Season 1, Episode 5: "Eagle Hunting and Hunting Eagles"

Picking up where we left off: Rock and Revy are about to enter the submarine. As are neo-Nazis in the ship all the way out in the sea.

Black Lagoon just avoided a watery grave by juuuuust avoiding the anti-tank missiles. It's uncanny how many times these guys have evaded death just by being in the right place at the right time.

"Assholes." - Dutch

Revy blows the door off the U-boat, sending a surge of water to rush in. Rock yells at Revy for almost flooding the place, but she tells him to stop bitching and just move on. You know, it's kind of bizarre seeing Rock yell at Revy. It's like he's trying to get on her level by acting just as bitchy as her and reacting how he thinks Revy would if it was Rock who almost flooded the entrance. It's rather... cute.

For once it seems like Rock is going to stop being such a pansy, until he picks up a Nazi skull and promptly shits his pants.

As they look around the U-boat, they find the decomposed bodies and skeletons of the Nazis from 50 years ago.

Plot hole: when the captain and S.S. Officer were talking about how they only had two hours of oxygen left, that should mean that there is no air in that submarine at all, even after 50 years. So how were the bodies able to decompose? More importantly, how are Rock and Revy able to breathe? Unless this was just passed off as just a minor fluke that we weren't supposed to notice, how does it make any sense at all?

Rock starts to get all existential, asking Revy how the Nazis must have felt when they were struggling to breathe with the declining oxygen. Why he's trying to romanticize these people's deaths is beyond me. I suppose he's trying to sympathize with them and get Revy to show some human emotion for once, but it fails because Revy has no empathy. Or rather, she shows as little of it as possible to avoid wasting emotions on people she never knew or cared about. So, she tells Rock to stop making himself cry by thinking about it, and just think happy thoughts. They are on a mission after all, not a school field trip to a museum.

Rock and Revy reach the cabin where the captain and S.S. Officer were during last episode's flash back.

After the S.S. Officer shot the captain, the crew came into the cabin to investigate the noise, leading to a shootout. The S.S. died relatively quickly.

Revy identifies the S.S. Officer's skeleton slumped against the back, and figures he was the one who shot first since he was the "outsider" among the crew. She also manages to figure out how the shootout went down, with the other crew members coming in after the first shot, which makes me wonder just how many times Revy has encountered skeleton closets before. I guess if you've seen one, you've seen them all.

Rock finds the painting, much to Revy's ecstatic delight.

Revy tells Rock to hang back while she goes around and collects the loot scattered around the U-boat. Knowing how Rock skives the 50-year-old corpses at his feet, he's not too thrilled about being left alone. Not only that, but he also doesn't like the idea of Revy taking the Nazis' belongings.

Dutch and Benny watch the neo-Nazis across the sea through binoculars, taking notice that they're parked right on top of the U-boat. On the neo-Nazi ship, the captain selects his favorite soldier to fulfill the mission of going underwater and retrieving the painting--a mission that will restore honor to their dead brethren below. He and the captain cry tears of honor, and those tears pour out of every orifice in their faces like faucets about to burst.

I want this screenshot blown up and taped to my ceiling.

Next, they perform their anthem, which Benny describes as "some sort of Nazi marching song." Then Benny notices that the neo-Nazis are lowering the chosen soldier into the sea via an orange pod, which means they're definitely going to encounter Rock and Revy for a graverobbing showdown. But the worst part is that there's nothing Benny or Dutch can do but hope Rock and Revy make it out of there alive.

When Revy returns to the cabin with a bag of goods, Rock tells her that she should just put them back, as she doesn't have a right to those medals and trinkets; they belong to the soldiers. They earned them. They mean something to them. And Rock feels that it's not right to take their honor away from them.

Revy knows that Rock means well, but she lets him in on a little secret. She holds up a skull and the captain's iron cross, and tells Rock that they are nothing but material objects with no meaning except for the dollar value placed on them.

