Week 1 Summary
Tide-Line Blue Episode 1 Summary (“Spirit”):
After a striking opening sequence in which the camera plummets from orbit to the earth’s surface accompanied by pulsating choral music, we are introduced to Keel, who is sitting in a gaming room opposite an enormous sailor. He’s been loosing, badly, but when he demands just one more go the sailor (counseled by a couple of other friendly patrons) offers him ten-to-one odds.
After his crushing victory, Keel deals out his two accomplices their share of the winnings… but alas, the sailor overhears their conversation and chases Keel across Yabitsu’s rooftops with a crazed look in his eyes. The sailor’s own size does him in and he crashes through a roof (and into an apartment where an old lady reminds him to “remove your hat while indoors”) while Keel looks up, pensively, at the object sitting on top of Yabitsu’s only mountain: a massive aircraft carrier (the Promethius), which is both the city’s power plant and the headquarters of the New UN. Inside things are not going well for Secretary-General Aoi: the New UN members are fighting furiously over who gets veto power in the new world. The debate is pointless, but it seems that nothing will ever be resolved…
Meanwhile Keel runs down to Isla’s seaside trinket stall, where she has just finished, erm, roping a seaman into buying some of her wares. After thirty seconds of Ostrich Terror, Keel takes Isla out for bite to eat—but their lunch is interrupted by a whining noise and a burst of wind… Up in the New UN chambers, a boy who looks suspiciously like Keel has walked in, announced that his name is Tean Gould, and warned the assembly that Captain Gould has waited long enough. “Time’s up,” Tean says, and the first missile comes screaming into the bridge of the aircraft carrier.
The bombardment is intense and Keel and Isla are both knocked out by the blasts. Isla’s gone into labor because of the shock, and a panicking Keel takes her to a ruined cottage where he fumblingly tries to help her. Tean comes upon them while looking for a place to hide from the UN soldiers, and stops dead when he sees Keel. The two are brothers—twins, it seems—but something in their past (connected with the death of their mother) has made them each think the other dead. Whatever it was caused a rift between them as well; but despite their mutual loathing both realize that the most crucial thing at the moment is Isla’s baby. Under Tean’s guidance and with the help of Keel’s oh-so-twistable arm, a nearly delirious Isla gives birth to a healthy boy.
Keel’s still mad at Tean, however, and when Tean offers Keel his insignia, telling Keel to present it to the group at the docks if Tean isn’t there, Keel furiously knocks it away. The New UN (wait… “NUN”?) soldiers arrive and Tean is captured, but now Keel’s stuck on a flaming Yabitsu with a very sick girl and a newborn baby. He drags Isla and the child to the UN headquarters, but Blantyre, Aoi’s second-in-command, tells him that although Keel’s spot is prepared Isla and the child must stay: there cannot be any exceptions. Seeing Aoi’s helicopter taking off, Keel runs after her frantically and is crushed when she simply looks away from him, sadly.
The missiles keep on screaming in and Blantyre warns Keel that the Promethius is about to collapse. As Keel dashes through the streets of the city, trying to think of a way out of his predicament, the episode ends with a sequence of briefly flashed images: the insignia lying on the floor of the cabin… a dour-looking woman waiting for Tean at the docks… and the man in the space station brings his finger down on an ominous red button: “Today’s transmission… complete.”