now we just need the children

neon genesis evangelion (episode eleven, "in the still darkness")

This episode continues the “summer break” feeling of “Magma Diver” in its opening minutes as we watch NERV staff hang out, do their laundry, and chat. Shinji calls his dad to ask him to show up for a school thing. Then just as Gendo is instructing somebody never to put through calls from Shinji, the power cuts out all over Tokyo-3 and NERV HQ. And then an Angel shows up. (This one looks like a big ol’ spider. They stopped sending the cute ones.…)

The pilots are trapped above ground with no means of communication, the bridge crew are mostly trapped in different locations in NERV HQ, and Misato and Kaji are… trapped in an elevator together. Evangelion really borrows a lot from comedies, I think; it is very visible in this episode, not only as we watch people extract themselves from wherever they’re stuck, but in the way it cuts from scene to scene. If it weren’t for the vague threat of human extinction, this could almost be an episode of Frasier.¹