neko's thinkbox

Almost everyone knows that Baccano is confusing, and this episode still does not march to a different drummer yet.

Episode 5 starts off in the year 1931, with Jacuzzi being cornered by three members of the Russo mafia. Not only is he a wanted person, but he also seems to have caused trouble to the Russo family – but I wondered, how could such a shy crybaby like Jacuzzi even have achieved that? Well, first we project ourselves in the future on the Flying Pussy Foot, back to the scene where Jacuzzi discovers the corpses of the two conductors. Rejoined by Nice and Donny, he’ll whine a good deal, and then we return to the dark place next to the railroad, where the mafia guys are threatening to kill him.

Now… from behind comes a huge hand which reaches for the leader’s hand, and crushes it along with the gun it has carried. And behind the three Russo henchmen stand Donny, dozens of people, and Nice, who throws a knife with a bomb right into the leader’s forehead (the two others already being stabbed). Jacuzzi and the rest escape safely under a nice firework.

That is nice (not Nice) and all, but what has been the cause of this? I mean, Jacuzzi was threatened, and his friends came to rescue him. However, he kept saying that “he” didn’t want to kill his opponents. When he first said that, I suspected he would do some kind of occult move to kill his opponents in one go, but it wasn’t. Instead, all of his friends’ eyes were lighting blue – is there any explanation to this? Perhaps he can control their minds or something like that. Either way, he still remains an utter scaredy-cat.

At this point of the episode, I noticed that I made a huge mistake in my previous Baccano entries. I kept calling that bearded man that was killed in the back alley Szilard Quates, but actually he is not. He’s that Barnes guy Quates mentioned in Episode 4, and now a lot of things become clearer to me – however, I now wonder: did Barnes complete the elixir, or was it Quates? Remember ep 3, where the house was burnt down? If Quates had completed the elixir, how did it get into Barnes’ possession in the Back Alley? Hmm. Perhaps Barnes received the recipe and simply mixed the ingredients, but then why would Quates be so annoyed that ten bottles were lost? Bah, whatever.

Either way, Barnes soon is no more, so there will be no confusion anymore. In front of the already 200-year-old Quates, he is literally sucked up into the palm of Quates’ right hand… lol, that so reminded me of Miroku from Inu Yasha, who has some kind of a black hole in his right hand which sucks up every kind of stuff. Yeah… So, with this, Quates acquires Barnes’ knowledge and memories, and knows what the guys who stole the last 2 bottles of elixir look like. With the same trick, he transmits those images to Ennis’ head, who heads off to find those people. The fact that Ennis is not a real human is disturbing me now; apparently, she’s only a homunculus… T_T She’s so cute though… By the way, we’re in 1930.

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