Predictions and Observations:
The Lockdown Duel I

The new named character, Alex. Seems fairly friendly, if really, really ridiculously chatty and a bit self-serving. I wonder what he's in for? Said he got the Hive for starting a food fight in the Facility cafeteria.
Yusei seems a bit slow to warm to people, but every new person we've seen him meet so far has either started out as an enemy (Tanner), or been talking at him when he had a whole lot on his mind (Yunagi and Alex).

We got a close look at Yusei's Sign; it looks like the head or the face of the dragon.

That's Aster Phoenix! Alex is voiced by Pete Zarustica (aka Oliver Wyman), I'm absolutely sure, who in addition to Aster, also played (coincidentally, I'm sure) Professor Alex and Alexander the Great (alter-egos in some weird way) from Capsule Monsters. It's kinda fun to know trivia about voice actors, since they often double up on multiple known characters like this. Of course, Wikipedia is the best source for such things, I've found, so don't call it 100% fact.

So they threw Tanner and Yunagi in the Hive, too? Just to get at Yusei? Well, they're smarter than I gave them credit for. That would be how to go about picking a fight with Yusei.

Goodwin told Armstrong to create a situation in which Yusei wants to duel. It's not like Yusei wouldn't accept if Armstrong just challenged him, especially if the stakes were say, he wins, he walks. I don't suppose Armstrong has the guts to risk losing anything if he loses, plus what Goodwin meant to say is create a situation where Yusei absolutely can't afford to lose. So we have this; he follows the blueprint for making dire stakes where there are none. He bullies and threatens Yusei's friends, threatens bystanders who did nothing wrong, and presents a clear opportunity to lay down and take it or to step up. But Armstrong also saw Yusei vs. Tanner, so he already knows Yusei isn't the type to let people get away with bullying; he said to Yunagi regarding that duel, "If I don't step up, I'll never live it down." Alex is right, though; either way Armstrong stirred up trouble for Yusei by doing this because if Yusei HADN'T stepped up, his would have been the first door beat down to figure out who Tanner's "accomplice" was, and he probably would've been framed for it anyway to save everyone else's hides. Either way, Armstrong had Yusei right where he wanted him. But that doesn't mean he isn't in for a nasty surprise. Careful what you wish for, Armstrong; this is the wrong canon in which to be a bully, and your defeat will make Tanner's smackdown look gentle!

The food fight and laundry room incidents suggest that Tanner's been in the Facility for four years plus, which once again widens the theoretical gap between Jack's betrayal and the present: That no one ever gets out of the Hive and that Tanner was in the normal detention when Yusei got there suggests that Tanner has never been to the Hive before. That Alex had a run-in with Tanner (the laundry room incident), was put in the Hive four years ago, and Tanner's never been to the Hive, suggests that Tanner has been in the Facility for at least four years. That Tanner got schooled by Jack as a pro suggests that Jack has been a pro for four years plus, which means that he stole the white runner and Stardust over four YEARS ago! Unless of course Alex was exaggerating either about never being let out or about the number of years, or unless Tanner's been in and out of the Facility and got back to the pro league inbetween.
Tanner's being widely known in the Hive is also unusual. Alex said that no one in there ever gets out, so Tanner must never have been there, and yet gossip traveled there about Tanner and Yusei's duel, and it seems that everyone already knows who Tanner is. Then again, how often is it a former pro comes to the Facility? Maybe it's just the name they recognize.

Just what does the moon symbolize in 5D's? I really do feel that it symbolizes something, some sense of forlorn unity, cohesiveness. The world of 5D's is one of two extremes: with Jack, the top of New Domino and the pro league, and with Yusei, the most persecuted satellite in the Facility. But they both see the same moon, whether it be from a palatial window or through a crack in the Satellite pavement, from a lush estate with its own runner track or through the bars of a cell. They see the same moon and they think about the same things: this episode they both wondered whether they really could summon this huge dragon they saw, and how: "Was I really able to bring out the Crimson Dragon?" Yusei asks himself, and Jack rides around in circles all night trying to make the dragon appear. The dichotomy is beautiful. Yusei and Jack are social opposites, the top of the City and the bottom of the Satellite, but they are undefeated except for each other. And they both see the same moon. The moon also has a magnetism to it, that it symbolizes what people are aiming for; it continues with the theme of freedom when Alex described their escape route: "The real moon and everything." Only fitting, because Jack is gunning for a rematch with Yusei to free himself of the guilt of deception, pretending he's still the world champ when he knows that he got bested, if not officially so. Right now, Yusei, I think, wants some answers, real answers, without Goodwin and Armstrong's lies and tricks, and for him that means finding Jack again, who's an honorable opponent, if not entirely trustworthy. My favorite Jadenism was always "because in a duel, the truth ALWAYS comes out!" So the moon symbolizes how very similar and connected Jack and Yusei still are, and what they aim to find is each other.

There won't be another chance? There's always another. For one, we've already seen Yusei jam a mark-tracking signal, in "On Your Mark...", which, incidentally, qualifies him as "a hacker with super skills".

