If there is anyone reading this without having read Jane Lebak's "The Girl You Remember", I have two words for you, which are, READ IT. It is nothing short of brilliant. I guarantee you will finish it in a stunned silence, just like I did. (Actually, if you don't there really isn't much I can do to make it up to you, but I am pretty sure you will like it.)

The ISO is contacted by someone named Lucy who says that she will give the location of the Galactor Headquarters in exchange of one hundred million dollars, so Dr. Nambu sends the SNT to the Rally Across Africa to confirm this.

Waitaminute, did he say Africa?

Like, the continent?

...At long last, a geographic location that actually exists...

Sorry. Back to the plot. Ken says Joe's job is to participate in the rally as Lucy's partner. The rest of the team is to follow Joe and Lucy in the GP. Ryu and Jinpei are disappointed, since they wanted to take part in a rally and drive a souped-up car, which I really can't understand because, HOW MUCH MORE SOUPED UP CAN YOU GET THAN THE GODPHEONIX for crying out loud?

Joe approaches a yellow orange car, and says hello to Lucy, who is a youngish woman wearing a red tank top with a blue scarf with orangeish yellow hair cut in a pageboy, which I am sure was popular at the time. However, what it reminds me of is that movie Addams Family 2, where Uncle Fester is seduced by the Black Widow and is made to wear pastel and he has this awful orange wig that is cut in a pageboy. Apparently Joe and she know each other already because they go off about how it's been five years. Lucy can't believe Joe is working for the ISO, and Joe can't believe that Lucy is working for Galactor. Lucy says that she used to be one of their officers, but not anymore. Lucy has a very nice voice of a mature woman, which complements Joe's very nicely.

The race begins. Joe asks Lucy where Headquarters is, and Lucy tells them to just concentrate on the rally for now. So they tear through savannas and watering holes and generally make destructive nuisances of themselves, along with all the other drivers taking part in this rally.

The Purple Doberman is conferring with the Blue Chicken. Lucy is their bait to lure the SNT to their deaths by Operation Mechanimal (which when you stop and think about it, is kind of a contradiction, and nearly all Galactor Mecha are animals to begin with, so it makes you wonder what makes these Mech so special).

Joe and Lucy's car is surrounded by giraffes, only they're not giraffes because their heads start spinning and they are suddenly all metal, and from the horns on their heads they start firing lasers. That was pretty cool, but then their necks fold open and they start firing missiles at them, and the missiles are coming flying out of their necks while their heads are flopping around hanging from their necks from just a hinge or something...sigh...

Lucy tells Joe to take over and brings out something that might be used to shoot elephants and opens fire on them. Joe starts drooling at the gun. Lucy takes down the giraffe wannabes, then points the gun at him and tells Joe he'll cooperate if he wants to get through this alive. Then she takes out the last giraffe wannabe. She sees the GP and fires at it. Joe tells her to stop because it is the SNT. She snaps back that as far as she is concerned, the SNT and she are not on the same side either. When Joe looks at her with his mouth kind of hanging open, she reminds him that there is still a rally and that he should start driving again.

The weather is rainy and the roads are muddy. Joe is the driver now, and Lucy is the navigator. Joe comments on the road conditions, and I'm thinking, "At long last! The Condor's mouth is getting filthier than the Eagle's!"

Cut to the car stuck in mud. Lucy has her foot on the gas, Joe is outside pushing. Joe says it's no use, Lucy tells him to try again. Joe says no. We see a rhinoceros with a sinister glow in its eyes, (like when we see that glow they might as well be wearing a flashing red sign that says I AM A GALACTOR MECHA) head for Joe and the car. Joe leaps up and somersaults and lands in the passenger's seat (when did Lucy or Joe take the top down?) Either the rhino rams them out of the mud or Lucy got the car unstuck just then, because they are making good speed running from the rhino. The Rhino Mech fires lasers at them. The GP scoops the rhino up on its left wing, and it looks kind of cute riding there, until it is hurled into a watering hole and explodes.

Lucy thinks it is a big joke that the SNT thinks they are protecting her. Joe asks her again where Galactor Headquarters is. I am hoping Lucy will give Joe a non-geographic location where he can put his backside, but all Lucy says is not until later, and accelerates.

The Purple Doberman on Speed (copyright Lori McDonald-sama) and the Blue Chicken are discussing whether Lucy is going to betray them, and decide that Lucy is probably only thinking about the race right now and that they are safe. The Purple Doberman says that he will kill the SNT before the race is over. And by now I am wondering how on earth the Purple Doberman can understand the Blue Chicken, because I for one have to rewind the tape at least three times before I can make out even half of what he is saying.

The rest of the Team are looking for Galactors. They find them behind the rally checkpoint. Ken and Jun go out to cover Joe.

Joe and Lucy have reached the checkpoint, and Joe runs out of the car to the checkpoint tent. He notices a flash of metal, and yells at Lucy to be careful.

Ken and Jun take out Green Guys.

Joe runs back to the car. Lucy asks him what took so long. They drive off. Joe looks out the window, and his eyes meet Ken's and Jun's. Jun comments that they seem to be pretty intent on winning. Ken comments that something is not quite right.

