The following episode contains spinning and slight incest.
In this episode, Kirito is slowly rediscovering his bonds with his younger sister Suguha thanks to some flashback and the traditional duel between siblings. Later, Kirito begins his second attempt to save Asuna, now with someone backing him up.
Kirito's flashback scene is the only scene that I find really relevant in this entire episode. Aside that it explains why Kirito began playing online games; it also tells us why he is trying to reconnect with his younger sister after discovering the truth that they are just cousins. His experience while playing SAO made him realize that there is significant difference between the real world and the virtual world. The way you interact with someone in the real world is just similar to how you will talk to someone in the virtual world, except you have more confidence to communicate with others since you don't know each other.
Before leaving Suguha's doorstep, Kirito asked her to meet her in ALO. Suguha logs in and ends up meeting Recon. For once, Recon has the guts to tell Suguha that he likes her. Based on Sugu's tone, it seems that she might give Recon a chance! Now for the meeting of the siblings, its fine I guess. The fight scene is just really brief, not that really intense in terms of actions, it's just really emotional. It didn't help that they use the overused camera spinning thing to give us a better impression on how emotionally intense this scene is.
At the end, the siblings reconcile and that Suguha finally accepts the fact that Kirito can't move on until he saves Asuna in ALO. Now with Recon on their side, Kirito begins his second attempt to have an audience with the Fairy King Oberon or should I say his second attempt to try and save Asuna. But before that, we are given a briefing about how strong are the Guardians are. The idea that they are weak individually but their combined strength is something similar to some high level boss is quite neat. In short, this is a rather impossible task if you are alone.
Kirito's second attempt is not that fun to watch compared to his first attempt. We see Leafa and Recon back him up while Kirito is busy fighting the Guardians. The only time it gets interesting when Recon decided to cast a dark magic spell that caused his life. I know it's stupid but it made him look cool in front of Leafa and that's a good thing. It becomes more interesting when the combined army of Sylphs and Cait Siths appeared to help them! The scene expanded the arsenal of both sides that they have Dragoons and the like. Another thing I notice is the use of stock footage on some scenes.
At the end, thanks to Leafa's sword, it activated some sword skill that allowed Kirito to pass the army of Guardians and finally, land on the rooftop. Now comes the twist, turns out that the Grand Quest is just a cover up of Sugou's science experiment since Kirito didn't receive verification that he finished the Grand Quest. Instead, he is attacked by more Guardians. Thankfully, the card that he received from Asuna has some use and finally gained access on the locked area. Kirito's quest to save the girl of his life is now on its final phase. Did I mention that the music in this episode is amazing?
