Episode 82 of Dragon Ball Z, first broadcast in Japan on March 13, 1991 and titled Frieza's Second Transformation in Funimation's dub, is all about hidden cards. Piccolo reveals one, the weights he has been wearing, but Frieza still holds two, and his second transformation flips a battle that for a moment looked won.
Summary
The duel between Piccolo and Frieza resumes, and this time the tyrant takes the upper hand: he had power in reserve and finally gets serious. Piccolo, however, keeps his cool. He removes his cape and turban, which turn out to be extremely heavy, and focuses on releasing all his energy. From then on the fight changes completely: the Namekian is faster and stronger, and he has Frieza on the ropes. Gohan, Krillin, Vegeta and Dende, watching from a distance, start to believe he can really do it, and Dende marvels at the strength born from the merger with Nail.
Humiliated, Frieza then lets slip a secret: the transformation he already showed was not his only one, and he still has two more. Piccolo, sure he can beat him anyway, gives him time to change. It is a mistake. In his new form Frieza is clearly superior in both strength and speed, and the fight turns one-sided. The tyrant peppers him with a storm of beams fired from his fingers, so fast that Piccolo can no longer dodge.
Meanwhile Vegeta notices Dende and remembers that Gohan came back stronger after being healed: an idea takes shape. Seeing his mentor in trouble, Gohan cannot hold back and hurls himself at Frieza in a rage. Krillin is about to follow him when Vegeta stops him with a request that leaves him speechless: instead of helping Gohan, Krillin should beat him up.
Our take
The episode hinges on two mirrored reveals. The first belongs to Piccolo: the weighted clothing nods to a Dragon Ball tradition dating back to Master Roshi's turtle shell, and signals that the Namekian had not yet given everything. The second belongs to Frieza, and it carries far more weight: an enemy who can transform again and again was a new idea for the series, and Toriyama uses it to raise the stakes at every step.
Piccolo's choice to let the tyrant transform is the only real mistake he makes in the whole battle, and it is a mistake of pride, the same flaw that betrayed Vegeta a few episodes earlier. The show, in short, punishes anyone who underestimates Frieza.
The Japanese title calls on Goku, yet he stays out of the fighting: a sign of how desperate things have become and of how everyone, characters and viewers alike, is now waiting for him.
The anime additions are modest: Piccolo powering up after dropping the weights, commentary from King Kai, Tien and Yamcha, and Dende's wonder at the merger. The finger attack changes too: in the manga it is a shockwave fired from the fingertips.
Trivia
- Written by Takao Koyama and directed by Kazuhito Kikuchi, with Mitsuo Shindō as animation supervisor.
- It adapts chapters 301 and 302, with a 23.2% ratings share.
- In the Japanese version, Kōichi Yamadera fills in as Tien for Hirotaka Suzuoki, who was ill during recording.
- The title speaks of a "second transformation" because it counts the changes, not the forms: what appears here is Frieza's third form.
Did you know? In the original English dub, Frieza's third-form voice was filtered to sound like a blend of his first two forms; the remastered dub removed the effect.