Predictions and Observations:
Party Crashers

Episode Aired: April 30, 2011
This Post Posted: May 6, 2011

So we're Rulers of the Duel, now? Okay, sure, I'm game.

As predicted, a Team Unicorn denouement... a "we're friends now, man that was a great duel, we learned so much about teamwork, we learned so much about not approaching a tournament the way Weevil Underwood does, let's meet again in the finals/at the next tournament/on the road"... and then some. I almost feel like I should've seen it coming that, now that we're friends with Team Unicorn and know them so well, the narrative wastes no time in making use of that in introducing us to our next challenge.

"I say, they say, we all say, Yusei!" Okay, that was just adorable. I like that cheer. That's really all I have to say about it, except to wonder if they're already thinking up more of them for our next match.

Jack's okay now? Really? Was he joking around? I think, if not, the "my injuries just vanished in a miracle of dueling inspiration" line is saying this one might even be a bit far-fetched for us.

At the end of the duel, Jean was already to make his defeat mean that he had been tricked, or tricked himself, or shown a fatal moment of weakness; that he had messed up, not wised up. He was ready to back off from what being on a team means to him, and try to accept the stings of defeat alone. If not for Andre and Breo, Jean would've thrown away the passion for the game he just discovered in himself, and decided it was a fluke or a mistake. May I simply say that that's what teammates are for, too.

Everyone restated what we learned in this duel, which I've been doing so much writing about all along; I felt an odd sense of deja vu. But seriously now, is there anything they said that I missed? I think I hadn't quite understood how cold and calculating Jean was, that feeling excited about a duel is such a new thing for him. By discovering what it means to duel full-out, he's found out how to put his heart in the game; and as we all know, that's kind of important.

Nice tablecloth... guess they must've borrowed it from Zora or something. Am I the only one who thinks a spread that nice-looking is a bit out-of-place in the garage?

Yusei comments that all these fights are breaking out at the party because everyone's blowing off a little steam. I'd agree, and add, they just shifted themselves into a new mold and became a team over the last several episodes, and now they're sort of reminding themselves who they are as individuals, drawing battle lines within the group for a little while, going back to their lives. We've sort of had tunnel vision up until now, between the new engines, Crow's fall, and our first Prelim. Accordingly, now we're getting back into the swing of the larger plotline and everyone's lives outside of the tournament.

Mina and Carly dragged the whole government/PSB vs. freedom of the press thing into their squabble over Jack here. A fight between these two could get ugly on a full-civic scale, could affect the entire city's public discourse, is the hints I'm picking up from this, because both of those two are pretty powerful these days.

For goodness sake, Jack, just say something to the three of 'em! This is getting painful! Why, though, *won't* Jack say something? At this point, I have more and more trouble believing that he isn't picking up on any of this nonsense over him, and if I'm right and he's noticed it by now, why would he keep his mouth shut? For one, possibly because you can only do so much to make someone obsessed with you leave you alone and he'd as soon save his breath on an uncomfortable subject; for another, maybe Jack *isn't* sure which of them he wants to encourage and doesn't want to upset the other two, or lose them as friends. I wonder if we'll ever find out what's going on in *Jack's* head around all of this; we probably will, 'cause it can't stay this way forever.

And then Sherry walks in and crashes the party, starting by declaring this celebration premature. Maybe she'd feel differently if the Cheerleaders there had given her the kind of challenge we got from Team Unicorn. I'm noticing that this is the first time Sherry's actually come to visit us; before now, we've always met her somewhere on the road or that time at the PSB headquarters; this is the first time she's walked onto our home turf, so to speak, which to me indicates that she's becoming less and less of a stranger to us, especially since she's been introduced to the rest of the group.

Let's talk about Sherry's victory over the Cheerleading Squad, singlehanded. Did she just insinuate that she cheated? "I did what I had to do"? She doesn't seem too proud of her own amazing victory, either. Is that why? And is that why she's of the opinion that a first Prelim victory is nothing worth celebrating? Secondly, Sherry was clearly first relay for her team of her and Ellsworth alone, and won singlehandedly, so Ellsworth's cards are still a mystery to the dueling public; what I'm getting at there is that Sherry's become the Andre of her team, the duelist everyone sees and thinks of as that team, while Ellsworth's cards remain a secret. Similarly, before their match with Team 5D's, Team Unicorn's other two duelists were unknown because no one had ever gotten past Andre. I predict that we'll see the real heart of Sherry's team when we see Ellsworth duel for it, even though Sherry's definitely its captain, because when Ellsworth duels the message comes across loud and clear that he would proudly take a knife for her, even by his own hand, and that's something I get the sense she really doesn't realize or takes for granted. I predict that when it comes down to Ellsworth dueling for this team, Sherry may realize who her friends are. Thirdly, I wonder, did she duel in disguise or as herself? How *does* the public watching this tournament perceive Sherry's team? How did the announcer introduce her and rave about her victory, stuff like that?

