Predictions and Observations:
Will the Real Jack Atlas Please Stand Up? II
and Duelist For Hire

Episodes Aired: November 27, 2010
This Post Posted: December 3, 2010

"Sector Security is advising citizens to avoid major highways if possible." In other words, don't run into this guy because if you do we probably can't help you. There's an admission of weakness for you. Can't they get CGA to *not* authorize duels with this guy in 'em? I say again, these turbo duel safety measures don't really impress me all that much.

Go, Carly!! Things she would never, ever have done before she met Jack... wonder if Pitts'll actually fire her for that one, 'cause if not, he's all talk.

"Have patience. All men struggle when trying to defeat the enemy within. It is through this struggle that they find their true strength." Much as we don't like Jacob, I agree with him entirely. And that's where the good duel energy comes from, I'll also concede.

So Jack observed the white rings of light and stated that they make duel damage real. Seems plausible enough to me. So far we've seen them in this duel and in the Twins vs. Lester.

How, by the way, do we define "non-dueling vehicle"? Why are spectators on runners allowed, but spectators in even small cars considered out of place? Yusei and Kaz aren't dueling, I guess, but they are on vehicles *that* duel, and that this track is built for. Then again, we've seen duel runners bigger than Carly's car, so again the line kinda blurs.

This reminds me of Clash of the Dragons, in which Stardust Dragon was similarly weakened and injured but never quite destroyed, and fought on despite its injuries.

One quote I found interesting: "The duelist who relies too much on power will eventually be defeated by power."

So, would it properly be "Dragon Archfiends" or "Dragons Archfiend"? Things you thought you'd never have to pluralize... Well, it'd depend on parts of speech, I guess; whether "Archfiend" is a modifier for "Dragon" (as in, you'd say, this is a dragon and the kind of dragon it is is a dragon archfiend, in point of fact a red one) or whether "Dragon Archfiend" is a proper name consisting of multiple words (for example, we're saying right now that there are two Jack Atlases in this duel, not two Jacks Atlas). I'm tending to favor the latter, because it's a card name, so I'd say that there are multiple Dragon Archfiends in this duel, and the grammar being used onscreen is correct. Whether they're red is another story.

What is the significance of Trust Guardian? Jack showed his ability to get back up after being knocked down, after doubting himself and doubting if he can find his strength in the new identity he has set out to create for himself in giving up his loner ways forever. He could get back up because of the strength he gains by caring for his friends, by reminding himself what's truly important to him, and why he's choosing that new identity. Trust Guardian allows Red Dragon Archfiend to bend without breaking; to take a hit from something stronger-- for now-- and keep enduring until it finds its strength. It embodies the idea that power isn't everything, because despite overwhelming power, Archfiend still endures, and its wounds matter not one bit when it synchro-summons Majestic Red Dragon. When the fake's Dragon Archfiends were destroyed, they were gone forever; when Jack's should have been destroyed, he was just getting warmed up. So to speak.

So, since that was a robot, was it one of Primo's from that factory, meaning we just saw a collaboration between all three? Jacob's plan, Primo's robot, Lester's cards? Is this the first time we've actually seen the three work together, and our first glimpse of how Jacob plans to go about this? Jacob understood what would really put Jack under some pressure, really bring out something he's rarely if ever shown before; and he did exactly that, because that's what he needed. We have yet to see Majestics from Luna or Akiza, and we still haven't even met Crow's dragon; who's Jacob going after next, and how will he go about it to get enough energy from them?

And this one plan of Jacob's did seem to succeed; it activated the circuit. How much more do they need to do that? Do all the lines have to be traced, because if so, and it took a majestic summoning to trace *one*, looks like this could take a while, unless things get really exciting.

Lester said he used a lot of power to counterfeit Jack's cards. So they can make illusions of things like cards, which usually would be inviolable by the same sorts of properties that make duels a level playing field to all and all that jazz, but it takes some expenditure of power on their part. Good to know they have *some* limits.

Yusei leaving town, at a time like this? With the WRGP about to start any month now? With all the Ghosts running around and all? I see a few different possibilities: One-- the Directors will wait because they're drawing the Signers into enacting their plan for them and the Signers are weaker without Yusei, Two-- the Directors will make a nasty move, because the Signers are weaker without Yusei, Three-- the Directors will take advantage of the fact that the real Yusei isn't present to wreak some havoc among the Signers with a fake one because if there's one person the other four Signers and their friends trust, it's Yusei. Still, Yusei wouldn't have left if he wasn't passably confident that things would hold together for a few days... right? Then again, he doesn't know what we do about the Directors and their incredibly unfair superpowers.

