The ninth episode of the Japanese anime Big O. The previous episode was Missing Cat.
The episode opens with a prison break. A giantic golden mecha smashes through the prison's outer wall, while inside a cell, Beck complains that his henchmen could have engineered the breakout with a little more style.
Shortly thereafter, Roger pays a visit to a certain Mr. Wise, the head of a powerful financial group. Wise had summoned Roger because his son, Francis, who had been in line to be the next chairman of the Wise Group, had been kidnapped. Not surprisingly, the hostage-takers turn out to be Beck's "family"-- they call, and when Roger answers, they ask for a couple of million dollars. Unruffled, Roger says that there is no money. The kidnapper is bewildered, and Wise is horrified. He grabs the phone and says that money is no object, he'll cooperate.
Wise is livid at Roger, but Roger calmly explains that the kidnappers will continue to extort Wise as long as they think they can get money from him. Wise is still furious, and fires Roger. Roger coolly fetches Dorothy (she'd been gazing at a painted portrait of a lovely woman in Wise's study the whole time) and leaves.
Back at the Smith household, Roger paints Dorothy. She asks him what his plans are, and he says he'll just kick back and wait for news. Shortly, Wise calls back for another appointment. As Roger takes the call, Dorothy looks at his in-progress painting of her-- it's awful. Before they depart for Wise's again, Dan Dastun appears to chat with Roger. He informs him that Beck broke out of prison.
Roger is surprised. "Beck? Who's that?" It takes him a few moments to remember. Dastun just points out that Beck might have a bone to pick with Roger; then, Roger heads back to talk to Wise again. Not surprisingly, Wise had lost all of the money, and the kidnappers wanted more. Roger takes the call again, but this time Beck recognizes his voice, and threatens to shoot Francis. Wise caves in a second time, agreeing to have Roger drop off money at a remote house.
Roger and Dorothy safely make it to the delivery point and find Francis, bound and gagged but otherwise unharmed. But suddenly, searchlights snap on, and Dan Dastun's megaphone-amplified voice booms, "We know you're in there, Roger-- come out!" It was a set-up! Roger, as usual, makes a flashy escape-- this time by summoning the Griffon via remote, and causing it to switch paint jobs automatically.
As they head back to Wise's estate (Roger suspects Wise might have an idea of where Beck is), Dorothy remarks that Francis seems different from Wise. Roger confronts Wise, and finds out that Francis is illegitimate, a bastard son, and that Wise is also scared that nobody will even remember he had a lover, 40 years ago-- in the turmoil after the Event, he and a girl named Mary had overcome their loneliness and desperation and fell in love, having Francis as a result. Beck's group had been extorting Wise for weeks, going as far as having him drop off industrial components at a derelict factory. Roger makes a bee-line for it. Along the way, Dorothy asks Roger if losing their memory could make two people feel lonely and vulnerable enough to fall in love with each other. He thinks this is a weird question, so she balks at asking him a second question.
He and Dorothy find Beck at the factory. The thief is amused at the pair, but not surprised-- he uses a claw crane to trash the Griffon, then snags Dorothy with a giant electromagnet. Roger rushes him, but not before he installs a device in Dorothy's head slot-- a device that causes her to stiffly approach Roger, embrace him, and woodenly proclaim "Roger. I. Love. You." while slowly crushing him in her embrace.
As he tries to keep from being squished to a pulp, Roger desperately stares Dorothy down. Amazingly, this works-- she short-circuits, and falls to the ground, unconscious. Getting annoyed, Beck summons his secret weapon-- Beck Victory Deluxe, the same robot that had busted him out of jail. Roger summons the Big O, and utterly crushes Beck's group. "Stupid punks," he snarls, as he rips the enemy mech's head off and takes it to the police. "Even my patience has limits."
Later, Dorothy is repaired-- Roger had resisted Norman's suggestion to switch out her short-term memory circuits, because she had wanted to ask him another question earlier. Roger asks Dorothy what her question was, and she replies, "If... neither of us had memories, and we met... so, then would you and I fall in love as well?" Tough question! Roger is completely flustered.
The next episode is Winter Night Phantom.