ラストエグザイル-銀翼のファム-/Last Exile: Ginyoku no Fam Episode 20
Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing – 20

Luscinia issues an order from Grand Exile for all militaries to disarm. Alvis senses that Sārā is crying over this, as she doesn’t want the killing to continue. Millia is given command of the Silvius and the Allied forces, with Dio has her backup, while Tatiana and Alister prep their old Vanship for the fight that’s to come. Millia frees Dian, despite not forgiving her for killing Liliana, in order that Dian can free Sārā.  As the Allied fleets make ready, they are joined by Sorūsh and the remnants of the 4th Fleet. On board the Anshar, Sadri looks at a pendent photo of Rāhā, recalling his daughter’s rejection of Ades and its policies.

With that, the battle begins, with Grand Exile using beam weapons as well as massive tentacles. The Allied fleets take massive damage, but the beam weapons are causing damage to Grand Exile. Millia orders all ships to attack at the point where there’s a large hole in Grand Exile‘s hull. However, Grand Exile keeps attacking while Sadri keeps a buffer fleet to shield the giant ship. Fam wants to do something, but is restrained by Tatiana, who reminds her that going out now would only result in their death.  Luscinia targets Turan and its civilians for his next attack, causing Dio to activate Millia as the Turan Exile‘s key.

Millia steers Exile into the path of Grand Exile‘s attack, where she uses it to take the entire brunt of the beam attack, apparently destroying the Turan Exile in the process. Like before, Grand Exile takes major damage from using another of its beam cannons.  Millia orders the fleet to proceed, so Sadri orders a counterattack to stop them.  However, Sadri’s flank comes under attack as a large fleet from Anatory-Disith, led by Vincent on the Urbanus and Empress Sophia on the Silvana. With Grand Exile attempting to repair itself, Millia opens fire, widening the hole, and allowing Silvius to enter. With that, the flight deck opens, and Tatiana leads the Vanships and Vespas out.

As the small ships fly out, a swarm of Guild Starfish fighters engage them. Tatiana takes the Vanships and orders the Vespas to press on. Gisey recognizes something familiar about the interior of Grand Exile, and realizes that despite its size, it was laid out like Luscinia’s command ship, Impetus. Knowing this, Gisey is able to accurately plot a shorter route through the access tunnels until another swarm of Starfish attack. The other Sky Pirates stay behind to fight them, leaving Fam and Gisey as well as Dian and Alvis to press on. Alvis communes telepathically with Sārā as another squad of Starfish attack. Dian handles them while Fam and Gisey discover that Grand Exile was never completed as a ship. They soon reach the area where Sārā is, seeing her in the arms of Luscinia.

Can I call “BS” now?  I’m not a fan of a character apparently dying, especially in a heroic way, then magically coming back to life. Sadly, this Last Exile series has that, first with Dio, and now with Sorūsh. While Sorūsh may have been on the wrong side, one could respect him dying for what he believed in.  Then, for him and apparently the rest of the 4th Fleet to magically return to fight for the side of right is not what I consider good writing, even if it does help the good guys. It is just cheap tricks as far as I’m concerned, though I’m reminded that unless we SEE someone die in science fiction, they probably aren’t dead.

On the other hand, the “in the nick of time” arrival of Vincent and Empress Sophia, along with a large Anatoray-Disith fleet worked for me. That’s because the writers had Tatiana name-drop Sophia, indicating Sophia would be returning, likely on the Silvana. We’d also seen repairs being made to Urbanus, so Vincent returning wasn’t something just pulled out of the air, but simply something played at a crucial time.

Speaking of Sophia, in the original Last Exile, she always looked like some stern librarian type.  Here, she actually looks like a hot babe who will kick your arse!

I wondered if the writers would get Tatiana and Alister back in the cockpit. The reason for them doing it made sense to me, and it gave Millia a ship from which to lead the assault on Grand Exile.

I find it interesting that Grand Exile was apparently not completed.  I’m going to guess that it was designed to evacuate the rest of Earth, but when it turned out that things didn’t require such drastic actions, the project was dropped.  I do wonder why Impetus was laid out the same, but on a smaller scale. That smacks of BS to me, and a cheap way for Gisey to navigate them to Sārā’s location.

I really do feel bad for Empress Sārā. I’m glad that Alvis is able to communicate with her and help comfort her.

Well, as we wind down, is this where Fam does something special, or just where she flaps her jaws and magically, everyone listens?  We’ve already had some of the later (which failed), so hopefully it is the former.

Despite some incredulous events with Sorūsh, I really liked the episode. I’m really looking forward to more.