Joe and Lucy are on the road again. Lucy says that she refuses to be second to anyone, including Berg Katze and Sosai. Joe comments that that is a bit difficult alone. Lucy says that she already has five Galactor bases under her control, and that she plans to take over Galactor. Joe asks, "Why did you offer the ISO information then?"

To which Lucy replies, "I am going to kill two birds with one stone. I will get the money I need to run Galactor, and the SNT will kill Berg Katze and Sosai for me." Which when you think about it is pretty darn clever. Joe comments that it probably is easier said than done, and Lucy says that they are going to do it, together.

Purple tells Blue that Lucy has betrayed them. Blue points out that the SNT is still following her, so that probably means that Lucy hasn't given them any info yet, which is pretty efficient thinking for poultry. Purple says that in that case he will continue with Operation Mechanimal (would someone PLEASE do something about these names?).

So the next mecha in the Galactor Operation Mechabeast arsenal are buzzards...I think, or maybe they were going for real poetic justice and they are condors. Jinpei says happily that he always wanted to fire Bird Missiles, and he hits the red button and blows the buzzards/ condors out of the sky, and perhaps this is a play on the avian theme too, the Bird Missiles being for the birds.

The last day of the rally. Lucy says that the rally is almost over, but Joe knows that there are still a few more minutes until the end of the episode because he says "if we finish it alive," and sure enough a herd of wild boars come careening in their direction from behind. Of course they are not really wild boars, but wild boar mecha, and Joe steps on the gas real hard. Then another herd of wild boars comes running in their direction from the front, and it looks like they are going to be smashed between two packs of wild boars in a big mess of pork and metal and human flesh. Joe turns into a side road, but Lucy says that the only thing in that direction is a cliff.

Now, if the two herds of wild boar mechs weren't enough, a pack of hyena mechs are on the roof of the car. Joe jumps across a cliff, and the hyena mechs are shaken off. Lucy is impressed.

Katze is chewing out his Operation Mechabeast commander over a monitor, and suddenly it hits me that the Mechabeast commander is shaped remarkably like one of the forms of Freezer in Dragon Ball Z, only I can't remember which one. The poor commander asks what to do, and the Purple Doberman says that the neuron conversion device, whatever that is, has already been completed, so the commander's only job now is to die.

Cut to Joe and Lucy waving to cheering crowds. They have won the race. It is announced that the winners of the Rally Across Africa are the team of Lucy and Kondoru no Joe, so apparently Lucy has no family name, which is all right, but I COULD HAVE SWORN JOE HAD A PERFECTLY BEAUTIFUL FAMILY NAME, ONE HE SHARED WITH DAIMYO AND SAMURAI AND OTHER ANIME HEROS but I guess it was just my imagination.

Joe and Lucy are in what appears to be a fancy restaurant, only there is no food on the table, not even a glass of water, and there are no other guests. Joe says that the prize money from the rally is hers and hands her a big thick envelope (and let me just say that I think that usually it would be in a check, and how like a real Japanese situation that they will use cash for everything). Lucy says that half of it belongs to Joe. Joe doesn't want the prize money, but he does want to know where Galactor Headquarters is. Lucy asks if he has the money, and Joe says that he has it ready.

The Doberman and the Chicken decide to act quickly, though not without regret as Lucy is "their finest masterpiece".

Joe asks Lucy again where Galactor Headquarters is. Lucy begins to say "it is in*" but she stops and gasps. She is obviously in a great deal of discomfort. Her eyes flash in the way the mecha from Operation Mechabeast have been for the past half hour. And Joe ever the sensitive one, is not asking "are you all right" but is demanding that she tell him where Galactor Headquarters is...um, score high on the sensitivity scale, Joe?

The skin on Lucy's face has disappeared, revealing metal plates and rivets. She hides her face and runs from Joe, breaking though a wall and falls to the ground two floors below.

Joe runs out of the front door of the building to find nothing but fragments of metal and scraps of fabric.

"Lucy was a cyborg," he says.

Ken and Jun are standing behind him. "A cyborg with human emotions that tried to betray Galactor," Ken adds. Jun says that she feels sorry for Lucy.

Joe says, "If she had told me where Galactor Headquarters was sooner, this might not have happened. Poor girl."

To which Ken says, "I don't think so. Cyborgs will, when intent on something, become too obsessed with something, and will lose sight of everything else. That is their weakness. Likely Lucy could not defy her fate as a cyborg."

A car runs over the metal parts that used to be Lucy, which is kind of morbid when you think about it.

Joe walks away, and says, aside, "Lucy was a good partner."

The narrator makes his spiel about how Joe didn't want to think of Lucy, who had been his partner for five days and with whom he had risked his life, as a cyborg, and that he was royally upset at Galactor for making Lucy what she had become.

Okay, did everyone get that, what Ken said? Were they planning for Gatch 2 when they made him say that? So Joe (much later of course) the cyborg is obsessed and can't overcome his fate as one?

Kind of got me thinking.

(Can you tell I'm partial to this episode? I'm not nearly as mean as I usually am!)

(^-^)/))