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Digital Downloads
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Written by maehara
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Tuesday, 22 July 2008 16:00 |
 BLASSREITER remains stuck in the past, as the meeting between Joseph and Xargin is explored along with the reasons for Xargin's drastic change from man of peace to man of destruction. As with many such changes, it only takes a small trigger to create a big difference, and in this case the trigger was Joseph's long-lost sister...
When flooding struck the city and left the orphanage without food or medical help, it was Xargin who came to help - and Xargin who helped protect them when the church was firebomed by those who felt that Outsiders didn't deserve such help. Joseph was deeply affected by Xargin's action - a citizen willing to help Outsiders in such a way was a rare thing. Through coincidence, he's also able to reunite Joseph with his elder sister, Sasha. Having left home shortly after Joseph was born to try and make a life for herself, she's become a talent bioscientist - the first Outsider to make the research staff of the local university - and being reunited with her mark the beginning of a new life for Joseph. But an outbreak of scarlet fever amongst the orphanage kids soon leads to trouble for both Xargin and Joseph...
The old theme of intolerance and hate is explored again here, and once again death is the outcome - but let's not get ahead of ourselves. Along with the appearance of Sasha, there's another familiar face in this episode: Victor, future director of XAT and the head of the research project that Sasha's been working on. Draw the dots on that connection, and it soon becomes clear where the future Joseph and Xargin will get their powers from. Sasha's work was originally intended to bring huge medical benefits, especially to the poor - but other uses of the nanomachines she created were identified by the military and the project was subverted, and that's not something that she's proud of. As we know, the repercussions that her work will have on the future will be huge.
This is easily the best episode of BLASSREITER so far, and finally pushes the series into being one that I'm looking forward to seeing. The sheer level of hatred that some people display still irks me - I'm not naive enough to believe that there aren't people like that in the real world, but the way it's portrayed doesn't sit well with me - but between this episode and the previous one, I've now got a much better understanding of what makes Joseph and Xargin tick - theirs is a tragic tale, all the more so because of the effect it will have on others, and that makes for compelling viewing.
I just wonder how many people who started the series have given up before it finally got good, though. Getting this far required high levels of patience & hope, and I don't know that I would have bothered if I hadn't been reviewing it. I'm glad I did, though - here's hoping we get more of the same as the series heads into its second half.
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