Darling in the FranXX continues upon its path down mediocrity and is now trying to take on some CNN level topics.
This episode is about the rest of Hiro's class undertaking a pest removal task as a training exercise. Character arcs are continuing this episode with Ichigo being an emotionally unstable teenage girl, Hiro being a cuck and letting others pilot with his partner, and everyone else being remarkably useless. The message looks like it's going to be to not cheat on your partner because it will leave you unfulfilled or it will destroy you. While this is a good message, the roundabout path FranXX takes to show this involves far too much of the failed organisation and its unhelpful rules.
Unlike episode 2, things happen in this episode, however, it is now very apparent that the worldbuilding is weak. Other than the named characters and staff, nobody else exists. The opening ceremony which had so many people attending is forgotten and we are left with 10 pilots, of which 6 are irrelevant currently. The world feels so empty and so dull. While this is consistent with 002's pretentious monologue, it is inconsistent with what we have been shown in the first episode. There is no indication that there is any more to this world than 10 pilots and several staff members from these last two episodes. This is possibly a result of Trigger and A1 rushing to finish the episodes because it seems like a very, very big oversight to have minimal worldbuilding. Or perhaps Trigger/A1 think they are doing worldbuilding and are oblivious to how bad at writing they are. Either way, it's not good.
The elephant in the room is the blatant cuckoldry. In episode 2, Hiro and Ichigo got it on with each other, which meant they were cheating on their partners. It should be obvious that piloting is a reference to sex and all this partner switching is not going to end well.
So far we have had two incidents of cuckoldry:
Ichigo and Hiro in episode 2
002 and Mitsuru in episode 3
Neither of these attempts were successful from a partnership perspective, yet the organisation seems to encourage cuckoldry. This leads me to the conclusion that the organisation that runs everything watch CNN on a daily basis and consume nothing but propaganda and fake news. This society that has lived upon CNN as their sole news source has degenerated and is now horribly managed. This is unsurprising and in-universe Rush Limbaugh will be sitting in his giant robot saying, "I told you so".
In addition to the CNN level cucking going on, there's some serious wish fulfillment fantasy happening in this show. Hiro has now shown to be a completely worthless individual. He has no talent, no ability, no intelligence, he has been rejected by his peers and has publicly humiliated himself. But that doesn't stop 002 from craving his "piloting skills" when they're in the "cockpit" together.
Hiro has no value other than this masterpiece of writing:
If cliches and waifubaiting wasn't enough, Darling in the FranXX now has battle shounen cliches. There's more than enough evidence to suggest that this is a bad show. Trigger doesn't know what they're doing and people will treat this the same way they treated Kiznaiver.
This dude above tried to cuck his team mates and look what happened to him. He was also a sociopathic asshole and had it coming to him. Don't be like this guy.
People don't seem to like this show very much and I think I know why. Men don't respect weakness and the entire show far has been about Hiro's weakness. Women are more sympathetic towards it but this show was designed for the male demographic, as evidenced by the overt and frequent sex imagery. The message may be an unpleasant lesson that if you're not loyal to your partner, and your partner is not loyal to you that it will ruin you, but if that lesson is shown through the lens of disappointment and weakness nobody wants to hear it.
Three episodes are up. By now you're either committed or you should back out. This won't be a fun or entertaining show.