Black Lagoon – episode 9

June 15, 2006 on 10:17 am | In Black Lagoon | 8 Comments

“Maid to Kill”

I wrote in my notes “this is clearly the best show ever to be on television”. I was being more hyperbolic than sarcastic, as Black Lagoon packs so much sheer entertainment value that I’m surprised I didn’t simply explode from all of it while watching this on the train.

When I mentioned a couple of weeks back “two types of killers”, I failed to mention the type that is embodied by Roberta: “attack robot from the future”. The coldness of Revy was motivated by some sort of visible anger, but Roberta gives the audience her icy determination to complete her mission.

Roberta opens fire on the Cartel and freaks Garcia out due to her sheer blood bath creating ability. Due to his refusal to leave, Lagoon Company is in a heap of trouble and escapes from the Yellow Flag only to find the determined maid right behind them.

This is possibly the most entertaining episode of Black Lagoon yet, and is certainly the least challenging of them all. The concept that we have on hand is that of a maid who has a shotgun built into her bulletproof umbrella, and a briefcase that is apparently a combination machine-gun, rocket launcher and ammo dump. In addition to this, said maid has the ability to explode a building with a dress full of grenades, escaping unharmed. She can punch through the window of a car and hot wire it without a sound.

But, best of all, she has the power to pull Dutch out of a speeding car. Her, a maid, and him a giant man who has to weigh at least twice as much as she does. Benny questioned her prowess at one point in the episode, and Dutch essentially told him to discard any of his concepts of reality: Roberta really is a Terminator. She has a moment when she displays an emotion: when she gets rejected by Garcia, who is probably her only real anchor to humanity. Her eyes are hidden most of the time, but they reveal her emotions far greater than her actions do. At the moment I can’t tell if Roberta is trying to reclaim that which made her happy, or has just abandoned everything in an attempt to complete her mission. Well, obviously Garcia can’t stay with Lagoon Company: a character design that generic couldn’t survive long in that world.

Next episode is possibly the conclusion of this story, with the meeting of the three most dangerous women in the world. Black Lagoon truly is the best of this kind of show: it’s ridiculous without being totally stupid, by virtue of its entertainment factor.

8 Comments

  1. It’s not just her that can survive a massive building explosion. 😉 The owner of the Yellow Flag survived too. He’s so lucky Bala~ is willing to pay his insurance.

    Comment by Skane — June 15, 2006 #

  2. The price that the owner has to pay for his survivability is that he owns the most prone to explosions building in all of the seas.

    Comment by Alex — June 15, 2006 #

  3. This was truly awesome. Even though it was mostly predictable it still surprised and amused me to no end that they really went that far. It’s hard believe that she isn’t related to the T-1000.

    Comment by Chris — June 16, 2006 #

  4. The scene of Roberta chasing the car on foot was directly taken from the Terminator movies. It’s also interesting to see that her eyes changed to those of a normal human at that point. It’s as if she is telling Garcia: Are you going to abandon me after all that we have been through together?!

    I really want to know more about Balalaika’s past and her relation with Dutch. Let’s hope we’ll get some of that next episode. I guess it takes a soldier to take down a soldier.

    Black lagoon is definitely my favourite show this season without exception. It’s a shame that it will only last for 12 episodes. It should at least get 26 episodes. Madhouse betrayed me!!

    Comment by Mohammad — June 17, 2006 #

  5. […] Exhibit A: Take a gander at some of these screencaps that Alex has from a series called “Black Lagoon”. […]

    Pingback by Twenty-Sided ? Blog Archive » Why I love Anime, Part 2 — June 21, 2006 #

  6. That last shot of Roberta’s sad eyes… for the FIRST time in this series can I honestly say “Aww, so cute!!”

    Comment by Ronin Aquila — October 13, 2006 #

  7. The soundtrac and robertas speech tone is super.
    🙂
    nice job.

    Comment by karlsoni — June 22, 2007 #

  8. This episode reminds me of the movie “desperado”.
    LOol

    Comment by Bob!!! — August 29, 2008 #

Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.

Powered by WordPress with Pool theme design by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds. Valid XHTML and CSS. ^Top^