Considering where I was with it going in, last week\u2019e episode of Apocalypse Hotel<\/em> amounted to a pretty massive stumble. Coming on the heels of one of the best episodes of any show this year, I had visions of masterpiece dancing in my head. But to be blunt, that ep had major problems. In addition to being generally kind of dumb \u2013 including in depicting a dumb idea as not dumb \u2013 it came off as pretty ugly. It was hard to read what happened as anything but a sort of tacit endorsement of the xenophobic politicians in Japan demanding a the abandonment of the country\u2019s pacifist constitution.<\/p>\n That came especially as a shock because it appears to completely contradict the messaging of the first six episodes. That seemed unabashedly inclusive and a plea for understanding of differences. So I thought the whole Ponko thing \u2013 basically depicting her as one of those politicians (if you know you know) was satirizing them. But then it basically went to \u201cShe\u2019s right, you know?\u201d I don\u2019t know any other interpretation of the last ten minutes of that episode. I don\u2019t know any other logical reason why Yachiyo would have gone along with her. All in all, it was an unpleasant shock to the system.<\/p>\n As such, I went into this episode on tenterhooks. When that sort of thing happens, there are absolutely no guarantees the show will ever get it back. It requires both a recovery in terms of content, and a reserve of goodwill which I can\u2019t be sure I have. And to again be frank, I don\u2019t feel any better about things after this week\u2019s ep. If there was any element of Episode 7\u2019s ugliness that was a feint, we see no evidence of it here. Ponko is happily managing the hotel in Yachiyo\u2019s absence (and presumed demise). In fact she\u2019s built a missile into the roof, which she fires off at an unidentified object<\/a> entering orbit, having no idea whether it\u2019s hostile or a threat.<\/p>\n S0 yeah, I hate Ponko now. Maybe it\u2019s a miracle that I liked her as long as I did, but no one was pulling harder for a random nudel attack than me. OK, so Ponko has made the Gingarou more successful (the advertising satellite was actually an OK idea) \u2013 they even have a few guests. And Ponko has grown up, which suggests she was maintaining that chibi form for aesthetic purposes only. But she\u2019s kind of a sociopath now, and there\u2019s not even any sign of her family (was that supposed to be Fuguri? She was acting like it was her boyfriend). Naturally Yachiyo is the object she fired the missile at (which is why we don\u2019t fire missiles at unidentified targets, especially when our hotel depends 100% on extraterrestrial guests).<\/p>\n After that, none of it really worked for me. Yachiyo winds up getting grafted onto a tank<\/a> because her body is destroyed (Ponko can apparently build satellites and RFGs \u2013 and mobile suits FFS \u2013 but not fix a robot body). She grates on all the changes Ponko has made and goes crazy, turning into a RPG-firing biker chick<\/a>. There\u2019s an entirely unconvincing and unsatisfying reconciliation between Ponko and Yachiyo, which finds the latter coming back to the hotel and restoring the removed shampoo hats. And absolutely no acknowledgement from anyone that mistakes have been made here, or indeed that they\u2019re capable of learning from them (I mean, Ponko\u2019s right \u2013 fixing the shampoo makes more sense than dorky shower hats).<\/p>\n I don\u2019t want to harp on it, but I do say repeatedly that the writer is the most important person on an original series, and I did note that Murakoshi Shigeru never having stuck the landing on one was by biggest worry with Apocalypse Hotel<\/em>. I\u2019m not ready to say this series simply got Peter Principle\u2019d, but it\u2019s a total mess at the moment. It\u2019s contradicting itself and what we see playing out has lost its internal consistency. As random and outrageous as its twists were, there was still a consistency of vision and perspective keeping things on-track. That\u2019s in tatters now, and it seems very unlikely it can be pieced back together in any meaningful way. Which is a pretty big fucking shame, because I loved the hell out of this series and I really hoped it could close the deal.<\/p>\n
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