Last Exile: Fam, the Silver Wing - Episode 6

Having stolen the first ship under the conditions laid out by her current "employers" last week, we fast forward somewhat at the beginning of Fam, the Silver Wing's sixth episode to find ourselves at around the half-way point in Fam's challenge.

As political machinations surrounding Augusta continue, and Millia starts up a little propaganda as she tries to resurrect Turan from the dead, Fam takes on her latest ship-stealing obstacle - or ship-winning, in this particular case.  Her target this time is the Naheed, a battleship owned by a Federation aristocrat, Baroness Roshanaku Dabar.

Fam puts her cards on the table here by entering an underground Vanship race, upon which she makes a bet with the Baroness - win, and she takes the Naheed, lose and a disguised, cross-dressing Millia belongs to the Baroness (who seems to have a thing for young boys).  What Fam hasn't entered into the equation however is that she's put up against an ace Vanship pilot who not only entered the Grand Race but is undefeated in quite some time.  Of course, Fam refuses to shirk even this challenge, giving it her all to the very last and winning the day (naturally) - while all of this is going on however, some of the owners of other ships stolen by Fam have rather less luck as they come to the attention of Ades' more malicious and violent sorts.

After jumping about rather messily in an attempt to bring us back up to speed and cover the political movements early in this episode, it takes almost half the episode before things settle down and a coherent plot emerges, bringing us both Vanship racing and bloodshed to continue the comparisons of Fam's seemingly care-free, adrenaline-fuelled life with some altogether more sinister elements that are reacting directly to her own efforts.  The racing was no Redline, that's for sure, but it did at least bring a scintillating finale to an episode perhaps most notable for Gise's apparently increasing unhappiness with her team-mate and pilot, which could be about to make things far more interesting.  After such a grandiose and impressive start to this series, it certainly needs to settle down into something more formidable rather than scrabbling around trying to find the centre of its story-telling gravity as it currently is.