Ghost in the Shell (2026) Ep.07 - That was a trip. How do you continue from here?

Episode seven of Ghost in the Shell (2026) was one of the weirdest experiences I've had with anime in a while, with the story finally connecting to the plot of the original movie that I watched long, long ago. The focus is the Puppet Master, a mysterious "hacker" who jumps from body to body and somehow ended up at Section 9's doorstep.

Section 6, the department focused on foreign security, comes to retrieve the body with authorization from the government, but things get complicated with a gunfight and a chase sequence. Motoko manages to put a transmitter on the group, allowing Section 9 to follow along.

What happened at the end and how does the story from now on. Was it going to be a single episode entry or the thing will be reused?

Motoko still acts very cute compared to the other series and it's hard not to like her personality. I wish she had a bit more time with her girl friends?!

Eventually they inflict fatal damage on the body holding the Puppet Master, but not before Motoko is able to dive into the brain to get more information. There, it is revealed that it's really a new emergent lifeform and that Section 6 was trying to silence it altogether.

Of course things get worse and worse, and Motoko is dragged down as the Puppet Master establishes an independent network within Motoko's brain before moving outside and... then something extremely trippy happens with the animation and direction becoming more uncertain and left to the viewer's interpretation.

I said that this goes over the same plot as the original and that's true, but the ending is vastly different from the original movie, which ends with Motoko and the Puppet Master merging into a completely novel entity that is neither one nor the other. She then leaves the group and starts acting alone in quite an adorable, smaller body frame.

In this case, the episode ends with a trip scene reminiscent of Michelangelo Buonarroti's painting The Creation of Adam, with God (Puppet Master fused with that gigantic network) touching Adam's (Motoko's) finger to give him the "spark of life". No explanation, no post-credits scene.

Motoko's body is fully cybernetic, but I wonder if her original is similar to not. In the original series it was...

The puppet master final body before becoming whatever it become in the final trip moments of the episode.

Now I'm not good with symbolism and stuff, but where does it go from here? Will they forget about this ever happening and go back to business with episodic content, or is this going to continue right from there with this new entity taking an important role in the story?