Sherry calls herself "friends with Yusei and Akiza", but not Bruno. I'd almost argue that her connection with Bruno runs deeper than that after the PSB incident. I think that because not just anyone can scare Sherry, and also because Bruno saw something in her that he recognized in himself: that she wants answers to "set (her) life straight again". But I also predicted at some point or another that, since Bruno *did* scare Sherry, even more so because she's so used to being in control of the situation and being the one doing the scaring, perhaps she'd rather avoid him a bit. I point out here that she pretty much disavowed ever having met him before when she introduced herself right there.

No really, how *did* Sherry know about the Ghost, and about its having attacked Yusei? How long was she spying on him before she decided to try and recruit him to her team? I'm remembering also that Sherry cameo'd in Yusei's Ghost nightmare in "Synchro Straits" (ep#73), for no readily apparent reason.

Machine Emperors are now called Meklord Emperors. When the terminology does a wacky 180, you go with it. I looked it up, "Meklord" is the proper TCG terminology, and I'll be updating my transcripts retroactively, not changing dialogue, but adding an alternate name so the Machine Emperors in previous episodes can be easily associated with the Meklord Emperors as they're called now.

So the memory chip *was* wiped clean? Or is Yusei still keeping its contents entirely secret? I can understand him keeping a few secrets from Security, because even if Trudge and Mina are on his side, they're part of a larger organization that may not be. There may even be, and probably are, laws that would require Trudge and Mina to take certain action if given certain evidence, regardless of context or strategy, and Yusei acts in everyone's best interest by keeping certain information away from the PSB. What the PSB doesn't know won't hurt 'em. And if my little theory is right, I'm wondering what that info might be. I'm getting more and more convinced, though, that it's just a lark. Why would Yusei also keep the same information from Sherry when they apparently don't mind telling her everything else? If Yusei *did* find something on that 'blank' chip, it must be one heckuva datum if he's playing it this close to his chest.

We're reviewing all of our known duel bot and Machine Emperor incidents and collating data; what are we moving toward here? Do we have another encounter with a Meklord Emperor coming up? Is that what's about to apparently happen to Akiza? Is Jacob about to get a special delivery from somewhere beyond the upper thermosphere?

Leo called the glowing circles that appeared around them the the shape of an 8; Luna insisted it was just two circles; Crow thought it might be an infinity symbol. I think the real point here is it doesn't matter and could probably represent all three, I'm wondering why Luna thought its being two circles, not infinity or a figure-eight, was worth an argument. Maybe she was blowing off steam, too. If it's two circles, what's it representing two of (besides circles)? If Leo's right and it also represents an eight, then what's it representing eight of? We already know, of course, why it might be an infinity, and we've been seeing infinities all over the place since the season began, and they're the symbols of the bad guys and their monsters, and all that.

"I suppose anything is possible when you've got the know-how and the right tech." What an odd line for Jack to say; he doesn't have much know-how about tech; he provides the verbal encouragement.

A bird mask? Now Bruno remembers Primo as wearing a bird mask? Isn't it interesting how memory shifts? I wonder, after that flashback later on, does Bruno remember now what Primo actually looks like? If he meets him again, will he recognize him?

How does Sherry know about the Signers?! She's been doing her homework on Iliaster, I guess. But that would mean she might know more about the Signers' connection to Iliaster than we do; somebody shake her down for answers, quick! Does she know whether Akiza's and Luna's powers are causal or circumstantial in relation to their Signerdom? Since it surprised her that Akiza was a psychic duelist, even when she already knew who the Signers were, we may be able to lean toward circumstantial, and say that Akiza would be psychic even if she were not a Signer, even though the two sources of power seem to kind of amplify each other. But wait a minute, the Signers' identities are sensitive information; who else knows that we don't know about? Say-- wonder whether the soda truck guys knew Yusei was a Signer when they tried to recruit him, or if they really *did* just think he was an incredible duelist?

"Do you think I would ask you to join my team, if I didn't know about *that*?" Um... ow? Yes, kinda, we did. Because Yusei's not just a Signer, he's a great duelist and he likes to help people and he doesn't need a glowing arm to cream you on the track anytime.

I'm noticing a lot of close-up camera shots in this episode. They're still mystifying me as to their purpose. They seem almost too close for comfort-- perhaps giving us the eerie sense of being watched.

