i don't think dio died, when the engineer yells CLIMB! , you hear dio scream out climb like in the previous episodes and someone says that exile is an alien spaceship and they didn't like that idea... well they forget what the anime said that the claus and dio and everyone on this planet are aliens of a different world and the last exile is a vessel of their home planet. i think it didn't really need a whole episode touching on the subject of where they came from.

While I really liked the first half of the series, even with the each episode ending with an obvious cliff-hanger, the plot flaws grew so much over time that the end was painful. Inconsistencies, continuity issues, arbirtray character sidetracks (ex. how Dio was developed into a minor contributing character then dies in the silliest of ways. or the return of Mullin Shetland in the end after being obviously killed in the Unit assault, or how easily the Maestro's flagship is destroyed) increased liked the writhing tentacles of Exile to the point that it was just plain silly. It's as if the show writers overreached their budget or their ability to keep a consistent plot line going. You wanted to find out what Exile was and you only get the vaguest of notions. World creation is an important part of any science fiction storyline. And that created universe needs a certain amount of internal consistency. Such as the claudia powered Units for the large airships and the claudia fuel for the vanships or the consistency in the design of the drive units. When developments aren't fully explored or partially opened up and then dropped in a plot contrivance it leaves the viewer frustrated.A good effort, but over-ambitious with mediocore creative control.