Sunrise also seems to have a bit of a thematic role in 5D's (it was even in a couple of the potential themes); I make a casual note of another instance of it in this episode.

Armstrong apparently tricked Tanner into saying something that could be construed as a threat. Why not just grab him? Is there some little loophole there to dance around, and yet the rest of this absurdity, including the kind of barbarity previously found only in the cruellest and shadiest backalleys of the dueling world, is legal?

Armstrong saw the duel, so he knew that Tanner and Yunagi had decks, too. I get the sense that the no-card rule is enforced when convenient. It would've been convenient to use it when Yusei showed up with a deck, but it would have been seen as cowardly, backing out of a serious duel on an unrelated technicality, and making it obvious that he never planned to put his money where his mouth is in the first place. It would have been obvious that there was no way he would have had to duel. He can get away with that on the static generators because it shows that he is being blatantly unfair and there's nothing anyone can do about it but watch Yusei suffer, making it appear that he's already a jump ahead and on top of that he'll win. Armstrong is just fine with being called cruel and entirely unfair, but if the prisoners start thinking he's all talk as a duelist, his position is in danger.

Actually, one of my favorite moments in this episode was when Alex tried to get Yusei to run for it, to save himself. Just like he set up his invitation to Yusei to escape with him with the reasons why he couldn't do anything else-- "They tell everyone that (they'll go back to the normal detention). But no one ever gets outta this place."-- He started by telling Yusei that he got played, and Armstrong had him right where he wanted him no matter what; Yusei couldn't win. I get the sense that Alex is inspired by Yusei, and is scared to be, because it means that for him the right thing to do is what Yusei is doing: not abandon your friends just to get ahead. So he tries to get Yusei to back down, so he can do the same. Alex isn't going to escape tonight. It's going to come down to it, and he's going to be inspired enough by Yusei's courage in this duel to face his fear and do what he thinks is right. That's my prediction. Also, if other duels such as this (No Pain, No Game and Tough Love) are any indication, after this duel Tanner might be the picture of health compared to Yusei. Will Alex care about 'dead weight' then? Also worth noting, if Alex doesn't escape by himself tonight, the window is still there; no one escaped, so they won't plug it up. But, after this, the entire Facility is pretty much Yusei's friends. Will he be able to abandon any of them? It may be that, short of a full-scale prison break, Yusei isn't going anywhere.

And of course, the moment Yusei refused the easy way out, a door opened; a miracle happened. Alex wasn't the only one inspired by Yusei's unrelenting audacity and refusal to back down. As Jaden once put it (well, actually it was Chazz imagining what Jaden would say in "The New Chazz"): "When you do somethin' nice, *nice* things happen!" He put himself on the line for them without expecting anything in return, without having any way of knowing whether he could handle the burden he had shouldered. He brings out the best in the "worst of the worst", and never doubts that it's there. But the inmates wanted to help Yusei not only because his action was admirable and because he took the hit, but also because when Armstrong was out of line, he challenged it. If Armstrong gets away with this, what's to stop him from doing the same thing to them? Yusei's calling him out directly affects the balance of power between Armstrong and his charges. I just have one question: Why would they meet on the central walkway? Isn't that kind of tempting fate? What if they were seen?

Watching this episode, I noted that Armstrong excused his actions by saying, essentially, that they were for the public good, that they were part of his job as warden of the Facility. I found myself reminded of something I once read about philosophy of law. First of all, I highly recommend the book _Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar_, a brief and very funny overview of the basics of several disciplines of philosophy. Now, I read that, essentially, there are three different schools of thought when it comes to why laws and penalties are imposed; virtue development (rehabilitation of those who violate the law to create a better moral standard in the society overall), deontological (punishment for violation of civic duty), or utilitarian (discouraging others from doing the same thing). These are different ways of having the punishment fit the crime. Armstrong seems to say virtue development and do utilitarian. He tells Yusei once that this is a correctional facility and perhaps a painful consequence will teach him not to make the same mistake twice, which is in the virtue development column; he also says Yusei's being made an example of, which is utilitarian. On the whole, you'd have to have some pretty twisted ideas of civic duty to justify sending someone to the Facility for not staying oppressed. The New Domino justice system as a whole seems to be rather utilitarian, frightening the other Satellites into staying out of the City because they'll be caught and punished, even though, if they all were to rise up at once, not a thing could stop them. In this episode to name one, we've seen people rally around Yusei. He said himself this week that Armstrong has a mistaken impression that they're all "a bunch of punks who will gladly turn on each other." If the satellites unite, they have little to fear from Sector Security or the "Social Maintenence Department", and Yusei's just the guy to pull off something like that.

