Guilty Crown - Episode 4

Just as it looked as though Shu had completed his latest mission for Gai flawlessly and without bloodshed, he suddenly finds himself very much thrown to the wolves by the friend he thought he'd saved thanks to his actions, as Yahiro Samukawa casually pushes him straight into the hands of the waiting GHQ forces on the way to school the next day.

Needless to say, GHQ have a lot that they wish to learn from Shu about the nature of the Funeral Parlour group, and more specifically Gai - information that Shu is naturally reticent to give.  In fairness to GHQ and the man handling his arrest, Galty, torture, detainment and the like are foregone in favour of an all-out attempt to convince Shu to give up his secrets by showing them the positives that the group have brought to the world as they vaccinate the people and treat those suffering from the virus which caused so much damage and decimation to the country.  Is that enough to gloss over the people we saw killed by those same forces earlier in the series though?

There's little time to ponder such questions as things soon move forward apace, with Funeral Parlour commencing a raid on the internment facility where Shu is held - not, admittedly, as a direct attempt to free Shu himself, but rather to release a supposed serial killer named Kenji Kido, although of course they'd love to have Shu on-board to help with the operation.  Cue another fast-paced, excellently animated action scene which kicks into gear as Shu realises that Inori is disobeying orders to come and save him, complete with a sweet gravity gun and, of course, Shu making full use of Inori's Void to escape his situation.  Is he now well and truly a fully-fledged member of Funeral Parlour?  The door is still open for him to betray them at any moment...

Despite its flaws (most of them residing under the name of "Shu"), and in spite of a pretty poor instalment last week which took a hefty chunk of the energy out of the series, this was another highly enjoyable episode of Guilty Crown that gave us a look at the flip side of the coin as it pertains to GHQ's function in its world before delivering some more great action scenes that seem to have become the show's hallmark.  Yes, it still doesn't feel much like a noitaminA series in a lot of ways, but it has a lot of entertainment value (especially when Inori isn't over-used) and that's good enough for me right now.