Mina mentioned checks and balances being the reason the city has three Directors. After Goodwin sort of went mad with power, I can imagine that being a good reason... not that that's the real reason. Incidentally, why *are there* three, in their grand scheme? Why not five, one for each Signer? Finding out who planned to throw the WRGP, when, and why may also offer an important hint there; three is just the *right* number for a WRGP team.

Why the hasty exit from Carly and the Waitress after Mina? Is calling out the D's-G turning into some impressing-Jack thing? Are they going to try to do the same thing?

Notice how we bring up breaking into PSB headquarters not until the moment after Mina vacates the room. That would've required some explaining.

I just noticed, the image of the top of the PSB building being struck by lightning, flashbacked in this episode, originally in "The Question of the Card", is an archetype from the annals of Tarot; the Tower. I thought it was worth mentioning, just because the imagery there is so powerful. Incidentally, it's the sixteenth card of the major arcana and it's often read to mean that whatever sort of house of cards you're trying to balance, whatever you think is just how it is and always should be, whatever facade or fortress you've built, is about to come tumbling down. It says that the old is about to be stripped away so the new can grow, ready or not, and if you don't change your life, it'll change itself for you whether you like it or not. In the context in which we see it in 5D's, the rest of what we see is definitely meant to indicate the beginning of something big, that something's been awoken. It may even signal that the PSB will fall in the upcoming showdown, which we also got the hint within the same episode that we're approaching the point where there's "no one left to run this place". As I said also, the presence of a Security team in the tournament (you're not fooling anyone, Trudge) means they'll probably lose eventually and that's going to shake the foundations a little, by making the PSB look weaker than whoever eliminates them. The PSB is New Domino's government and military all rolled into one; even though we know some of them, we still do think of Security as an impersonal force somewhat. Imagine what it would be like if New Domino's PSB fell from power. It would be the very definition of the card The Tower.

"I'd have to beat you, of course." They're going to end up in the first round of the bracket together, aren't they? I just have this feeling that it'll come down to that long before any of this is unraveled.

Sherry instinctively feels that the floating eye is connected to Yusei specifically. If she's right, how might that be? Besides the similar eye color. She also wonders if Yusei himself even really knows who he is. In what sense? We're going to learn more; for right now, the suspense is killing me.

Yusei is looking straight upward at the sky. I'm struck by the familiarity of the image, because it's one of the first we got of him, in On Your Mark, that sort of mystified us for a while. Why a shot like that here? Because Yusei is worrying and brooding alone again?

Yusei is brooding about accel synchros again. We get an extended flashback here, which usually means we need, not just an overview, but some details for what we're about to see next. Which details do we get here that we didn't the last few times we got refreshed on this? Mainly, I'm seeing that our memories got refreshed on Visor stating his belief that "trust is something a person has to earn", and the other main thing we got reminded of here that we don't usually when we flashback to this plotline is that Visor threw himself in front of his accel synchro monster and wouldn't reveal why he had done so. These are pieces of the action that weren't in the flashbacks in "Putting It All Together" or "The Edge of Elimination III".

What is Yusei planning to do next to reach the Synchro Solution? Is the new engine capable of producing the kind of speed it takes? Right now, I think about all Yusei *can* do is get good at going that fast, get good at doing multiple synchro-summons in the same turn, and get thinking about combining synchros the way he did with Draco-Equiste. He doesn't have any synchro tuner monsters or anything yet. He might run across one soon, though...

Just a thought: Visor has the same voice actor as Bruno-- coincidence, or *not*...?

Now, for Bruno's big scene. My first question, ohmigosh, is he *okay*? Did he ever come home last night? Why was Yusei the only one working on Phoenix Whirlwind, and don't Yusei, Jack, and Crow find that strange?

If this is the beach where Bruno was found, was he in a runner accident in which he fell from the freeway above? Was the vision with the cat from when he crashed? We've seen people fall from runner tracks in New Domino three times this season-- A New Threat (okay, technically not a person), Dawn of the Duel Board (Leo), and Will the Real Jack... I (Jack)-- it's definitely within bounds and perhaps even foreshadowed. If he fell from that street after losing a duel, and the other three people who fell had all just lost duels, then who with, when, and why?

That is a really absurdly cute little cat. What is it doing there, symbolistically? I think we don't have the information to answer that question yet, but it's worth keeping an eye out for other things in around Bruno that are black and white and fuzzy all over.

Why did holding an unbelievably sweet and adorable little kitten have the same effect on Bruno that nearly getting Sherry's duel disk plugged forcibly into his face did? Are we to understand that anything and everything can release Bruno's inner super-ninja, or at least give him a red-eyed migraine? Is it because the cat triggered recall of that first vision, the one with a similar cat?

