Well…that escalated quickly. If Makashima was ever out to make his mark on
this series, he’s certainly left it. A
lot of things happened in this weeks set of episodes that brought things to a
climax and then changed the game one more time.
Cause now it seems that as dangerous as Makashima is, he is hardly the
true threat in Psycho Pass.
Ive said before that sometimes this show can be tough to
watch. The darkness in peoples hearts
and the monsters that murder for their own reasons isn’t an easy subject to
broach. Once again, Psycho Pass proves
itself not for the feint of heart when a masked madman brutally kills a woman
in the middle of a crowded city hotspot.
Honestly, yes seeing such an act is monstrous. But seeing how everyone just stands there and
practically does nothing is even worse. Scratch
that, what came afterwards was worse. In
a society that has known relative peace for a certain time, ripping that away
brought about a doomsday level event.
That feeling of helplessness that Akane felt when her Dominator couldn’t
kill Makashima was amplified here as the CID was all at a loss of what to
do. Seeing the city tear itself apart
trying to determine whos a killer behind the mask and not made me think of
Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight: “When the chips are down, these
civilized people will eat each other.”
It’s a scary thought but effective for the kind of show Psycho Pass
is. It never holds back, especially with
the squeamish.
Thankfully, Kogame’s almost Sherlock Holmes level
intelligence was able to pick up on Makashima’s true motives, or at least his
intended target. Finally, we got brought
full circle to the scene that began the series, even if it wasn’t the final
episode as one would suspect it was.
Kogame vs Makashima was every bit as satisfying as its been built up to
be. Not only can these two match
classical literature interests but Makashima was on equal, if not superior,
footing when it came to hand to hand combat.
Shouldn’t be surprised that even this puppet master was a capable
fighter. Nor was I surprised that Akane
decided not to kill Makashima as Kogame asked.
This man caused a riot, this man orchestrated grizzly murders AND he
killed Akane’s best friend…and yet she lets him live (though they did have
orders to do that anyway). Akane truly is incorruptible, so much its freaking
scary.
And yet we couldn’t just end this set there without one
last big bombshell. The Sybil System was
revealed and…wow I keep using the word “scary” but this is some next level
stuff. I doubt anyone expected a
supercomputer powered by the brains of dozens of psychopathic minds looking to
bring their version of order to the world…at least its not Skynet? Probably one of my favorite series moments so
far is when Chief Kasei tried to sell Makashima on joining this literal Think
Tank, only for Makashima to bash the heck out of her cyborg brain and
refuse. He’s not interested in the
“Godhood” that this collection of minds thinks it has. He wants to observe but he wants to be
involved as well and being part of Sybil takes away that freedom. Its one of the few times you can say “go
Makashima”, maybe the only time. Sybil
was sketchy from the get go but this clinches it…and sadly it cost poor Kageri
his life in the process.
Whew, that’s a lot to process but at the end of the day,
its satisfying entertainment that’s hard to look away from. Psycho Pass, so far, has had everything for
everyone: fans of criminal procedural dramas, fans of action scifi and the
existential/societal analysis crowd. One
wouldn’t think such a mixture could work out.
But it has. The question is, can
it finish on as strong a note as it began?
We’ll find that out next week as we wrap up the first season of Psycho
Pass.
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