This is a pretty uneventful, unexceptional episode: a youma appears, Ami frets, the Dark Kingdom losers bicker, the youma is defeated, and in the end everyone learns a valuable lesson about teamwork or friendship or some damn thing. There's at least two pretty major plot developments towards the end, though, and at least a couple bizarre and inexplicable scenes to be found in it (inexplicable or simply thoughtless and silly scenes being my favorite kind of scene when it comes to this show), so hopefully I can wring at least one or two wry observations or dumb jokes out of the sucker.





As you recall, the last episode (fifteen) ended on a cliffhanger, with Makoto about to be sucked into a magical Sarlaac-like youma-hole in the middle of a street somewhere. As this episode begins, Rei and Ami transform, pull her out of the hole, zap the youma (who retreats), and finally conclude that they've probably just met the entity responsible for the recent spate of disappearances. Smart thinking, girls! With this new tidbit of information under the belts, a meeting is called to order at Crown. Usagi, who was busy having some purportedly "romantic" moments with Mamoru while the other soliders were fighting for their lives, is filled in. (When they ask her where she was, she lies and says that she was hanging out with Naru or something, which induces a fretful state in poor Ami, who's still concerned about what Naru thinks of her following a slightly brusque moment the two shared a couple episodes back).

That night, a sleepless Usagi realizes that she's sort of falling for Mamoru (she tries to deny it, however, insisting to herself that Tuxedo Mask is the one she really wants). I'm tempted to make some crack here about how improbable it would be in the real world for a guy like Mamoru (a stick-thin, largely unemotive, and often surpassingly rude fellow) to win the heart of a girl twice over by using two entirely different guises, but I'll refrain for the sake of saving time; debunking every unrealistic aspect of this crazy show would probably take me about a million years. Suffice to say, I was not particularly surprised to learn of Usagi's feelings. The audience was only hit over the head with them a dozen times over the last few episodes.





The next day before school, Usagi and Naru stop to chat, which evidently causes Ami to feel no small amount of awkward unease. Usagi notices the friction between the two and tries to bring them together, but Naru isn't into it; she rebukes Ami and gives her a (horror of horrors!) dirty look. Later, in class, even more sparks fly, as Naru angrily rebukes Ami again for her apparently unacceptable secret desire to partner with Usagi for a class exercise in English conversation. My ears perked up at the mention of English; would I soon be granted a rare opportunity to poke fun at some horrendous English accents? Alas, no; Usagi only manages to mutter "Hello, this is..." before stopping and continuing in her efforts to set things right with Naru and Ami again. Dang.

And so we move on, to some generic Dark Kingdom grousing and grovelling. Nephrite, unsurprisingly, gets things started by apologizing to Queen Beryl about something; probably his antics in the last episode are at issue. A characteristically smug Kunzite, also present, chuckles a bit at Nephrite's boobery, then goes on to brag about his "energy farm" to the Queen: seems his trained Sarlaac-youma is sucking people into the lobby of a large building, where they proceed to wander around, zombielike, as their energy (a sort of pinkish-purple mist) is steadily drained from them. As the Queen has a soft spot for elaborate energy-draining schemes, she lets Kunzite continue with his work, but also tells him (essentially) to keep the smug condescension in check. Yeah, good luck with that one, Queenie.

Anyway, after the little Dork Kingdom powwow, the show returns to the problem of Ami and Naru's chilly relationship (a truly gripping dilemma, I'm sure you'll agree). Ami spots Naru walking down the street, and frets about what to say to her, when suddenly Kunzite's damn youma shows up and pulls her into its hole. Ami tries to save her, but is unsuccessful; moments later, Rei and Usagi arrive on the scene, whereupon they all get a call from Luna on their magical mobile phones: she's somehow found Kunzite's energy farm.





The trio transform and quickly find the place, but an invisible barrier prevents them from freeing Kunzite's zombified captives. They make with the magical special attacks in an attempt to break it, but even after multiple blastings the barrier remains firm. Ami overexerts herself in the attempt, stubbornly blasting away; she feels guilty at letting Naru get sucked into the youma-hole right in front of her, and for thinking that maybe a part of her wanted to see Naru get sucked into the hole after all the trouble she's caused her. After Usagi runs off to fetch Makoto (who was out sick for most of the episode), she confides her feelings to Rei. Rei tells her that she's making too big a deal out of it (hear hear!), and that everyone has a dark side -- a prescient comment, considering the direction that Ami's character takes later in the series.

At any rate, Usagi returns with Makoto, and the four of them are finally able to break the barrier. The people are freed, the hole-dwelling youma is personally zapped to nothingness by Ami (this being an Ami-centric episode, it was only appropriate that Ami deliver the finishing blow), and the day is saved. Ami further patches things up with Naru in a cookie-making class by partnering with her instead of Usagi.





The episode doesn't end there, though; instead, it spends the last few minutes adding some new wrinkles to the overall plot. Back at the Dark Kingdom cave, Kunzite triumphantly announces that enough energy was gathered at his "energy farm" to allow for the eventual resurrection of "Queen Metaria", a terrible evil force (oddly, Queen Beryl seems perplexed at this; shouldn't she know what's going on?). Moreover, Jadeite, who was reduced to a hunk of rock several episodes ago, is revived, presumbly from all of the pinkish-purple energy zipping through the air. The other important episode-ending wrinkle is of a more mundane nature; while heading to Mamoru's apartment building to give him some cookies, Usagi is devastated to see him walking arm-in-arm with some other girl. That's right: Mamoru already has a girlfriend. Urgent, thunderous music -- the kind the show usually reserves for some universe-shattering event -- accompanies the revelation. Bum bum BUUUMMM!

A little bland, perhaps (not much really happens until the very end), but overall I guess it's a pretty decent episode, despite the continued presence of annoying Ami-angst.

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