Notes of Space Dandy Episode 5

Good to see Dandy back to his old self again!

Last week on Space Dandy, Dandy and his crew all fell victim to the zombie apocalypse.

Summary of Space Dandy Episode 5:

While Dandy searches for an alien known as Gentooan, the Aloha Oe gets towed away. He finds the alien, who has the power to transplant anyone’s mind into a puppet, and it turns out to be a little girl named Adélie. He ends up catching her, but can’t use the Aloha Oe because he doesn’t have enough money to get it back from the impound. He then sets out on a journey with Adélie to go the the nearest alien registration center to get the cash to get the Aloha Oe back. Along the way, the two search for Adélie’s grandfather, and Dandy finally finds him after searching for him in secret. After Dandy fights off a band of alien hunters who are trying to capture Adélie, he reunites her with her grandfather and tells the two that he’s decided not to take them to the alien registration center.

Ah, that heartwarming father-daughter dialogue

Well, Dandy and his crew are no longer zombies. And they never discuss the “zombification”. I would brag about predicting that they wouldn’t talk about it in my last recap, but I’m pretty sure we’re all in on the shtick of this show by now.

We’ve all had that friend who said they’ll give you a ride, but then forget about you for days

It’s a classic scenario; a man who is in no way fit to be any sort of authority figure, let alone a father figure, is left to take care of a child. It doesn’t help when the child has unimaginable powers. The child in question is a little girl, Adélie, who is looking for her grandfather. Throughout their journey together, Dandy and Adélie obviously start to bond and learn things from one another and, to an extension, learn things about themselves. We still see Dandy being obsessed with boobs this whole time, but it

… I usually hate montages, but it sort of worked here. It showed Dandy and Adélie bonding, and it was pretty sweet. Their bonding went so well that Dandy decided to not report them to the alien registration center, thus giving up a fat paycheck so that Adélie and her grandfather can live in peace. The nobility!

Something I noticed was that this was the first episode without the presence of the Gogol Empire trying to get Dandy. At this point in the show, they don’t really add anything to the plot, so it was easy for me to overlook them. It still makes me wonder when their relationship to Dandy will be explained.

It makes me a bit sad knowing that each episode acts independently from others in the series (for the most part, that is), especially with this episode. Will we ever see Adélie again? Probably not, but I would hope so. She easily had the best chemistry with Dandy because of their staunch differences and unexplainable desire to help one another out.

Last thought; QT and Meow were hardly in this episode. It seems sort of odd to not include the other crew members, but they probably would have just gotten in the way. I actually think that they would have made this episode less funny if they were featured more prominently. It was good enough to see them sitting at the impound lot waiting for Dandy to come back with money, despite the fact that he never made any money to get the ship back. That’s funny enough for me.

AWWWWWWW

“A Merry Companion Is a Wagon in Space, Baby” offers something new to this series; an element of seriousness. While previous episodes were about zombie, space ramen, and giant boob-monsters, this one went in what seems to be the opposite direction. Even an episode which, in theory, wouldn’t belong in this series was done so flawlessly. I now believe that the team behind this show can do anything they want and still make the show fresh and entertaining. There’s nothing else to say except that this episode was simply fantastic.