ダーティペア Episode 08
Dirty Pair 08

SPOILER Summary:

Yuri is a bit annoyed with Kei’s loud music and dance practicing when they get a printed message saying, “With love from Russia. From Billy Galet.” Yuri is stunned to hear the name of her childhood friend and she immediately decides to resign from 3WA. Apparently she and Billy made a promise some 12-years before when they were seven that he’d build a spaceship, which he’d name “Russia.” Once this ship is built, he’d send Yuri a message and and she’d join him. Kei can’t believe Yuri is taking a childhood promise so seriously and neither can their boss.

Kei continues to try to talk Yuri out of quitting, but is having no luck. So she does some research and discovers that Billy is a respected engineer. However, the message sent by Billy apparently came from a planet called Poisonville. Apparently, 18 engineers had disappeared from neighboring systems and are believed to be held on Poisonville. However, because 3WA is not a police or military force but merely a business, they cannot do anything without an official request and payment for services rendered. Yuri is disappointed, but a call comes in with a prospective client offering a million credits to investigate the missing engineers with a deposit of 100,000 credits. Yuri and Kei are now officially on the case, though it was Kei who made the call.

Sneaking onto Poisonville and into the prison facility, Yuri and Kei begin working on freeing the engineers. Kei will be planting bombs at strategic locations and as she does so, Yuri “obtains” a guard uniform from a guard. Things are going smoothly until a couple of prisoners attempt to escape on their own (not knowing Yuri and Kei are there) and set off an alarm. The two swing into action, causing destruction all around them as they free the engineers, Yuri always looking for Billy. Kei finds a locker room with a locker that has Billy’s name on it. Inside, she finds an automated transmitter with a message from Billy, who’s now deceased.

Meanwhile, Yuri is still hoping to find Billy and aiding an injured engineer to get to the escape ship. They are trapped until Kei rescues them. She tells Yuri that Billy is already on the escape ship and gives her jet-pack to the engineer so that Yuri can escort him to safety. They leave and the ship takes off on schedule. However, Yuri returns to help her partner, returning the jet-pack in the process. Yuri never saw Billy, but is happy to have the memory of her childhood love. Kei says she did see Billy and that he still loves Yuri, which Yuri completely understands. Yuri now wants the million-credit prize, but Kei confesses there is none and that she set the whole thing up, robbing their joint savings account for the 100,000 credit deposit. Yuri is furious, but as the battle rages, they decide they’ll discuss this afterward.

Thoughts/Review: Talk about just ending an episode. The battle is raging and there’s talk of settling the matter of Kei robbing the savings when, “That’s it. No more episode for you.” I suppose there was nothing else to say in the episode as the scientist had been rescued, but for an episode to just end like this one did is bad form IMO.

While the episode itself is standard Dirty Pair fare, I admit that seeing Billy was a surprise. I thought he’d be fat or ugly or even running this illegal camp, but I didn’t expect him to be some automated communications system designed to send Yuri a message since the real Billy had died. While this might normally be touching, considering the episodic nature of the series, next episode will be, “Billy who?” (if Billy had even been mentioned, which he won’t be).

Still, I’ve maintained that one doesn’t watch Dirty Pair for anything deep or meaningful, but rather for some mindless adventure.