Yusei strategizes that he should "head into town and make sure everyone knows (he's) there." Can't think of many *other* people who would make that plan right after seeing what he's seen of this place so far, the miners trying to escape. But Yusei does seem to have a certain instinct for how to establish that tough-guy cred, how to deal in a society like the one he's sure he's walking into after that. The last thing he wants to do is act uncertain, be the first to blink.

He insults to their faces the first toughs to approach him. Just like in the Facility: if you're going to pick a fight, *pick* it-- *kick* it, even. I think, for him, the quickest way to figure out the local situation is by getting into a duel. It'll tip him off what's considered fair or unfair around here, how outsiders like himself are generally perceived, and get him noticed by the people who are really pulling the strings. You can bet that if that duel had actually played out, both Malcolm and Radley would've heard about it in a hurry, and how they then reacted would've told Yusei plenty. It's unlikely that any one person will react to the presence of a new, strong duelist in town with overt hostility toward him. If anything people will take a step back and rethink whether they really want to give him a hard time just because he's new here, and allies come out of the woodwork because he also makes the statement that it's safe to be his ally and less than safe to be his enemy. Metaphorically speaking, he tests the water by jumping into it with both feet and seeing what kind of ripples it makes.

With the Satellite integrated and Yusei not getting sent to the Facility anytime soon, I'm not surprised we're finding some other opportunity, some other setting, to show off this side of Yusei. Because it rocks utterly.

Let's take a moment, or several, to talk about Barb. Offhand, I like her. She reminds me a bit of Martha, in in a couple ways. First, it's that she's made someone else's misery her own business and she's doing what it takes to get to the bottom of it. Second, it's that she's a kind woman who has authority in a mostly male community; she's the one who chides Malcolm's thugs for not treating Yusei like a guest, which is definitely a Martha move. I actually wonder a bit if they aren't related-- if they are, it would explain how Barb got Yusei's address and knew about his friendship with Kalin. Even subtle things hint to us that Barb is in earnest. It seems like a small thing, but to me the gesture of her picking up the rock that was crushing the dandelion on the cliffside signals that she is a generous person, just because she wants to be, even to dandelions getting smushed by small rocks. When she sets the scene for the dusk duel, even though she's probably seen years worth of this, there's some pain in her voice; how does a person like her live with this situation, and why doesn't she leave? One question I thought of here is, where would she usually be this time of day, when she doesn't have a guest? In a sense, she seems completely resigned; she contacted Yusei to get Kalin out of here, not to make the situation better. But she hasn't given up to the extent that it's not worth it to her to try and save Kalin. How come? Another thing that signals to me that Barb's a friend is that she's already gone to the trouble to find out as much as she already has-- not just that Yusei is Kalin's friend and if anyone can get Kalin out of here it's him, but she also ventures that Kalin's punishing himself, and that Kalin duels *because* he's in danger. Observations like that signal that she actually cares about the person. I don't think she *likes* Kalin, sure would be interesting if she did, and it would explain a lot, I guess, but I don't think so.

Now, I've established why I think Barb is probably a nice gal trying to help out our heroes. Now I'll explain why perhaps not so. In this town, Barb demonstrates to us that she is a law unto herself. Since she was in town during the day and seems to show allegiance to neither side, I'd imagine she runs a shop in town or something similar. Her business, if it's important to town life, may be one explanation for what I'm explaining here. The few other women I've seen in this town are apparently part of families; Barb invites a stranger to town without permission from anyone else ("Because he was invited, by *me*.") and is the only person to greet him, making me fairly certain she is single, independent, and respected. Respected, because she casually chides the town's local thugs and they look like morons with bouquets in their hands, without fearing repercussions. Usually a lone woman in a rough town would have to be good at blending into the background, a more than fair hand with a gun/duel disk herself, or good at forming alliances with people who see to it that nobody messes with her. Which makes me wonder about what kind of relationship Barb might have with Malcolm and Radley; she describes both in fairly unpleasant terms, but familiar ones: "fella with the creepy grin" and "rascally-looking man". Malcolm and Radley rule this town, and it's a small place; I wouldn't be surprised if she did have some kind of personal history with either Malcolm or Radley, and that could cause her motives and loyalties to be far more complex than they initially appear. I notice also that she wears red, the color of Malcolm's bandannas, and also black, which is the color that predominates in the Radley Bunch; her color scheme is both sides.

