Casshern Sins 17: Leda and her Post-Partum Issues

Leda gets a vision of her past....
EPISODE 17: The Glass Cradle
More Screencaps from Casshern Sins 17
The episode begins with a flashback of a pregnant woman, presumably Leda, frolicking in the meadow with two children. Back to the present, Leda, Dio and their retainers arrive at an abandoned castle, which seems to hold some of Leda's long-buried memories of her past. Without waiting for Dio, she goes inside by herself.
Meanwhile, Casshern and company are still at the beach, watching Ringo play with the waves with Friender, when all of a sudden Ringo collapses. Ohji is at once by her side to pick her up, but it turns out it's nothing serious. Not too far away, inside the abandoned castle, Leda finds herself in some kind of bathhouse, filled with red-colored liquid and in the middle of which is a piano. Back at the beach, Ringo meets some new friends in the form of three robot kids, named Hote, Hotie, and Holter, with Holter taking particular delight in Ringo. The other two robot kids explain that even though Holter can't speak, he has honest eyes. It is revealed later that all of them were created by the same scientist who built Luna and that the three of them consider Luna both as their "mother" and "sister."
After a while, Holter begins to feel some pain in his body, prompting his siblings to bring him back to the castle. Once there, however, they are surprised to find Leda and Dio waiting for them. Leda, whose beauty enamors all three but Holte, befriends them and gets them to reveal Luna's location for her. But since they don't know where Luna is (according to them, she left a long time ago), they show her a strange room instead where they were all made. At the sight of the glass chambers, Leda once again has a vision of her past and starts acting so weird that even Dio has to ask what's the matter. The children start to get scared of her, as well, Holter especially who quickly runs out of there, past Dio's guard-bots. Once more, Leda demands from the remaining two children where Luna is and does not hesitate to use force this time.
Meanwhile, Holter catches up to Casshern and company, and not long after that, Casshern arrives in the room filled with glass chambers where he makes short work of Dio's guard-bots. At the sight of him, Leda comments about Casshern's beauty, revealing her deep envy of his abilities. She says that as a woman, she should be the one to gain eternal beauty.
While Casshern and Leda fight, Ringo and Holter arrive with Lyuze, Ohji and Friender. The whole time, Holter is holding Ringo's hand. The fight between Casshern and Leda move to the bathhouse where Casshern falls into the red pond. While Casshern is down, Leda cuts him across the back over and over, chanting, "Be ruined!" the whole time. However, in a moment of distraction, Casshern manages to sneak an attack and makes a cut across her face.
This stops the fight between them for a moment as Leda scrambles to cover her face. Then, she declares once more that she will make Casshern disappear like those scientists who made her believe "that foolish dream." In the background, Lyuze, Ohji, Ringo and Holter all watch silently. Ringo then notices Holter still holding her hand. After assuring him that everything is alright, she turns her gaze back to Casshern, so she does not notice Holter's eyes glowing when he stares at her. At that moment, Casshern calls Leda "an unfortunate woman," enraging her even more. She raises her hand, ready to strike him, when something stops her: it's Dio. He reminds her that he will be the one to defeat Casshern. After Leda tempers herself, Dio then takes her in his arms and together the two of them flee from the room.
Holter then starts screaming while holding out Ringo's hand. At this, Hote and Hotie smile knowingly and say that Holter's "honest eyes" have chosen Ringo. It turns out that the three have been protecting Luna's nano-cells, kept inside Holter's body. After giving Ringo this treasure, all three go into a deep sleep. Later, Lyuze wonders if they could stop ruin with Luna's nano-cells. Ohji does not know but he says that it's worth studying, and with this, he decides to leave Ringo in Casshern and Lyuze's care while he goes off to do what it is he does best: use science to make things better.

COMMENTS:

I liked this episode actually, mainly because Leda finally gets both development and action all in one episode. Now we understand why she seems so bitter and schemy. She has her own demons to deal with, and in a way, they're a lot darker than Dio's relentless obsession with Casshern.

I suppose the scientists made sick experiments on Leda's children. Considering how it's been earlier revealed that she's the first robot to have reproductive abilities, maybe they took her children from right out of her womb (that would explain that "blood scene" in Leda's flashback) so they could artifically enhance the children's bodies and then store them inside the glass chambers -- the "glass cradle" of the episode title.

As for Ringo, I still hate the character but I've consigned myself a long time ago to the fact that she is important to the plot. Now she has Luna's nano-cells and I wonder how this is going to play out.