Bleach Recaps: Ep. 209, Hollowsaurus

Last week's episode was fairly decent.  This week's episode is good too.  The difference is plot movement.  Because the Turn Back the Pendulum Arc is a self-contained story, single episodes can actually cause major twists in the narrative.  This is unlike the main "Bleach" storyline, where individual episodes usually boil down to "hero #18" is fighting "villain #34".  Because of how huge the scale that "Bleach" has reached at this point, it is almost impossible for any one thing to really matter in the long run.  In a mini arc, a new threat can be revealed and actually create dramatic weight.  Episode 209 introduces the first real threat to the Visored characters we've met, and so its pretty okay.  Thumbs up.

Last week ended with a bunch of dudes screaming.  We now find out they're actually melting or something, and they spit up some up weird gravity-defying vomit.  This effect looks far too much like that completely forgettable horror movie "The Haunting in Connecticut", a movie which bet its entire fortune on the idea that puking upsidedown would scare the living Jesus out of me.  (Hint:  it didn't.  Virginia Madsen deserves better than this.)  Well, it turns out that these random dudes have puked so much that they exploded... somehow.  Two evil people - obviously Aizen and Gin - have an umbrella open to block the gore.  Aizen is very happy.  Then he jizzes all over the title card.  Fucking gross, man!

Obviously the rest of this episode is going to deal with finding out why these people exploded, who exploded them, and all that assorted stuff.  Or a monster of some kind will attack.  Works either way.  But first, we must get some character banter between our Soul Society characters from 101 years ago.  Sadly Yoruichi is nowhere to be found, but we do have Shinji, Urahara, and Hiyori.  Which means the inevitable logical conclusion - somebody is going to get hurt.

I've lost count at this point.

Shinji has some news to tell Urahara.  Hiyori gets pissed because her vagina never stops bleeding, and kicks his ass.  Then Aizen goes ahead and tells the news himself.  There have been some "disappearances" in the Slums, or as Aizen says, "violent deaths".  If they disappeared, how can know they died violently?  Aizen totally implicated himself there.  Too bad Detective Goren wasn't alive 101 years ago, and wasn't a Soul Reaper, and wasn't an anime character, or he'd have this case solved already.  None of these characters have anything to do further with this situation, and instead the buck is passed to Squad 9.

Squad 9 is led by that white-haired Visored.  I didn't catch his name, but he has a 69 tattoo on his chest, just like our current Mr. 69.  So this white-haired guy will be "Old Mr. 69".  Some jokes just never die, and 69 is definitely one of them.  Old Mr. 69 commands that Green-haired Visored, Mashiro, a weird chick whose personality seems to come from another dimension.  Her Soul Reaper powers seem exclusively limited to creating ridiculous cartoon faces stolen from "FLCL" and annoying the Hell out of everybody.  But there's other guys as well, like-  WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT???

Looks like his head fell in cheese dip back in 1957.

For some reason that is never explained, Old Mr. 69 has an alien under his employ.  I don't know why, nobody even comments on it.  But there you go.  Its just an alien Soul Reaper.  He's hanging out like one of the boys.  The alien dies too at the end of the episode, so we never find out what his deal is.  Of course, there's the even bigger mystery of whatever is going on with his hair... Watch, next G. Gordon Liddy is going to show up.

Oh really??  The fuck!

Any reason why President Nixon's bagman is hanging around the Soul Society?  Is this whole episode some kind of intergalatic shinigami Republican conspiracy or something?  Did CREEP melt those people?  Maybe.. just maybe, Nixon was in league with the Soul Reapers and the aliens the entire time, and used alien technology to kill Kennedy!  Then Liddy used a Shikai to kill John Lennon for corrupting America's youth.  Nixon must have taken us off the gold standard in preparation for the alien invasion!  It all makes sense now!

...wait, no.  It makes no sense at all.

Anyway, Hollow!

They had dinosaurs 101 years ago?

The monster is attacking a group of kids.  One of those is kids is the child-version of the modern Mr. 69.  Since Shuhei's still just a kid, I'll just call him "Mr." because he's still a kid and he's too young for stuff like his nickname.  Of course, nobody told the evil tentacles.

Mr. 69 - the Horrifying Origin Story

Well, Mr. Old 69 and his crew make short work of the giant Brontosaurus Hollow, which is really too bad because "Bleach" has definitely been lacking in dinosaurs.  It could have used at least one.  We do learn Mr. Old 69's Shikai though - its whips.  His sword can turn into a huge SnM device that cuts right through Hollows if they forget the Safety Word.  Little Shuhei is inspired to master the sacred and deadly art of sixty-nine and follow in the white-haired guy's footsteps.

Meanwhile, Mashiro, who was hiding during the fight with the prehistoric monster, has discovered ten Soul Society uniforms.  This means the entire advance party has been disintegrated.  Old Mr. 69, faced with the prospect of some kind of body-melting pathogen, decides to set up camp here, where the monster can eat him and entire party.

Back in Squad 12, Hiyori is arguing with Insano over rank or something.  You see, Hiyori might be the Lieutenant of Squad 12, but she works for Insano in the Department of Mad Science.  This mixed-up ranking system would obviously cause huge problems in the real world, probably violent ones, but Urahara is too stoned to even realize what he's done.  Urahara walks out with a corpse on his shoulder, babbling about gigais.  I wonder if Urahara actually is a master scientist or if he just pours random chemicals together while listening to Fish and gets lucky.  When he receives a report about the Raptured Soul Reapers, Urahara sends Hiyori, the only one he can trust.  Of course, Hiyori won't have it, and instead wants some random kid to go in her stead.  By the way, this random kid is awesome:

I'd probably have that look too if I had to work with Hiyori.

Random Kid is like "if you don't want to fight, don't be a Lieutenant, its not like any of us like you anyway, bitch".  Then he dodges a flurry of kicks, before returning to science, his status as an ultimate badass secure forever.  We will never see this Random Kid again, but the mark he has left on our hearts will never fade.

Hiyori finally agrees because after nine years of working for Urahara, she's fallen for the big silly bastard.  Yeah, he might be insane, smell of bong water and Scooby Snacks, but at least he's handsome-ish.  So she goes off to get turned into a Visored next episode.

Back at Squad 9 base, this is happening:

Okay Mashiro, just move that hand down a little further....

But while Mashiro masturbates in front her Captain, they're under attack!  The alien is dead!  Now the guy with the metal plate for a forehead is dead!  Then... G. GORDON LIDDY, NO!!!  Finally Old Mr. 69 himself is cut down.  Its a massacre.

Holy damn!  A Captain just got punked-out like it was nothing!  That's some serious hardcore monster business for you.  Even the Espada can't beat Captains, and some random unseen mist creature has already done it.  Talk about an awesome cliff hanger to end on.  I'm honestly excited as to where this arc will go next.  Here's to next week!