The other reason I doubt Barb's sincerity is that she's singled out Kalin when really this whole situation is bad news. Why is Kalin the only one of the twenty or so mine-bait duelists who risk getting shipped off in a coffin, one per day, that Barb is concerned about? Does she know all of their emotions and motivations the way she has attempted to understand Kalin's? Could she tell us why Giant came to this town, too? Is it just because Kalin's actually stuck around long enough for her to start to figure out how to save him from this place? Is it because Kalin was the only person in those gangs of mine fodder that she could *find* a friend for, someone she thought might be up to saving him? Has she tried this before, contacting friends of would-be miners and helping them try to get their friends out of Crashtown?

Now, if it's possible this side of things is true, or possible perhaps that Barb's awfully good at concealing that she's being coerced, then it's a pretty bad thing if we can't trust Barb. We just got a lot of exposition from her, took a lot of what she said about the way things work around here, and about Kalin, on faith. We might next ask, why she wrote "I'm counting on you and only you", which seems to be saying "come alone", which is sort of an ominous request. Why, if she's on our side, would she ask that? What would have been wrong with Yusei making the trip with, say, Bruno, Jack, or Crow? Or all three?

If Barb doesn't want Kalin out of Crashtown for his own good, if she has some ulterior motive, what would it be? After fifty wins, you can bet Malcolm, for one, wants Kalin to leave town by any means necessary, even if that means Kalin doesn't come work for him. Maybe Barb just wants to stop the one-sided fifty-win carnage and restore the balance of power, such as it is. However, that would not result in a decrease in the number of people being sent to the mines. Maybe Radley's winning streak forcing Malcolm out of business drastically threatens the balance of power in town, which could cause any number of repercussions. If I'm right about Barb's getting by here through a personal history with the bosses, causing their cronies to leave her alone and let her say what she pleases to them, then one of them finally crushing the other and taking over this town exclusively could even threaten her own personal safety.

Okay, this is where I just *begin* to talk about the scene with the duel at dusk. Beautiful, tragic, harsh. Such poetical, evocative punch! I just can't get over it. Since the position of the sun is of pinnacle importance-- because duels can only be waged at dusk-- we see the sun absolutely rule this scene, and we also see our characters' positions in relationship to the sun tell us what role they play in this encounter. Yusei and Barb, our protagonists for the moment, have a clear view of the sun the whole time, and watch it change as the scene progresses, always looming above this fried little desert town, metaphorically scorching it with what its position causes to happen. Malcolm and Radley, approaching from the north and south, are shaded from the sun by the town buildings, both of their groups in shadow. The road that runs through town east-west is turned into a no-man's land by the battle lines the setting sun draws; only the duelists stand in the sun. Well, the duelists, and the coffin wagon that drags the loser off to the mines; it approaches from the eastern road, which is in shadow even though the sun shines toward it. Finally, the sunset lights up only the tip of the mountain, and shines directly on its westward-facing facade, which may in fact have exposed dyne there or something that causes it to glitter like that.

Now, I haven't forgotten about the one person the sun highlights most-- Kalin. He just gets his own paragraph for that awesome and rather poetic entrance of his. First I note that he is the only person in that scene who stands that close to the sun, who is in the sunlight for that entire scene, who enters from within the battle lines, not from without. I also want to talk about the harmonica. It puzzles me a bit, but somehow it works. When Kalin played this episode, everything else went silent, which is a very powerful narrative technique. No background music, silence, can create emptiness and strike an audience more powerfully than any sound. Kalin's harmonica tune is isolated, with nothing else in the background, and does create the impression that the world has fallen away and we're focused on this one person-- which is the case definitely with Yusei and with the Giant, for different reasons. With his entrance, and especially with the harmonica, Kalin draws everyone's attention to him, and it again highlights how much he stands out in this place, how different a person he is from anyone else around him. And it draws everyone's attention beyond him, because he's focused entirely on playing the harmonica, which focuses our attention on what he's playing: a simple, rather melancholy, kind of song. It puts our spotlight on his state of mind, his hidden emotions and subtext. One thing all this does make clear to me about Kalin: he understands the game on a deeper level than any of them do, because to him dueling is a way of life, and that makes him stand out a mile in this place. That much hasn't changed. What has, is that this is what he chooses for his life: a hopeless situation in which, when a duel begins, someone is about to lose their future. Because he's punishing himself. Which brings me to my next question...

What is Kalin punishing himself for? Whatever it was, Barb tells us, "it must've been bad." I'm inclined to agree; this particular interpretation of the game is nothing short of soul-crushing. Yusei has a point, though: if Kalin's here to punish himself, why doesn't he throw? Throw in his cards and throw away his future forever for life as a faceless miner? What still keeps him hanging on even if he's given up hope to the point that he's here? I think that just says something about his inner strength as a duelist; despite everything, he can't quite bring himself to give up. Maybe he originally planned to throw, maybe he even considers throwing every night, but hasn't yet.

