86 - Episode 11 Review - Shin Sacrifices Himself for the Rest of Spearhead
Warning: Spoilers follow.
This is it. The end of the first cour of season 1.
The episode starts with Spearhead in the middle of battle, and it’s not looking good. Everyone’s Juggernaut has been destroyed. Everyone is still alive , but it’s a close call. Shin is the only one with an operational Juggernaut. He almost gets shot, but Fido jumps in to take the bullet. And now we know how Fido died.
The group defeats Legion and continues on their way to the enemy’s base. They leave the chest full of their comrades’ nameplates with Fido, believing they won’t live much longer anyways. They’ve lost almost all of their food and resources. Everyone rides in a single cart behind the Juggernaut, with everyone taking turns driving it.
The group stops to hide in a hole in a hill as a horde of Legion passes through. As they get closer to the enemy base, they see Legion Juggernauts more often.
The group stops at a town to rest and stay in an elementary school. Interestingly, the school looks Japanese. It makes sense, I suppose, since 86 members have Japanese-sounding names. But San Magnolia always seemed like a European country to me.
The next day, Shin tricks Anju into thinking he’s bored so that she lets him drive the Juggernaut for a while. Right after he settles in the cockpit he severs the connection with the cart and blocks the cart’s way with debris. Shin hears Legion and knows that a fight must happen. He does this to act as a decoy and save his friends one last time. Raiden, Anju, Kurena and Theo all yell at him via Para-RAID that this isn’t fair, that the plan was to stick together to the end. But he shuts off his Para-RAID.
Shin fights Legion but is greatly outnumbered. A Shepherd Juggernaut attacks with powerful ordnance, and Shin can’t dodge it. His Juggeranut falls apart. The Shepherd wants to take Shin’s brain and starts peeling open his Juggernaut. Shin gets ready to take his own life.
The rest of Spearhead Squadron make it to Shin and try to save him, but they’re overwhelmed by humanoid Legion that explode on contact. It seems they all die in battle but this isn’t confirmed. And it looks like Shin dies, too, as he has a vision of himself as a little boy with his big brother Shourei taking care of him. But since this is only the first cour of the first season, I doubt they died.
The episode switches to following Lena. She’s visited Spearhead’s base. She gets to meet Aldrecht and we learn his sad story. She meets the cat. And she finds something that the five members left behind for her. It’s the drawing of her as a pig, and a photograph of the entire squadron. A token to remember them. They all say goodbye in their own way, and Shin asks that she place flowers on their grave if she ever finds them.
