Monday, September 14, 2015

Black Lagoon: The Second Barrage Part 1 Episodes 13-16


For a bullet and blood ridden hellhole like Ronapur, very little can instill fear in it’s inhabitants.  And then two Vampiric teeny boppers roll into town and begin offing members of Hotel Moscow.  They may look cute and adorable but these two are more sadistic and terrifying than Revy can ever be in her life.  A hefty bounty is put on their heads but Balialika and Hotel Moscow are determined to see justice done their way first.  All bets are off and there are no innocents when Roanapur’s most dangerous group of former Russian mercenaries go to war. 

Black Lagoon is back for it’s second season aka The Second Barrage.  And just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, man was a happily surprised.

It’s not everyday you get a story that makes you so morally conflicted about the villains.  That’s not to say that everyone in this series is a straight up good guy.  However, the Romanian Child Killing Twins were a whole new level of heartbreaking WTF especially once their backstories were revealed.  Do they really deserve the fate that they received?  Would we be ok if they got away scot free?  Well the answer to the latter is probably not.  As sad as it is to know the truth of their horrific childhood, the twins thirst for blood and acts that would make a stone cold killer vomit had to be stopped…and they just happened to piss off the one person who would have no qualms taking them out

To see Balialika actually show compassion for her comrades is something kind of unsettling.  Here is the coldest person in Ronapur and here we have her talking about her soldiers like they are family.  It’s bizzare but it also leads to my absolute favorite scene of Black Lagoon so far.  Confronted by one of the twins, the sexy leader of Hotel Moscow revealed she was not the hunted but the other way around and watched with cold heart at max chill as her would be assassin bled to death in tears screaming about how he’d live forever.  We also got an amazing quote as well, “I think Oingo Boingo said it best: Nobody lives forever, that’s just the way it goes.”  My God I love this show even if the scene was a little hard to watch.  Evil they may have been, the twins were just children.

Revy and the Lagoon Crew didn’t get much to do in that story actually until right at the end.  Even Revy teaming up with a sexy short sporting Eda didn’t serve much.  I don’t hold that against this story as they still got some fun moments of levity in.  Rock, on the other hand, was the audience’s POV and his reaction to the killer twins origins was dead on.  Just when you think you’ve seen the darkness, it shows you something worse.  Black Lagoon may be an action show but it’s heavy on the commentary of the heart of darkness.

The start of the next story arc does seem set to provide some fun levity to balance things.  We got to see Roanapur’s gallery of killers expanded a bit now that everyone is gunning for Revy and Eda’s new charge, Greenback Jane.  In addition to the return of the Chinese Knife wielder Xinghua, we got a firestarting maniac, a trenchcloak clad wizard (?) and the cute but you would gag at her chainsaw powered line of work “cleaner” Sawyer.  Oh and we got to see the Rip Off Church unleash hell with Revy at their side.  Chainguns, Golden Desert Eagles with Explosive rounds fired by Mother Superior herself?  It’s this kind of over the top entertainment that reminds me why this show is so much fun. 

BTW we really need a Revy and Eda spin off tale.  They are frenemies at their very best.  And it’s them, plus Rock, vs. the city of Roanapur next week.  Will Greenback Jane survive the carnage storm?  Or will Revy be having too much fun to care?

Lock and Load and see ya next week.

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