Naomi Armitage and Ross Sylibus turned their backs on the world in "Heart Core." And now in "Bit of Love" the world returns the favor. Their former colleagues in the MPD blame them for the "puppet bombings," and the government inexplicably turns loose the army to hunt them down. Worse still, Armitage's final assault on D'AnClaude damages her severely. As her CPU fails she feels, for the first time, painfully mortal. Following a tip from one remaining friend in the MPD, Sylibus takes Armitage into the Martian desert in search of her "father," the long missing designer of the "Thirds," Dr. Asakura.

They find Dr. Asakura, the kindly and benevolent mad scientist, suffering from dementia alone in a desert laboratory with his new and bizarre generations of biodroids. His robot assistant, however, reveals, among other secrets, that the Martian colony's government masterminded first the creation and subsequently the extermination of the "Thirds" for political reasons, and that the army itself intends to finish the job that D'AnClaude started.

With all the cards now on the table, the time has come for Armitage and Sylibus to share one night together in peace before the army descends upon Asakura's domed Eden. The final battle between Sylibus, Armitage and the army, thanks presumably to Julian, the ghost in the mainframe, is beamed over every TV set on Mars. The battle itself is crosscut with the pomp and ceremony of a parade and the treaty signing in New Lowell. Cut together with the stunned reactions of the citizens of Mars witnessing the carnage on television, the episode ends in an ambitious climactic montage.

"Bit of Love" admirably attempts to expand "Armitage III's" story to epic stature, but with only 30 minutes to do so it is occasionally sloppy. Revealing that the government both created and exterminated the "Thirds" for political reasons raises the stakes of the story and explains the involvement of the army and the resources of D'AnClaude. However, a side plot introduced midway through episode four has no time to unfold dramatically, and is only dumped as is in the viewer's lap. Asakura's murder at the hands of the human colony leaders is a dark irony and a poetic end to his story. But his murder follows too closely on the heels of his introduction for his loss to register as such. Although their effectiveness is not fully realized, the numerous new plots give a grand backdrop to the climax of Sylibus' and Armitage's personal story.

Armitage's discovery of her "papa's" dementia heightens her existential crisis. Without knowing why he made her as he did - as neither truly an assassinroid or a "Third" - she despairs of ever knowing her purpose and questions why she is alive at all. Sylibus' advice that, "You don't need any reason to be alive," and, "You exist already and have a right to live," is surprisingly tender and cathartic without sounding platitudinous. A genuinely romantic love scene follows, which perfectly culminates the series' progressive blurring of the boundaries between robots and humans.

After that point, "Bit of Love" hurries a bit, and muddies its references in its race to the end. Personal relationships and the mystery, which were the focus of the first three episodes, conclude immediately before both the new political plot and the deciding battle approach their climaxes. The final montage sequence, dramatic and visually striking, is set to a wistful childish tune, but mixes a lot of metaphors.

Before the final battle Asakura repairs Armitage and gives her black wings among other extras. Thus in the final battle she is presented as an avenging angel, although moments earlier she was set up as a martyr. Yet, other perspectives in the plot paint her as humanity's child being sacrificed for political ends, or half a dozen other symbols. In the rush to make her story epic, new plots are introduced that don't fit thematically with the rest of the story. Worse still, the battle scenes deliberately suggest that Armitage and Sylibus are being killed. But then in an epilogue, three months later they are alive and well, driving off into the sunset together. The last two minutes are the most disappointing in a mostly outstanding series.