Before that, however, we have to find out how Goku is going to get out of his current bind, exhausted and powerless with a smirking Frieza hovering over him ready to blast him point blank. I had seen a few people predict how this was going to go and they were right. It turns out that Frieza ends up giving Goku some of his energy. It's a pragmatic move, as it keeps Goku in the tournament (Frieza flat out states that he has no desire to fight Jiren himself and would rather have Goku do it,) but it also "settles the debt" from when Goku did the same for him back on Namek.
With that taken care of, we come to the main event: Hit vs Jiren. The preceding two episodes had set a pretty high bar, but this manages to keep that momentum going and deliver another very strong fight.
Hit actually seems to be holding his own fairly well early on. I did find it odd that he seemed to have a harder time against Dyspo, but as the fight progresses, Hit's apparent advantage dissipates and he finds himself in the same situation that Goku did. Like Dyspo before him, Jiren's ability is such that he can counter Hit's time skip, rendering it pretty much useless, though that doesn't stop Hit from continuing to try.
I don't get why the others are so baffled as to why he keeps using it. It's still his most potent ability, what else is he going to rely on to get an edge in the fight?
To their credit, both Caulifla and Kale express a desire to back Hit up, but Cabba stops them, saying that Hit has a plan. In most circumstances, I'd say that this declaration was laughable as Hit is clearly getting clobbered, but the fight with Dyspo started off this way too, so at least there is some precedent on that front.
Sure enough, Hit is able to study Jiren's moves enough to regain his footing and start to level the playing field. It culminates with Hit using his time skip to freeze Jiren in place. It's outright stated to be Hit's final trump card and it takes all of Hit's power, but his plan is to keep doing this while the universe 6 saiyans keep fighting.
Knowing Jiren, you know this won't last, and it doesn't. Still, the fact that Hit held him as long as he did is pretty commendable. It also gives the episode something of a hope spot, as Jiren's imprisonment is a major game changer for other universes. The delay also pays dividends as it makes the shock of Jiren's liberation that much more palpable.
With no other tricks up his sleeve, Hit has nothing left to do but get blasted repeatedly until he is finally thrown out of the ring.
Yeah.
Hit got eliminated. It was pretty shocking to say the least and it doesn't bode well for universe 6. The saiyan trio aren't completely disheartened, but even Vados points out that it was still a pretty devastating blow.
The Grand Priest announces that the tournament has officially hit the halfway point and Jiren decides to clock out. As far as he's concerned there's no one left worthy of his effort and he goes back to meditating.
Don't think that Jiren is letting his guard down, however, Two fighters make that mistake, having one distract Toppo and Dyspo while the other attempts a surprise attack. It turns out that Jiren still has a force field that can only be penetrated by the aforementioned worthy fighters.
While Hit vs Jiren was the main draw, the episode did have a few other small highlights as well. We got to see Vegeta face off against Ribrianne again. Her power seems to be waning, but Rozie offers some reinforcements.
The bigger moment in this scene was Ribrianne's sudden doubt in their ability to win the tournament. You feel for her as fear suddenly sets in, but Rozie manages to lift her spirits and get her head back in the game. It was a nice character moment that added some emotional weight to the episode.
We also see Gohan and Piccolo begin to face off from a pair of Namekians from some other universe after said pair attempt a sneak attack on Goku while he is watching Hit fight Jiren. It's still strange to see fighters so willingly let their guard down in these circumstances, but at least Gohan and Piccolo had his back. That 2 on 2 fight should make for a fun episode sometime down the line.
Overall, this was another very strong episode. It was definitely a worthy successor to the gem that preceded it. We had a great main fight while also giving other characters moments in the spotlight, we got another example of just how stupid powerful Jiren is, and the status quo changed significantly as a result of the episode's events. It was a packed and exciting 23 minutes. You'd think that after 15 episodes of tournament that fatigue would start to set in, but it seems like things are only getting more exciting. It'll be interesting to see how things progress from here.
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