This season of Psycho Pass is frustrating for me. There are some brilliant insights and promising pieces of world building but they get bogged down by a messy and overly complicated narrative or else squandered. But I’m not going to bore you with story structure today. I know most people aren’t really into that sort of thing. Instead let’s start things off on something people do want to now, how are you Matt?
I’m fine, thanks for asking!
This week picked up with the denouement of the immigrant plot and, spoiler alert, it kind of fizzled.
Oh-ho-ho, I guess this’ll be a review where we disagree a lot then! This was my favourite episode in a while!
I’m blaming Steins;Gate for my lack of focus this week though, seems I cannot hear the name Kurisu without thinking back on it! And you know how it is, once I start thinking about Steins;Gate I need a minute to get back to reality.
I’m surprised it took you this long in this review series to mention Steins;Gate! That’s gotta be a personal record for you!
Anywho, from my personal tastes, Psycho Pass have been introducing way too many characters since the start of the season without bothering to really develop any of them so by now I’m straining to just keep proper track of everyone and their motivations, let alone form an emotional connection. I enjoy big ensemble casts but not when you also have to weave in such a complex plot.
For instance, I never really connected with Sister, Kurisu or the other two. I also don’t care about any of the roundrobin players at this point. So even though the revelation of Kurisu being alive and his twisted plan were more or less coherent, they really didn’t have the impact on me they should have.
I didn’t connect with any of the religious leaders of Kurisu either–but I mean were we supposed to?
Yup.
What did get a surprisingly emotional reaction from me was the revelation that Kei is o.k. In fact he seems to have healed up nicely between episodes. And although Heaven’s Leap apparently had kidnapped Maiko for leverage against him, they immediately switched the bait to information about his brother which was just silly. I have a feeling it’s these guys’ first high level shake up.
As much as I loved Maiko’s badass turn later in the episode (and the potential consequences it has for her hue) the villains’ motivation and having Maiko dragged into it all seemed kind tacked on for added drama, but whatever I’m glad she’s not dead!
Hur hur hur… “dangerous bottom”
We got to see a lot of Kei and his daring escape attempts and I thought that part was way more fun than Arata tracking down Kurisu. Except for the few times he got to use his trace and am I the only one who thought that was such Donnie Darko imagery? Never mind, I’m probably the only one who still remembers Donnie Darko.
Oh I remember Donnie Darko, only because it’s one of my least favourite films of all time but let’s not get too distracted from the topic at hand…
Why have I never realized before that Shion has a mullet? A femullet!
To me, the most promising reveal we got this episode was the conversation between Mika and her boss (I’m sorry I don’t remember her name). It seems the really not all that secret, secret criminal organization Bifrost, has gotten a touch too bold and Sybil is getting ready to bite back. As a premise that in itself holds a lot of promise. Though I remain wary about execution.
They better not rush the (presumed) demise of Bifrost into a single episode, it’s too soon (in my opinion).
In my opinion, this sort of arc would work best if we got a bit more info on Bifrost. Do we even know what the winner actually gets?
I imagine like most incredibly wealthy and powerful people its just bragging rights. Being in Bifrost kinda seems like being in a way more high-stakes and influential game of Russian Roulette.
I keep saying this but because I have a blind spot in my Psycho Pass knowledge I can’t tell if the returning characters are simply inconsistent (that is NOT the Nobu I know!) or if their evolution has changed them considerably. It would probably be better if I also forgot the past seasons.
Your guess is as good as mine, and I even watched the other stuff!
Although the reveal mentioned above was indeed the most promising, it was not my favourite scene this week. Not by a long shot. That parallel to season 1 in the tunnels, with a white haired man holding a “helpless” woman hostage was simply brilliant. For most of it I was doing a snooty face and thinking to myself “I see what you’re trying to do and that’s cool and all but you’re really just drawing attention to how much better it was the first time around”. But then it subverted my expectations and I got to give it to Psyco Pass 3, that impressed me. Credit where credit is due, that was a very good scene. I’m trying not to describe it in too much details cause spoilers but you can see it in the caps.
I think I jumped the gun and mentioned it earlier but yes, a definite highlight.
In general though, for me, this episode was a few shiny moments in an otherwise dull mass. The art quality once again went down. Character motivations were often spotty and the twist ending, although not bad in and of itself, comes a bit too soon in my opinion. I would have enjoyed a bit of respite as to me this is getting close to melodrama and the stakes are already out of control.
For the first time in a couple of weeks I finally felt like I was able to properly follow everything going on and enjoy it all too with very few complaints. My particular favourite part was the final ‘confrontation’ between Kurisu and Arata, not only was it visually impressive–evoking some future-neon art sensibilities reminiscent of ‘Blade Runner’–but also having Sho there constantly checking Arata’s crime coefficient throughout and watching in disbelief as it dropped to zero was very cool. Maybe I was just happy to see this part of the story ~end~ in a satisfying way when I was so wary about it being possible last week but those are my thoughts anyway.
