The episode follows the novel very closely and the end part played its opening theme, it gives of quite a number of spoilers and it seem that we may see Shigemura from the movie in the opening as well as Yuna... There are a number of changes that could be found in the episode itself there some changes been made to it, as most people already knows about this, there an original that was in the novel counterpart and that was Sinon, Asuna, Kirito, Klein, Silica and Lisbeth in Gun Gale Online fighting some unknown character with one of them been someone that we already know, and the character Sinon was talking about did made an appearance in the episode, he was the person who was giving instruction to his teammates who was trying to take out Sinon and the other... This person and his teammates will appear at a later stage in the story, I mean what for include his teammates in the scene for if they are not to appear ever again, so they will reappear soon but again not anytime soon as this arc is the longest arc to date...
Now on to the beginning of the episode, we see Kirito and Eugeo cutting the demonic tree that was task to them, later Kirito was seen check their process and they started fooling around, Alice delivery lunch to Kirito and Eugeo as she spotted them playing around instead of doing their job, as they defeated themselves by saying that they are just taking a break and asked her why is she early, to which she stated its the usual time through... They go on and talk about why the food lasted longer when in winter and not in summer... Kirito and Alice discussing about getting ice from the cave... The cave is the cave that leads to the Dark Territory, to which Eugeo told them that they should not head there as it was stated in the Taboo Index that they are not suppose to that, to which both Kirito and Alice rebut by saying that they did not go to Dark Territory, and they agree to head into the cave they also talk about the hero from their country... Now, let me explain this a little there are four cities this VR world North, South, East and West and they have own gate that lead to Dark Territory, so the hero that they was talking about will appear at a later episode the hero was some high ranking knight, to which trying my best not to go into spoilers for non-novel reader... Needless to the manga counterpart is still on going and the anime cover almost whole of its manga counterpart as for the novel, it seem that the two the first episode cover both the Prologue... Next day, they when to cave to get ice there they found the Blue-Rose Sword which will come in handy, and soon will be used as everybody which know by this point that the sword belongs to Eugeo and he is the user for some time... Oh yes, Alice was very good with sacred arts she was seen using one of them... Once in the cave, they talk discuss some stuffs... A Integrity was spot earlier on which will appear later, after collecting the ice that they need they wanted to head back but ended up headed to the wrong direction as they were not sure which way they came from... Alice fell when they witness the fight between the two knights, one was the knight that they saw earlier on and the was a Dark Knight... Alice was spotted by the system and the next day was taken away by the same knight... Kirito woke up in the real world, shocked by this... This is where the GGO scene appears, also after the fight scene in GGO ended, we can some of the game characters appearing in the background there was also Sword Art Online FB logo... That would be the main reason to why the gameverse produce was seen at the beginning of the episode... Sinon tells Asuna to meet her as she wanted to more info about BoB... Later, we see Kirito, Sinon were discussing about BoB and Asuna join in the discussion at a later time, they discuss about BoB and when on to talk about Kirito's job... To which Kirito talk about Soul Translator, Fluctlight and him working for Rath, also lastly he can't remember much things about that VR world... Later, when going Kirito asked Asuna to go to America with him to which she agrees, and a guy asked about the train to which Kirito questioned him by saying you have been shadowing for a very long who are you... Kirito remembers who he was after some hint given by him, and he calls out Johnny Black, and Johnny Black goes on to attack Kirito, Kirito tells Asuna to run and Kirito was injected with a unknown liquid...
Rating: 9/10