But why *is* Kalin dueling for these people? He's punishing more than just himself when he sends all these guys to the mines. Then again, one guy per day is the standard around here no matter who does the winning; in a way Kalin is also punishing himself by living where each duel is not only a prelude to the silencing of a fellow duelist, but truly there is no winner, there's only one who went to the mines and one who didn't.

Why is Barb particularly worried that Kalin will "meet his doom here"? To me it seems that all these guys have a fairly equal chance of 'meeting their doom here', even a greater chance than a strong duelist like Kalin who hasn't lost in fifty bouts; what other danger is Barb talking about? Perhaps Barb is talking about the way he approaches the duels. Maybe the rest of the guys there are actually hopefuls trying to make a buck, but Kalin is different in that he duels to punish himself, which is far more destructive to a person than the mines.

We don't entirely understand, as of now, what Kalin might be punishing himself for, because we know his history better than *he* does. What does he remember? What *is* the story, as Kalin understands it, and how does it stack up to him finding a nasty little desert town to make him miserable? What *is* he punishing himself for? Is it for something that happened during the Enforcers days, and does Yusei know about it? Could it be for what he did that got him arrested and sent to the Facility forever (in theory) at the age of no more than eighteen or so? *Does* Kalin remember becoming a Dark Signer and everything he did to Yusei, and is that the source of his guilt?

Quick one-liner: The Giant is the name of Kalin's opponent-- Coincidence, when his Earthbound Immortal was also the Sign of the Giant, Ccapac Apu?

I'm remembering Goodwin's last request to Yusei: "Take care of them (the other Dark Signers); their place is back on Earth." Kalin, no longer a Dark Signer, still faces harsh reality, and the same fight against despair that seems to characterize the path of a Signer, dark or no. Yusei stands, not just as Kalin's best friend, but also as a Signer, as someone who fights that fight.

Kalin draws his duel disk with his left and wears it on his right arm. I went back and checked; he didn't in the Enforcers days and since then we haven't seen him in a standing duel. Wonder why? Has he switched hands for some reason? Is it just because he's a quicker draw with his left and he didn't bother to take the trouble to put his duel disk on properly for a duel he knew was only going to last one turn? Did he already know he could beat the Giant even dueling left-handed? In theory, he *wouldn't* be a quicker draw, when it comes to drawing cards, with his left than with his right, because we've seen him wear his duel disk on his left hand all through the Enforcers era so his reflexes are probably tuned from experience to drawing with his right. In addition, perhaps, Kalin's choice of hands doesn't matter as much *because he duels cardless*, and this choice of hands emphasizes that.

What the duel at dusk says to me in subtext is this: the Giant can do nothing to Kalin that he doesn't do to himself and that isn't exactly what he wants. He's scarred by the circumstances that led to his use of cardless strategies instead of the reckless fighter who hated empty hands that he used to be, but they're old wounds and he lives with them. He is a duelist who works best cardless now. Would just that, that he duels with Infernities, perhaps signify that he remembers being a Dark Signer?

Lastly, I do want to observe that Kalin has become part of this community, such as it is. Despite his own reasons for being here, not everyone sees him the way he himself does. Barb has gone to this effort to save him from himself. And of course, I'm also talking about that little kid in the crowd who, you can tell just by looking at his face, Kalin is his hero, because Kalin can't hide that dueling is more to him than pitting two gangs of wannabes against each other to get new mine laborers; that kid is inspired by what he sees in Kalin's dueling.

We seem to be seeing a lot of the seedy underside of the duel runner economy; first Syd, now this whole dyne-mining thing? I don't suppose Yusei's new engine design obsoletes the use of dyne...?

Where is Crashtown? We're probably still fairly close to New Domino, if Yusei rode out there on his runner. Come to think of it, this is the first time our main storyline has actually left New Domino... ever. Wow. That just hit me. Since New Domino and the Satellite are canonly "island(s) in the middle of the ocean", does that mean Yusei and his runner had to take a boat or bridge to get to Crashtown?

We're seeing a lot of facial marks in town, which, when we're in New Domino, is generally an indication that we're hanging with some rough company. Since we're *not* in New Domino, though, I have to ask: is all that really tracking dye? Does anywhere else but New Domino's Facility give out marks like that? Does that mean Malcolm and all three of the thugs Yusei duels all come from New Domino, as does anyone else who sports a facial mark?

