Damn, this was an excellent episode. I loved it. Black Star and Maka's initial clash was a bit on the rough side, but if you imagine they had already failed numerous times before this episode and now the deadline was right in front of them, it's very understandable how emotions could run high. And those emotions and their personalities were depicted bloody nicely.

Black Star and Tsubaki continue to kick more and more ass. Based on that one past episode I thought there would be some small rift between them, but it seems I was underestimating them both. Well, they aren't either that easy to judge beyond their simple enough surface: Black Star would take any personal risk to get stronger and Tsubaki would endlessly support him. That's why I think that scene in Tsubaki's inner world was so interesting: It partially reverses the roles forcing Black Star to try to understand Tsubaki, who least of all draws any attention to herself (other than being hot) and hasn't generally talked about herself too much, nor have we seen much of her past or personality aside from the demon blade arc.