The 145th episode of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on June 24, 1992 and titled Laboratory Basement in Funimation's dub, sends Trunks and Krillin back to the ruins of Dr. Gero's lab. Underground they find what Cell's story hinted at: the supercomputer and a second Cell, the one belonging to the present, still in embryonic form. While they wipe it out, the Cell from the future keeps feeding undisturbed.
Summary
After the monster's escape, the group discusses what to do. Vegeta wants no part of the hunt: convinced he can push past the limits of a Super Saiyan, he would rather let Cell get on with it, so that he has one opponent to beat instead of two. After a sharp exchange with Piccolo, he flies off to train. Piccolo and Tien set off after the monster, while Trunks and Krillin head for the lab, which Trunks had already leveled, to make sure no second Cell is born in the present.
Clearing away the rubble, they find a ladder leading underground. At the end of a tunnel there is a door, and behind it a room left untouched: the supercomputer, and a small tank in which an embryonic Cell floats. Krillin wants to blow everything up at once, but Trunks stops him to search the files and finds the blueprints for Android 17, which might reveal a weakness. Then the two destroy the machines, the computer and the embryo, and escape as the lab collapses. Outside they split up: Krillin will take the plans to Bulma, and Trunks will look for his father to train with him.
At Kame House, Goku keeps improving, though he needs to stay in bed a while longer. Gohan trains in secret on the beach, but when he sees Chi-Chi coming with a glass of juice he quickly tidies himself up and pretends to study, making his mother proud.
Cell, meanwhile, is preying on the people of Nicky Town. Piccolo and Tien rush over but always arrive a step behind, finding only the empty bus of the Battle Ball team, while the monster watches from a rooftop as they lose his trail. The Androids' van, for its part, reaches Mount Paozu, where Goku lives.
Our take
This is one of the rare times the heroes act preemptively and succeed: the present-day Cell will never be born. The paradox, however, is obvious, and it is part of the saga's charm. Destroying the larva does nothing to the Cell already here from the future, who is still out there growing. Time travel in Dragon Ball does not rewrite history; it branches it.
The episode matters for Trunks as well. His decision to train with Vegeta opens the father-son thread that will take both of them into the Hyperbolic Time Chamber, and the plans handed to Krillin will come in handy later. It is also the saga's first episode not written by Katsuyuki Sumisawa, with Hiroshi Toda taking over the script.
The anime adds its usual connective tissue: Gohan pretending to study, a gag that picks up the homework theme from episode 140, Piccolo and Tien finding the emptied bus, and the Androids closing in on the Son family's home. None of it is essential, but it keeps every thread of the story alive.
Trivia
- It adapts the first twelve pages of chapter 365. Written by Hiroshi Toda and directed by Daisuke Nishio, with animation supervision by Masayuki Uchiyama, it drew a 19.8% share.
- In Funimation's dub, Trunks jokes that one of the plans is for a gas-powered toaster oven.
- Funimation's dub premiered it on October 11, 2000.
Did you know? In the original Japanese broadcast, half of the next-episode preview, 15 of its 30 seconds, promoted a ticket lottery for Super Android 13!, the seventh film, released on July 11, 1992. The Dragon Box replaced it with the rerun version of the preview.