Why is it called Crashtown, other than the fact that it sounds like boomtown, a classification that this town definitely falls under? By the way, I looked up a bit about boomtowns: they spring up seemingly overnight near a source of big opportunity, like a gold mine, timber mill, or lucrative resort. They experience severe population fluctuations and social disruption because they get rapid population growth and certain individuals suddenly becoming rich. They're usually very dependent on the resource that caused the boom (in this case, the dyne mine) and when the resource is depleted, everyone or almost everyone will leave, resulting in, of course, a "ghost town". (Wikipedia) Will we find out any other reason than this possible one, for why Barb introduced this place to us as "Crashtown"? Is that the name of the town or a given nickname?

Clearly the mines are not a nice place. Are they dangerous? Couldn't an engineer like Yusei whip up some tunnel supports or whatever, make the mines not so hideous? And make them require less work, too, so Malcolm and Radley might actually not *need* a new worker every day, couldn't *fit* 'em all?

Why were the miners Yusei observed at the beginning of this episode trying to escape? Why were they trying to protect, to take away from the mines, that amulet, such that they didn't care who picked it up once that guy threw it over the cliff? Why is that pendant that Yusei picked up important? Is it a special kid of dyne? Will it put the mine out of business by making dyne unnecessary? Does it have personal significance to one of the miners? Is it a message, a call for help?

Seems a bit random to me, unless... are we going to meet this baby brother Lotten of Malcolm's? Is he living in the city? Maybe he's in the WRGP-- we'll know him by the family resemblance...

Is the tension only over workers, or is it expanding? We see bystanders come out of their houses to watch the duel. How much do bystanders in town take sides, or get forced to take sides, and why aren't they pressed into mine work?

I'm curious about the "law of the land" that forbids dueling in Crashtown except at dusk. What would happen if someone broke the custom? How did it get started, and how is it enforced? Those Malcolm fellows were getting ready to break that custom just for a few casual insults from Yusei until Barb stepped in; would a duel have broken out if she hadn't shown up? Who would have stopped it, or what would have happened next? How many duels actually *do* break out in town, against the custom, that no one talks about?

A word about Yusei's duel this episode. We saw two synchro-summons in one turn for Yusei, which is getting closer to accel synchros. We saw him take on a team of three whose moves were decisively coordinated; I have a feeling that going up against teams of three will be getting more and more common as we approach the WRGP.

What next? How will Kalin react when he sees his opponent tomorrow? Will he be angry, or upset? Or afraid? Or relieved? Will he try to talk or scare Yusei out of dueling him, because this puts him in a position where the stakes of the duel actually matter to him? Will he try to act like he doesn't care? Will he try to get out of dueling Yusei, or try to silence Yusei by dueling him down, because he knows Yusei might be able to help him and he doesn't think he deserves that?

Kalin knows Yusei; since he's seen him around here, he probably knows that Yusei'll do just about anything to get into a duel with him, so I wonder if he might not see it coming that Yusei's joining the Malcolms. In that case, he also knows that Yusei's planning to duel *him* and will hesitate at letting some other guy get caught in the crossfire; if Kalin can and does advise Radley to put someone else up against Yusei, things could get interesting. Yusei would hesitate at just shipping off some poor random to the mines.

How will Yusei approach the situation? Will he try to get a rise out of Kalin, see what it takes to get him to reveal a glimpse of his old self? Get him to stand up and fight, not just apathetically endure? Rekindle Kalin's fighting spirit?

If Kalin reveals Yusei's actual identity and motives to Malcolm, Yusei could be in some hot water. But if no one knows until the duel's on, not much they can do.

Man, this little town, utterly starved of real dueling, won't have any idea what hit it! That little kid who's always watching Kalin is in for the treat of his life when he sees Yusei give his hero an actual challenge!

Somehow I have a feeling this "grab-Kalin-at-the-last-minute" plan won't work the way we expect it to. It sounds far less than airtight. Is that really the best plan we've got? And the other reason I'm dubious about this plan is that I do expect we'll get to know the mines better before we leave Crashtown, because we still don't know the story behind that pendant, and Yusei isn't one to ignore a cry for help like the one he saw there.

What happened to ep#85? Clearly it got disappeared to a virtua-chair at an undisclosed and somewhat imaginary location, or possibly dragged off to the mines. Seriously, though. Or maybe someone numbered something wrong, I'm not really sure. Nope, I looked it up, and there's definitely an episode we missed. Wonder what made it unshowable, and if we'll see it up online soon? If so, I'll post a bit on it alongside whatever else we've got at the same time.

Tomorrow we've got Showdown At Sundown I and II. Wow, they aren't keeping us in suspense on this one? Can't say I'm unhappy with that! I can't wait! Next week, everyone! -Clio

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