ROBOTECH REWATCH 39: “Debriefing” the Dreamboat

Musketeer Space 39: Milord, and his s... Galactic Suburbia 114 Show Notes

ROBOTECH REWATCH 39: “Debriefing” the Dreamboat

Hold your position. Robotech transmissions will now resume.

43. A New Recruit

So they captured Zor last week. I totally missed that. When they said they found the remains of a Bioroid pilot I was assuming – like a humanoid smear, not an actual person.

Dana is doing exhaustive sit ups when she hears her name called over the PA. She is called to Emerson’s office where she finds their prisoner of war standing all pretty in a uniform, his purple hair freshly curled. Oh, and his memory is completely gone, which is inconvenient for everyone hoping to drag useful intelligence out of him.

Zor is handed to Dana as a new recruit, on the grounds that making him part of a secure military unit might help jog his memory and allow Dana to debrief him properly. (Would also expose him to military secrets but… okay)

From this point on every time someone says “debrief,” it’s important to imagine inverted commas around the words, and Bow-chicka-bow-wow music going in the background. Because everyone is shipping Zor/Dana already, including the top brass.

Dana’s Zentraedi heritage is mentioned as one of the reasons why she has been given the job. Like – her perspective of having alien blood will help her understand this amnesiac who everyone’s going to hate and resent? Okay, then.

The 15th are pretty pissed at having an enemy pilot in their midst, except Louis who is already making heart-eyes about the possibility of little Dana-Zor alien babies. And finding out more about Robotech Masters tech, of course.

Zor beats the simulator with his amazing gun skills, and is subjected to extensive bullying by Eddie, a member of the 15th previously never really mentioned. I guess they didn’t want any of our regular guys to be a jerk about this, even though they all have a pretty good reason to resent Zor?

Sean and Dana, both dressed up for dates, bump into each other. He has an armful of flowers, and when Dana presses to find out which girl he’s after this time, it turns out that Marie Crystal is due out of hospital today and he wants to impress her.

Dana is amused, because Marie isn’t his usual type at all, and isn’t going to be “as easy as shooting skylarks” (?? Is this a metaphor for his usual brand of sexual harassment?)

Sean isn’t bothered on the grounds that he’s good at shooting (is that a metaphor? Everyone put your hormones away!) and changes the subject to point out that Dana is wearing a pretty dress. Does she have a hot date too?

She tells him she is “debriefing” Zor, giggles in an “it’s totally a date” way and runs off.

SEAN: A genuine space cadet.

I’d call him out for sexism in the workplace, but he’s not wrong. Dana, you make Minmei look deep.

In her pretty pink dress, Dana takes Zor to an amusement park, calls him a dreamboat, and falls in love with him in soft focus. Yep, “debriefing” officially means hot date.

Zor actually says: “You sure this is what the general meant by debriefing?”

Later, he gets overwhelmed at a repeated visual pattern on the roller coaster and gets vivid, traumatic war flashbacks. Dana, concerned about him, takes her seatbelt off (WTF!) and falls out of the roller coaster. As he lunges to rescue her, Zor remembers another woman, falling.

Dana’s fine, no thanks to herself. You’d think a woman who knows how to drive a hover tank would get the basics of seatbelt technology.

Back at the base, Bowie is jealous of Zor, because both Louis and Dana won’t shut up about him. Dana is looking for her dreamboat, but he’s found a different lady to assist him.

Nova Satori, whose duties as the Fun Police Military Police seem ever more varied and interesting, helps Zor run through a bunch of VHS tapes of battle footage. Something snaps inside him and he ends up in bed, raving about Earth being the source of protoculture.

Nova puts the doctor under strict security protocols and quarantines Zor as he continue to blurt out sensitive information while screaming, topless, in a bed.

The Robotech Masters are watching a reality clip show called ‘what’s happening in Zor’s brain’ including lots of battles, internal yelling, and snippets from Dana and Zor’s date. One of the Masters refers to Dana as a juvenile female which, frankly is pretty accurate.

They are worried that Zor might give the humans too much information, and are sick of the waves of weird emotion coming off him, so it’s time to go in and take control of him. CREEPY.

Zor starts being weird and harsh to Dana, fed up with her attempts to debrief him and also to “debrief” him. Sean should probably give him a sexual harassment pamphlet right about now. Zor is attacked again by shout Eddie, who it turns out is super aggressive because his brother was killed in action against Zor’s bioroid.

Overwhelmed with guilt and confusion, Zor angsts about killing his own people and decides he doesn’t want his memories if they have that sort of thing in them. He yells at Dana to leave him alone, and she gets angry and kicks a screen that shatters, sending Zor into yet another whirl of hallucinations.

He has a memory of a beautiful green-haired girl called Musica, and the two of them being shot at. He used her as a human shield and got her killed. When he wakes up, he’s lying on top of Dana on the floor.

Devastated by realising what a monster he was, Zor declares he is a manufactured clone, and that the Robotech Masters controlled him completely. He needs answers about who he was – but when he goes to Emerson’s office, he overhears that they hoped they could use Zor as leverage against the Robotech Masters. Now, however, the information they have got out of his head makes it ever more likely that war is their only option.

Sucks to be Zor.