All right, let's find out if a short break between seasons was enough for the G-Witch staff to learn how to write...
So, we're just forgetting about what happened last episode then? Not picking up that rather overt dangling plot thread at all?
We open on an Elan Ceres narrating the preparations for a "serial" duel. As flamboyant as he's being, one has to wonder if this is the real Elan Ceres or if the new body double's just a large ham.
'bout the only meaningful piece of information we get out of this sequence is that the Mobile Suits in this era are apparently battery-powered, when Aerial's ground crew mentions after its first curb stomping that it has plenty of battery charge left. That and the fact that the Holder literally cannot decline a duel and has to duel at least once every two weeks as long as there's a challenger.
Suletta and the Aerial effortlessly win five duels in a row against nobodies before the opening credits. None of them are the slightest bit interesting. The Aerial and its perfected GUND Format outclass everything else by such an enormous margin that the Aerial can spam GUND-bits at everyone to never take damage. Kind of a neat little microcosm of the series thus far... a bland, lifeless affair full of privileged brats kicking down at people who are beneath them socially or economically.
The Plant Quetta incident gets brought up, but apparently it's been hushed up by the Benerit Group so the media coverage it trivial and even most of the students who were there seem to think it was no big deal. Suletta seems entirely unfazed by the fact that she straight-up MURDERED a dude by turning him into a red paste with the Aerial's hand as she's comforting background characters. Bear in mind, the people she's comforting by telling them she and the Aerial are there for them were likely part of the team scrubbing that dude's pulverized remains out of the Aerial's hand! They even say Suletta's in good spirits... despite, or perhaps because, Miorine's using her as an errand girl again.
Delling Rembran's still alive and recovering from a spinal injury he suffered at Plant Quetta.
Shaddiq is giving a report to a closed session of representative CEOs from the Three Houses. Lauda Neil's standing in for the deceased Vim Jeturk, and the four co-CEOs of Peil Technologies are giving Lauda the business because Jeturk Mobile Suits were used in the attack. The Lfrith Ur and the Lfrith Thorn are identified as Gundams based on their permet signatures. Looks like the Benerit Group's private army is launching an attack on Earth itself to bring Dawn of Fold to justice (presumably to cover up the Zenneli family's involvement in arming them). In private, Shaddiq denies that he's had any knowledge of where the Gundams came from and is ordered not to leave Asticassia, duel, or take part in company business.
Suletta has a phone call with her mom and at least shows some small amount of regret for turning a dude into chunky salsa. This poor kid is just so gaslit that it's disgusting. Nika seems worried that someone will discover her ties to Dawn of Fold.
And the two Dawn of Fold Gundam pilots are Asticassia students now? They can't even seem to come up with a convincing cover story to be there... admitting they only came to meet Suletta. Apparently Shaddiq got them admission using a dummy corporation set up by Grassley Defense Systems. Nika confronts one of them about it.
... and then a school festival montage? Elan tries to ask Suletta out and gets shut down by the terrorist twins, who apparently also pickpocket him?
The student head of Earth house confronts Nika about what she did to spare them from attack and gets nowhere.
There's a battle royale style duel on the last day of the school festival apparently... so we're not done with this duel nonsense, and the Holder naturally HAS to participate and nobody bothered to tell Suletta.
The twins somehow gained access to the Pharact's hangar and are trying to access its GUND Format. Nika confronts them, and demands they leave immediately. They immediately overpower her, and steal the Pharact. They straight up try to step on Nika with the Pharact, until Suletta pulls off a last second save on a motor scooter. They even try to use the Pharact's Vulkans to gun her down. Suletta challenges them to a duel, and even though the two of them have literally NOTHING to gain from it they agree and even say as much.
In the stinger, we learn that Quiet Zero is apparently meant to create a world without war using the GUND Format. Exactly what it is, we're not told.
... oh well, I guess expecting them to find a competent writer between parts was a bit much to ask of them in the end.
This series is kind of the embodiment of that one Moon Knight meme "RANDOM BULLSHIT GO!".
