cause time to "die." I don't really understand what any of that means but I'm pretty sure physics doesn't back it up. 

Moreover, nobody really explains what time "dying" means. Does it mean the Earth will stop rotating around the sun? Does it mean our progression into the future will freeze, and we'll be stuck living the same day, like "Groundhog Day?" Does it mean all movement across the universe will slowly come to a stop? And how will two worlds being fused do that? No answer is provided. Instead, the threat of time "dying" is just an excuse for the show to be forced to separate the two worlds. It's a way for the series to build towards a series finale, of Sonic and his friends being returned home. But I think the writers probably could've cooked up something less inexplicable and vague than this. 

The upcoming apocalypse is really just a plot device, to set up what this episode is really about: Chris Thorndyke being forced to reckon with the fact that Sonic will be going home soon. In an early scene, the boy is writing some sort of school essay, asking him to envision what he wants for his future. All he can think of is being with Sonic. Chris has built his entire personality around his (largely one-sided) friendship with Sonic. Just the idea of Sonic leaving Earth forever sends the boy into an ego death spiral that causes him to do something reckless: Walk right into the base of a villain that has tried to kill him multiple times. 

I knew Chris' attachment to Sonic was unhealthy but this episode shows that it's much worse than I previously thought. Chris has pinned his entire self-worth on his friendship with Sonic. If the hedgehog is gone, the boy might as well not exist. This is how badly his absentee parents have fucked him up. Chris knows his parents don't love him, because they're never around. (Ella notes, at the cook-out early in the episode, that this is the first time the entire family has been together in a year.) Sonic is also never around – he's barely in this episode – but at least he occasionally nods in Chris' general direction. That acknowledgement is the only thing keeping Chris going. This is a kid with no confidence or sense of self at all, unless Sonic is with him. What a supremely fucked-up human being and he's not even a teenager yet. I feel bad for him.

And what is the solution to Chris's mental breakdown? After Eggman left them for dead last time, Decoe and Bocoe have turned their backs on their creator. Now they work for the Thorndykes, as some form of community service in response to the crimes they presumably committed while employed by Eggman. (This causes me to imagine hilarious meetings between the robots and their parole officers.) Chris finds the bots, they perform a wacky transformation to summon Bukkon, who leads them to the hut Eggman now lives in. After the villain tells the boy he's not responsible for the upcoming disaster, he tells him he's being selfish and threatens to beat him with a ruler. Somehow, this causes Chris to return home, hug his parents, and decide everything will be alright. I really feel like Eggman's advice would make things worst though! Like I said, this kid is going to be in therapy for the rest of his life. 

I've spent almost this whole review talking about Chris' deeply troubling neurosis but other things happen in this episode. We already know, from a previous episode, that Sonic has inspired people to make lifestyle changes. To work less and pursue what makes them happy. This trend now has a name: The Freedom Movement. And it's sweeping Station Square. This seems to amount to people wearing shirts that say "FREEDOM" and calling off work. So many of Nelson's employees have not been coming into work that he's put everyone on vacation for a whole month... Everybody except for Mr. Tanaka and Ella, I guess. But I suppose they do everything in the Thorndyke Mansion because they love the family, right? 

And good for a Bezosian billionaire like Nelson Thorndyke to give everyone in his company a month of paid vacation. He can probably afford it. Not that a ruthless capitalist, who demands constant growth, would ever do this in real life. A month where no one works means a month of no profit generated, a concept that would probably turn Elon Musk grey. Mostly, I'm thinking of the workers who can't afford to just not work whenever they don't want to. What about Helen's dad, who worked himself to the bone to pay his daughter's medical bills? What does Amy, who is now working as a waitress in a cafe, think of this? Unless Sonic's free-wheeling attitude caused a massive change in society and government, from the top down, that puts the happiness of the individual human above corporate greed, the Freedom Movement is bullshit. It's just a bunch of rich folks on vacation, wearing t-shirts that were probably made in sweatshops. 

Anyway, sorry for the socialist rant. I do that sometimes. Hey, want to know a weird bit of trivia? According to this episode, Station Square is in Arizona. We know this because, during a scene starring Sam Speed, we see a freeway sign informing us that Station Square is ten miles outside of Flagstaff, 150 miles from Phoenix, and 265 miles away from Tucson. How this correlates with Station Square also being on a bay, as depicted in previous episodes, I don't know. Maybe, on the wacky "Sonic X" version of Earth, Arizona stretches all the way to the west coast. Or maybe someone built a massive man made lake out in the middle of the desert. Or maybe Sam Speed, the star of this scene, moved several states away from his sister when no one was looking and this scene isn't meant to take place in Station Square. Until we get some other proof, I'm going with the "enormous made made lake" theory.

That Sam Speed scene, by the way, is the sole action sequence in the episode. It involves the race car driver pursuing a Freedom Movement guy who is ignoring speed limits, which suggest there's more to this philosophy than what we see here. Anyway, Sonic swoops in to pluck the guy out of his sports car after he drives it off a bridge. Otherwise, this is a character-driven episode with lots of scenes of people just hanging out. Such as when Eggman attempts to prepare a meal – which looks like a burnt miniature tree trunk full of grape jello – for Bukkon. Why does a robot need to eat? Anyway, I enjoyed this one because I like to deconstruct Chris Thorndyke's psychological trauma but it's definitely kind of a weird one. [6/10]