I noticed that once again in setting the stakes, Yusei set them higher for himself to let others out of the danger zone. In "On Your Mark...", it was agreed that if Yusei lost, Trudge would tell Security to call off their hunt for Rally, BECAUSE Yusei was going to confess to something neither he nor Rally did. This was the same sort of deal, and I think Armstrong actually agreed to some fairly generous stakes, but then, he never dreamed he might lose. Even if Yusei loses, the outcome would be better than if he had never challenged Armstrong at all: only he gets lockdown instead of everyone. Just like he protected Rally win or lose, no matter what the outcome of this duel, Yusei has already saved every person in the Hive. But if Yusei wins, nothing changes, is what kinda stinks about these stakes. They just live to fight another day.

Man, just how many different decks will Yusei duel with? For a second, I thought they were going to cook up a plan to get Yusei's deck back from wherever confiscated decks go.

It's a cuff duel! A *one-sided* cuff duel! They let duel energy slip off the technological radar but kept this?

Like cards, like duelist; Armstrong duels with heavy iron chains.

The only discarded card I recognized was Unhappy Maiden, a monster I remember from another duel with a last-minute deck of pure heart: Sibling Rivalry, with Chazz vs. Slade. Unhappy Maiden's "little friends" swarmed the field and ended Slade's battle phase once she was destroyed; that could have really come in handy. Come to think of it, between the cards he tracked down in the icy north, the Armed Dragons, Chthonians, B-Trons, Light cards, and the duel spirits from the well, Chazz also duels with a whole bunch of different decks.

What's that fog around Yusei's duel disk? Is Yusei in more danger than he knows, and is that part of the plan to bring out the Crimson Dragon? Do they think it'll appear to protect him? And will it?

You know what this reminds me of? In Search of a King. Akhnadon pitted Kisara against huge, scary monsters to try and force her to call on Blue-Eyes' power.

Who will win? What a silly question; Yusei is going to take Armstrong DOWN!

Wednesday: This is unrelated, but I want to say something. I always underestimate the powerful impact that new episodes-- ANY new episodes-- have on my stream of consciousness. This week, I've been on a transription kick, and running out of 5D's episodes to transcribe, the logical choice was to work my way through the final episodes of GX. Around midnight last night, I downloaded "Return of the Supreme King III" on my laptop, and noticed episode 156 subbed, just a link away. I must've spent a whole two minutes with my hand on the button, wondering if I was about to make a huge mistake. At midnight last night, I started watching the sub version of GX, episode 156 and on to the end. I'm already on 161. I'm intentionally watching it without sound, and this is the only thing I'm writing about it or plan to write for a long time, knowing that that will broaden my distinction between canons. I want to know, but I don't want it to be as real to me as my own canon. I think by watching it, though, I've finally even begun the grieving process for my canon of GX. I watch this asking the question we in the dub were left with in our final episode: "why?" Why, why was this part of the show too much for those of us who watch the dub? I watch it seeking closure, some better stopping point than the horrible cliffhanger they left us with. I wonder what could have been. Incidentally, we stopped just short of meeting a whole new Jaden. He's changed so much, become so distant and not quite as nice, that there's a question in the air of whether he's still himself. The show, poetically enough, has done the same thing in my mind; it's GX, but it isn't my GX. I think I did some growing up myself in letting myself watch it even though I was afraid. Luckily, I already knew most of the main characters' Japanese names, and my own reading between the lines in my own canon made this transition a whole lot smoother than I could've imagined. I was also quite lucky that they started with a flashback episode; I got my bearings even a bit better.
Thursday: This is wonderful fun, but what I wish more than anything is that it could have happened in my canon. As it is, it feels like they set up the joke, but never said the punchline. We've all seen how much potential this group of duelists has; it's extraordinary. So far, this set of episodes has been about, among other things, what they're doing with it. In the sub it's QUITE canon that they're third-year students and about to graduate, and they start thinking about what to do then, growing fully into all their powers. They're the top seniors in the school and everyone looks up to them; that's also really fun. And of course there's Jaden. Man, I would have loved to have just one episode in my Yugiohverse that showed us the strength, the maturity, the wisdom that emerged from all of the painful confusion and transition that was our final season. Judai (notice my careful use of terminology) is fulfilling his incredible potential, and has stepped up to match his deck; he is a superhero, and even a bit of an alien, with Yubel as part of him.
Friday: I finished it. I watched all twenty-five episodes in two days. I'm in shock; it's like the Final Duel all over again. I have a few questions about chronology, but that's my own personal pointless quibbling. It's two in the morning, and I can't even think of sleeping. I wrote this sonnet, and though it's still a bit rough around the edges (I just wrote it, since I finished the final episode at midnight), I'd like to share it:
Pharaoh, I had the greatest dream last night!
I, too, but it was not a dream at all.
A warrior from a future shining bright,
Our challenger, a champion of all,
The superhero duelist, power-eyed.
He challenged us to find what he'd forgot,
Remember all the joy he'd set aside
For duels that must be seriously fought.
Red-blazer saw in Slifer only fun,
And found anew that for which he came
Someday in Duel Monsters, he's the one;
Jaden Yuki-- wasn't that his name?
Jaden, I know we will meet again,
At your bright new beginning, my old friend.

This coming Saturday is indeed The Lockdown Duel II! -Clio