She explains that they only have intrinsic value because money is power, so all the "sentimental bullshit" Rock is spouting about honor and meaning, God and love, they don't carry power, therefore they are worthless in that sense. Revy then opens up a bit about when she was little, living in the ghettos of New York City when cops beat the love and God out of her one day. So to her, power was all that mattered. Power was what kept her in the ghetto, and power was what got her beaten down by authority. Now, this in no way justifies Revy's selfishness, but it does explain why she and Rock don't see the same thing when looking at the same objects. It's all in how they saw the world growing up, and that speaks miles for everyone no matter how they were raised. But honestly, I kind of side with Revy's point of view. They were Nazis after all, and no matter how much those medals and awards are symbols of what they've done, at the end of the day, that's all they are. Things.

Try putting this conversation in the context of someone like Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. and their former symbols of peace--the result will still be the same. All those symbols are, are simply things. Things with intrinsic value. What you decide to do with those symbols of peace--be it for honor, money, or power--is what matters more.

Revy says that all those fat cats and corporate bigwigs living it up in paradise are nothing but hypocrites when they themselves know that they didn't get to that point by being polite and considerate for the welfare of others. So if Rock continues to bullshit Revy with morality, she will consider him a hypocrite and kill him.

The neo-Nazis make their way into the U-boat by climbing in through the door. Now that makes me question why Revy and Rock didn't just do that, considering the sub wouldn't have flooded. Oh, right... money. Going in the correct way would have been more expensive. Though I still don't see how hooking dynamite up to the engines was any cheaper.

Revy tells Rock to go grab their gear and the painting, and then whips out her underwater rifle when the enemies get close enough. Revy manages to wipe out a couple of guys, but clumsy Rock trips while carrying the painting and drops it (rather, he sort-of flings it forward) into the neo-Nazis' reach. They grab the painting and escape, with Rock and Revy chasing after them. No way is Revy letting $50,000 escape out of her hands.

The neo-Nazis disconnect the pod (trapping some of their comrades into a watery death) and make it back to the ship. Rock and Revy, not knowing who they're up against, try to attack the enemies head-on by swimming directly up. And that's when they come face-to-face with bullets. They don't have the necessary equipment to fight back. So their only option now is to retreat.

It's not like Revy to be so unprepared. Granted, how was Black Lagoon supposed to know that neo-Nazis would come to claim "their" former brethrens' treasure 50 years after the U-boat sank? They had all that time to go get it, but decided now was the best time. Still, Revy and Rock should have been more prepared--carrying only a single gun for protection is like asking to be murdered (just a tiny bit more slowly).

Revy and Rock return to their boat to update Benny and Dutch on the status of the painting while Benny and Dutch reveal the identities of the mystery enemies. Everyone agrees that their next move is to destroy the neo-Nazi ship. Everyone except Rock, of course. Because morals. He doesn't say anything, though. His hesitation is all in his face.

But you know, if the episode would have ended right before the camera panned to Rock for those last few seconds, I would have been satisfied. But now I'm tricked into thinking that attacking the neo-Nazis is the "wrong" thing to do--and that's all because Rock decide to hog the camera for those last few seconds.

Who am I supposed to side with?!




OVERALL:

Story - While not a huge part of the arc, the crux of the story focuses on Rock's hesitation about Revy pawning/selling the Nazis' medals and awards, something he believes belongs to them, and only them. It's a classic case of morality vs. practicality--both with pros and cons.

3 / 5

Character Depth - This one goes to Revy--her explanation as to why collecting and selling all the goods she finds in the U-boat coincides with her viewpoint on life itself. Although we don't get a huge chunk of backstory, it's not even necessary because the little bit of information she provides is perfect enough to give us an explanation for her ways of thinking.

4.5 / 5

Badassery - Revy's speech to Rock in the cabin stood out as the most badass moment of the episode. I'll believe her if she said she'd kill me if I tried to tell her what's proper.

5 / 5

Best Insult: (Revy, to Rock in the U-boat cabin): "I'll say this once. The next time you decide to tell me what's proper, you'll no longer be one of us. When that happens, I'm gonna kill you."

Out-of-Context: "Shall we go and pick up some bones?"