Eat Up, Everyone!

Crossing the desert toward Teppelin, Nia frets that everyone works but her and settles on cooking as her contribution. Before the crew can taste the results, alarms sound: Supreme General Cytomander's flying carrier Dai-Gunten has arrived, spilling bomber and fighter Gunmen across the sky. With Rossiu mysteriously ill, Yoko volunteers for Gurren's cockpit, hesitates at the brigade emblem on Kamina's old seat, and is nudged onward by Boota.

The grounded defenders suffer. Missiles rain on Kittan, owl-shaped bombers strip the Dai-Gurren's turrets, and Cytomander gleefully wonders whether he is simply too strong for humans. Simon has the ship hurl Gurren Lagann into the air, where he swings from bomber to bomber on long thin drills, wrecking each in turn, then impales a diving plane and, at Yoko's prompting, merges with it; Gurren Lagann can now fly. Viral joins the fray in a flight-fitted Enkidu, and the untrained Simon struggles until Yoko opens her hatch to fire on Viral directly. The counterblow sends her tumbling into open air; Simon dives after her and smashes through into the Dai-Gunten's interior with Viral close behind.

Yoko survives with an injured arm. Landing beside them, Viral demands to face Kamina, and the news of his death staggers him; every defeat since Dai-Gunzan fell has come from a boy he never took seriously. Simon gives his name, vows to protect Yoko, and fights on alone, wrecking the carrier's innards in the process. Unable to win, Viral is ordered to butcher the immobilized Gurren Lagann after Cytomander's Shuzack pins Yoko against a wall. Simon asks what became of Viral's honor, and the beastman lowers his weapon rather than take such a kill, enraging the general. Outside, the crew runs the Dai-Gurren up a rock face and leaps it onto the carrier, landing kicks that rock the vessel; in the chaos Simon recovers Yoko and escapes while Viral catches his furious superior's machine.

Leeron seizes a levisphere shaken loose from the retreating carrier, letting the Dai-Gurren land safely. In the sunset, Yoko asks Simon whether he knew she loved Kamina, and he confirms it. Back aboard, the crew finally eats Nia's cooking, whose true awfulness the earlier mystery patient Rossiu was too kind to report; only Simon and Boota find it delicious.

At Teppelin, Cytomander delivers Viral for execution. Facing death, Viral instead asks the question gnawing at him: what exactly are humans, and are beastmen truly the superior beings? Intrigued, the Spiral King dismisses the general and leads Viral to a chamber lined with beastmen sleeping in capsules, explaining their built-in flaw: their bodies demand stasis sleep, and forced waking means death by cellular necrosis. Conjuring a tiny drill of light in his palm, Lordgenome asks whether Viral truly wants his answer. Viral whispers yes.

Gurren Lagann gains the ability to fly by absorbing a captured enemy flier.

Viral learns of Kamina's death, and that Simon has been his conqueror all along.

A levisphere torn from the Dai-Gunten falls into the team's hands.

Nia becomes the team cook, to nearly everyone's regret.

This is the second appearance of Gurren Lagann's integration ability, here converting a bomber into a winged flight pack.

Cytomander's name is once again pronounced closer to Cytomandra in this episode.

It first aired in Japan on June 24, 2007, and in English on September 22, 2008.