Dragon Ball Super Episode 67 Review: With New Hope In His Heart – Farewell, Trunks!

This Dragon Ball Super review contains spoilers.

Dragon Ball Super: Episode 67

“What a stubborn God…”

Let’s just make one thing clear here: Future Trunks defeated Fused Zamasu in the last episode. He sliced the arrogant, immortal guy in half and what happens in “Farewell, Trunks!” by no means negates the fact that Trunks is the hero of this story arc. However, even though Future Trunks is the winner here, Dragon Ball loves its pesky eleventh hour end games that throw one last wrench at our heroes.

In fact, what happens here is actually quite similar to the events against Golden Frieza. In that situation Vegeta does defeat Golden Frieza, but during a moment of blindness Frieza pulls off a suicide attack that requires Whis to literally rewind time to fix what’s happened. Whis might be the convenient solution to this ridiculous problem, but Vegeta’s still the winner. A saving grace comes out of nowhere to fix everything here too, but Future Trunks shouldn’t feel slighted by the events of this episode. It literally takes the Supreme God King of Everything to scrub this one clean.  

Fused Zamasu’s big finish is akin to a self-destruct failsafe, only it’s not as if escape is exactly easy in this case. After Zamasu’s epic bisection, apparently all of his raw anger spills out into the universe and begins to infect the very world itself. Who needs an immortal body who destroys all mortals when you can just become the universe and implode yourself?

It’s only fitting that Zamasu pulls out one final trolling move because the way in which his face pollutes the sky feels a lot like the way a troll would spam a forum. It’s nice that Zamasu’s last gesture basically solidifies that he’d be a regular on 4chan. This flailing act of desperation destroys everything on the planet except for Goku and company, but the devastation is so severe that Beerus and Whis even feel it all the way over in their timeline. That might officially mark the first time that someone’s energy is so intense that it’s actually felt across timelines. That’ll give you one hell of a sense of déjà vu.

Matters seem pretty bleak during all of this and after Future Trunks’ impressive interpretation of the Spirit Bomb in the last episode, he’s pretty tapped out. Plus, how do you sword fight the entire universe? Furthermore, after the power drainage that was Vegito Blue, Goku and Vegeta are so strained that they can’t even turn into a regular Super Saiyan. For whatever reason, Goku believes a Senzu bean will be able to solve this problem. The bean is, of course, irrelevant, but what it does cause Goku to stumble upon is a heavy case of deus ex machina in his pocket.

Many people have been shouting about how Zeno’s “get out of jail” button would be pretty helpful in this multi-timeline disaster and Goku finally remembers that he has the damn thing and does exactly that. This is some vey hackneyed writing, but that was pretty much clear as soon as Zeno’s button was introduced. Besides, it’s not like this button is used to defeat Zamasu the initial time. Future Trunks cleanly defeats the obstacle in the last episode, this is all just gravy. It’s full of fat and it’s bad for you, but it’s gravy that’s meant to create suspense, all the same.

Goku pushes his button and Future Zeno promptly shows up to investigate what’s going on here. Goku explains their convoluted mess, but it’s pretty clear to Future Zeno that these guys are in big trouble. In fact, Zeno decides that all of this is so screwed up that he’s going to erase the entire timeline and wipe out every trace of Zamasu with it. The present timeline’s heroes all escape in time, whether via time machine or Gowasu and Supreme Kai’s teleportation abilities, but they’re safe and sound back home when Zeno cleans house and sweeps all of this under the cosmic rug.

A thoughtful, emotional moment gets taken when Goku and Future Trunks briefly return to the future timeline to assess what’s left. While making a home out of this erased universe seems unlikely, Goku and Future Trunks take Future Grand Zeno back with them. Remember how Goku promised Zeno forever ago that he’d find him a friend to play with and end his boredom? Well it turns out that Zeno’s ideal playmate is himself from the future.

Future Zeno and Zeno are too cute together and maybe this new friend will make Zeno even more understanding in the future (although he’s already quite accommodating). These two also need to become a tag-team duo in Dragon Ball FighterZ‘s next update. It’s also worth mentioning that during this big celestial detour, Whis encounters ones of Zeno’s Grand Ministers, who turns out to be his father. The brief reunion comes out of nowhere, but Whis extends an invitation for his father to come visit Universe 7 if he’s ever so inclined. Even though this episode perfectly sets it up, it unfortunately seems unlikely that one of the upcoming filler episodes is Whis and his father on a food-based road trip of Earth.

Dragon Ball tries to give its fans a happy ending whenever it’s feasible and so even though a portion of this episode makes it look like Future Trunks will forever be misplaced in time, Whis comes up with a solution that gives Future Trunks and Future Mai the happily ever after that they so desperately deserve. Whis explains that Trunks and Mai could return to their future timeline at some point before Zamasu turns into a threat. This would allow for a safe, unthreatened version of the timeline to play out.

Of course, the big glitch to this plan is that there would already be an existing version of Trunks and Mai in the timeline that they return to. In spite of this caveat Trunks and Mai are pretty much like, “Yeah, whatever, the time machine’s getting cold…” and decide to still go through with this. Obviously there’s a very gruesome scene where Trunks and Mai murder their duplicates that the episode decides to not include. That, or the two just decide to live as recluses and hide for the rest of their lives with their peace being enough for them.

The first half of this episode that deals with the residual Fused Zamasu run-off is pretty disappointing and is representative of Dragon Ball when it indulges in some of its worst tendencies. That being said, the episode’s second half that deals with Future Trunks’ goodbye and the celebration surrounding his accomplishment and finally taking care of Black/Zamasu is a whole lot of fun, even if it’s infinitely less important.

Dragon Ball Super  has been so tense lately over this final stretch of episodes that it’s deeply therapeutic to get some time to party and take their time with Future Trunks’ exit. Vegeta’s way of saying goodbye to Future Trunks as well as Gohan’s last-minute farewell are such glowing character moments, too. This is literally decades of character development playing out and it’s nice to see this go out on such a strong note.

There are going to be plenty of people that are upset that Future Trunks leaves rather than stays as part of this crew, but it’s absolutely what’s necessary of his character. Besides, Future Trunks would feel a lot less impactful if he was a regular character rather than a last-ditch emergency effort. It would also make things far too confusing for young Mai. The last thing that Future Trunks needs is a disgraced walk of shame back to his timeline after “rumors” about him start up (let alone Future Mai and young Trunks, for that matter). However, would it have been that bad if Future Trunks at least stuck around for the string of filler episodes that are about to come? His fixed timeline isn’t going anywhere, after all.

Overall “Farewell, Trunks!” makes for a serviceable conclusion to Dragon Ball Super’s best (and longest) arc to date. This installment might have its faults and admittedly most of the action goes down in the previous episode, but as a pair these two entries are a powerful way to wrap things up. Dragon Ball Super  has learned from its mistakes and won over many fans with the Goku Black and Zamasu material, so it’s encouraging to think that the next big story will only build off this momentum. As per usual, the next few episodes take off the pressure and deliver some light-hearted filler, but just because nobody’s life is on the line doesn’t mean that this stuff still isn’t exciting. In fact, one of the Dragon Ball’s most beloved filler episodes airs in the next few weeks and no, it doesn’t involve Whis’ dad.