I finished to watch the latest episode, but my views on it is the same as the previous few episodes: not enough Ledo/Amy moments. Other than that, it was pretty nice: the scene involving Ledo and Amy's squirrel named Grace was very heartwarming, I think the latter is probably spying since last episode just to help Gargantians. Unfortunately, things doesn't go too well, and Melty finally shows some signs of suffering but her life/death situation is saved by Amy. It turns out that Striker plays a evil wild card against Ledo and Chamber, they are fighting against each other with morality, and it even turn out that Pinion was controlled by the sect but is finally pairing with his friends and Rackage to defeat the sect. The biggest twist revealed this episode happens in the end, where Ledo is curious on what's going on inside of Striker, only to find out that Kugel is actually holographed from the start. My feelings are somewhat relieved when in the end, Amy will save Ledo and they will probably forgive each other and will live a normal life together as a potential couple, and this is the last candle I'm going to left it once it finishes!

so are they going to leave the whole ep13 back to the whole "integration into the society" aspect of the story? With Chamber seemingly intact, I'm not sure how I feel about this. Hopefully the epilogue next week shall fill up some of the needed characterisations that people has been asking for. At least Melty seem a bit more 3 dimensional (I hope) judging from your comments

http://i.imgur.com/do92TN6l.jpg

I knew Kugel was dead all along.

After seeing how they get rid off the sick and elderly it did not take long for Red and Pinion to change their allegiance. I had expected Chamber to refuse Red's orders but it was not so.

The last third of the episode was pure awesomeness. the way Red challanged the Striker to a dogfight (equiped with a huge machinegun he got from Pinion), while Lackage's lobster mecha was kicking ass and taking names on the ships. Pinion also reached bro tier by helping Red out with ground support.
This was one very resourceful mutiny.

It was also quite shocking when Red opened the cockpit and Kugel's body immediately started to decompose, to the point where even his head fell off O.o

All that's left is to utterly senmetsu the Striker, which should hold no moral problem for Red.

As many predicted. Kugel was indeed dead. The reign of tyranny was Striker's doing all along.
Who knows. If Kugel did survive, things might not have turned out this way. However, without it's pilot, Striker went full GA nuts.

Chamber would never behave like Striker as long as Ledo is around. Ledo's arguments and thoughts do actually influence his Machine Caliber.

gen really took that route ./omg

Since we'd already thoroughly poked into Striker puppeteering Kugel around, I wasn't surprised either. I did think that having Kugel's corpse shrivel up and decapitate itself was a little excessive though.

Pinion letting his hair down... unfortunately he didn't put on sunglasses. :heh:

Mecha combat: Nothing too spectacular by the standards of the genre, but it wasn't too bad either.

One more round chambered in Chekhov's Gun: The key and the tower (even if they've been using it as a sprinkler system). And Striker's external power supply, which might tie into whatever else they might have been doing over on the Heart of Darkness fleet to make everyone so compliant.

On that note, if Kugel expired relatively early on, I wonder how much detail Striker went into regarding directions. People are fairly creative, after all, so a simple "In the Alliance we space the old and infirm" could be turned into the elaborate ceremony with the chairs and the levers and the Big Red Button, but at some point the AI still has to sign off on things.

"I need a bigger temple."
"Purple is a good color."
"Etc."