JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind

Episode 16

It's time for Pesci and Prosciutto to put their money where their mouths are, because Team Bucciarati is far crazier and more determined than they could have possibly prepared for. This episode resumes mid-fight, with Bruno zipping the front of the train open to drag Prosciutto under the tracks with him, forcing this battle of resolve to escalate well beyond its natural conclusion. For the most part Prosciutto is done for, spending the rest of the episode bleeding to death while caught on the underside of the train, trying to keep Grateful Dead active as long as he can. But the battle is far from over as Pesci discovers newfound determination inside himself.

Pesci's new and improved self-worth and confidence is great. The change in attitude is a little sudden, but there's a clear domino effect between Prosciutto's all-or-nothing disposition and Pesci's desire to honor his partner's teachings. Pesci goes from being a total doofus to actually looking kind of cool with nothing but a fierce look in his eyes. To test his new resolve, he offs an innocent passenger crawling on the floor, and Golden Wind's unique flavor of nastiness comes roaring front and center once again.

The finale of the Bruno vs. Pesci fight, after the train has stopped and they're back on solid ground, has so much going for it. The show goes ham on the "resolve" motif, where Pesci drops his usual strategy of hooking his target in the arm in favor of nabbing Bruno's heart, but then brags about his new confidence long enough for Bruno to use Beach Boy's line to twist Pesci's big dumb neck into an ice cream swirl. Pesci forgot Prosciutto's greatest lesson about making sure to kill before you talk, and perhaps the real tragedy is that nobody's going to be around to give a damn about his newfound self-respect. This final exchange is extraordinarily entertaining as Bruno and Pesci trade blows with their Stand powers. Of course, Bruno comes out the victor this time.

There's a neat little hint of class when the title cards show up to formally announce Pesci and Prosciutto as dead. Where there was once noise, now is silence. It's an oddly bittersweet sendoff for a pair of repugnant slimeball villains, but this episode has a few more surprise endings in store for us to top it off. Trish was witness to this battle and in the heat of the moment, she seems to have awakened her Stand powers. (Some kind of claw thing?) Trish has been operating on auto-pilot for most of this adventure, so it's exciting to finally see something get an emotional reaction out of her. She has opinions about all this now! Woo-hoo!

And with that, the Grateful Dead arc ends strong. I'm a real sucker for stories where honor and grit can exist in unusual circumstances. The more interesting the Execution Squad members get, the more they find new ways to reflect our heroes. Everyone who's part of the gang life is likely cut from the same cloth, and if you want to survive, you can't take that for granted.

This is a really fun episode that took its villains as far as it possibly could, giving Bruno a plethora of new zipper-tastic challenges ranging from absurd to punchy to straightforward. I've heard a lot of people refer to this battle as the highlight of Golden Wind, so I hope that doesn't mean the season has peaked, because so far the show has had such a firm grip on greatness.

Rating: A

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Sam Leach records about One Piece for The One Piece Podcast and you can find him on Twitter @LuckyChainsaw