So Bruno gets mixed visions and flashbacks. First, the one with the headlight and the cat; I think that might be more foreshadowing that he lost his memory in a runner accident, or in losing a duel. Trauma and even post-traumatic stress are certainly one possible cause of amnesia. Then he remembered what actually happened to him when Primo incapacitated him. Then he had a vision of facing the floating eye alone, eyes glowing; was *that* a flashback, did that really happen, could that explain why he's apparently a lot more important than he remembers? And the helical spirals of ones and zeroes streaming toward the metal frame? Helical ones, same shape as DNA; that seems to indicate that the line between nonorganic programming and organic programming is blurring, the line between humans and machines. Which brings me to my question about the metallic sounds we heard while Bruno was really seriously freaking out... is Bruno a robot?

Question of identity again, I just realized; how much does Bruno's memory dictate who he is? When he gets his memory back, will he be a different person, or will he perhaps, in true 5D's style, discover after all this fuss over it that the past doesn't matter as much as the future? The philosopher John Locke hypothesized that there are no innate memories, that everyone is born a blank slate, a "tabula rasa", and everything is learned; that is, we have no identities except what our memories influence us to become. Since Bruno's amnesia isn't complete-- he retains skills such as engineering and dueling-- it's arguable how much the restoration of his memories will change who he is, but Locke would argue that we can't assume anything about who Bruno was based on who he is, and he stands to become an entirely different character when he regains the memories he lost. A possible precedent for this sort of thing would be Atem himself, of course.

I noticed that the guys, Crow to be specific, have started referring to Team Unicorn as "The Unicorns"; it's a subtle change, but I've been noticing it because I wrote so much about these guys I started calling them that a long time ago but sort of felt like I was cutting corners. I no longer am. I think Crow's usage there connotes more familiarity and camaraderie between these two teams, naturally.

And, a DOA for Team Catastrophe. Gotta admit, I kinda saw it coming as soon as they said Team Unicorn was dueling the guys they were up against next, and when they arrived slightly late, I predicted it would already be over. Ow. *Ow.* Wonder if the Unicorns'll have any words of caution or wisdom for us about these guys?

From how we found the match, we can guess a lot about how the duel went. Team Unicorn changed their lineup, making Jean their second duelist and Breo their third, which is an interesting move for them. It perhaps represents that Jean isn't their only schemer anymore and his being closer to the front line suits them better now that Jean's rediscovered his passion for the game. Looks like Andre got banged up but made the relay changeover to Jean, then Jean got so banged up the relay sticker never even *made* it to Breo. This also indicates that Team Catastrophe's hammer fell right on Team Unicorn's core, fell the hardest on Jean himself.

Who went and stuck us in the same division with Teams Unicorn and Catastrophe while Sherry gets fluff like the Cheerleading Squad? Can't we ever catch a break? Random tournament match shuffler, my foot.

What's the fourth team in our bracket? Do we care? Actually we might not; if we beat Team Catastrophe, we move on to the bracket without question. However, if we lose to those punks, the fourth and final team may give us a second chance to enter the bracket, because they'll be on their second chance also.

My predictions coming up...
- This is going to ruffle some feathers about our next match; we'll see some freakout.
- I predict some time between now and our next match in which this foreboding will get worse as we get to know Team Catastrophe better.
- I predict Yusei trying to master the Synchro Solution, and possibly even another appearance from Visor.
- I predict that Bruno's plotline is coming to a boil.
- I predict Mina will be either harmlessly spanked or devastatingly silenced.

I saw that preview at the end-- no, not Akiza too!!! No fair! Like I said, travel in pairs and lock your doors and windows. Is this tournament shenanigans, or, it also occurs to me that Akiza hasn't dueled a Meklord Emperor or duel bot yet; is she about to?

The title? Sherry is termed a 'party crasher'. Who else is party-crashing? Mina's going to try and party-crash on the Directors; gee, I hope she doesn't get herself silenced too badly. Team Catastrophe's kind of been party-crashing this whole time, and the end of the episode emphasizes the crashing. This is kind of a crashing party, with everyone getting into squabbles. Let's see... it would seem that another identity, or set of memories, or something, is making an unannounced appearance in Bruno's head, and there seems to be some foreshadowing that *he* may've crashed, and that's how he lost his memory.

First uploader award: AnimeRatio.com had it by 3:30pm Saturday, who got the recording from MySpace.

Til next week everyone-- our episode tomorrow morning is entitled "Knight Takes Pawn". We already knew it was ominous. Apparently the chess game is moving. The 'knight' might mean something about Sherry. Anyway, it's late and I'm tired! G'night! -Clio

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