Episode 14: The Order to Destroy Zero One Airing Date 2000-03-23 Zechs Merquise is a nut. He was finally able to defeat the Wing Gundam in battle at the New Edwards military base and now he’s using OZ supplies to rebuild it. Why? Because he wants a rematch with the Wing’s heroic pilot, Heero Yuy. Makes sense, right? Sure, if you’re a Peacecraft. For the rest of us, well, the lengths that Zechs goes to for honor is a bit like a starving man walking past miles of McDonalds to get to a Burger King. In "The Order To Destroy Zero One," Zechs is found out and ordered to immediately stop his refurbishing project and destroy the Wing Gundam. It seems as if his superior Treize Khushrenada doesn’t agree with the order, but since it comes from the men who run the Romefeller Foundation (the true power behind OZ and its recent coup d’etat over the Alliance) Treize delivers the order anyway. A pesky OZ bureaucrat, Inspector Agato (or Acht, depending on where you get your information) shows up to make sure the order’s carried out. Sure enough, we witness the Zero One being destroyed... until, that is, we realize the plan. What was destroyed was nothing more than a mock-up created from spare parts from the Tallgeese. The real Wing Gundam is under water, safe and sound. Tricky, huh? The other two stories in this episode are pretty much filler. First Relena and her babysitter Lucrezia Noin attend a meeting of the Romefeller Foundation in Bremen. The real purpose of this visit is to give Noin a chance to fill us in on the true workings of the Romefeller fellas. They turn out to be -- surprise! -- greasier then our representatives partying in D.C. Personally, I love when a bunch of higher-ups get together in the After Colony years because it always looks like a really lame costume party. Most people wear ornate jackets that look like rejects from the French revolution but there’s always one or two people in the crowd dressed like either the Blues Brothers or the Men In Black. If the '70s were painful with bell bottoms and striped shirts, the future is downright apocalyptic. Don't ever make fun of our hair again. The final story, though, takes the cake for bad taste. Heero travels to Marseilles to find Sylvia Noventa, granddaughter of one of the men he mistakenly killed at New Edwards. Slyer than a fox and twice as charming, Heero offers the poor girl a gun and asks her to kill him in retribution for his mistake. She can’t, of course, leaving Heero no other choice but to travel to Sicily (Sicily!) to ask Sylvia’s grandmother to do the honors. This guy’s got the market cornered on balls, dontcha think? I mean, he must know these grieving women aren’t going to pull the trigger yet he persists, getting a worldwide trip PLUS the possibility of scoring some guilt sex. What a stud! Now if only his buddy Trowa would cut his hair they’d both be able get in on the action. Maybe now we know why Heero’s always saying things like, "Mission Accepted." He’s a Gundam gigolo! --Ross Brooks is a part-time gigolo who charges full-time rates.