Welcome all, to another episode of Migi & Dali! Last week was a weird one and this week even more so. Still even with that the episode had some stuff going for it, enough that I’m looking forward to next week. So without further ado, lets dive into the episode!
Starting off, Jesus Christ is this show weird. It’s always been weird, but these past 2 weeks have been especially weird. And not in a good way. This week Migi & Dali doubles down on the weird baby stuff to an unsettling degree. In a way I get it. It’s very good at showing us just how screwed up this family is, as well as how important this room is to our protagonists. But Migi & Dali’s presentation of it feels… Kind of icky? Do we need Migi to go all in on it, to want to become the “perfect toddler”, to gleefully suck milk from a bottle or fake falling on his ass because a “toddler” doesn’t know how to walk? It’s all just very uncomfortable for me. As much as I enjoy the actual mystery part of the show, I’m glad this arc is over.
Getting into what I did like, which was basically everything outside the baby shit, this week Migi & Dali starts crossing suspects off of the list. First up? The father. This was an interesting one. As the twins note when they attempt to scare him with a “ghost”, the father doesn’t react as if that’s what he’s seen. Instead its as if he’s happy to see her, like he thought Metry was still alive and had finally returned to him. As the twins put it, he treats her like a mistress he loved dearly. Not only does this point towards his innocence, after all if he had killed her he wouldn’t this positively, but it also hints towards him being the twins father. If that’s the case, what does that say about his/their relationship with Reiko? What about how she views them/Metry?
To answer this, lets take a look at Reiko, the mother. Similar to the father, initial reactions indicate a level of innocence. She didn’t react as if she had seen a ghost but rather someone still alive. She talked to “Metry”, went to lock away the kids so they couldn’t see her, interrogated the Father as if he was hiding her. Despite this however, Reiko still tried to murder her. So the question becomes: Does Reiko think Metry survived her previous murder, or is Reiko simply OK with killing her now? Neither is good for her, both paint her as a monster. But while the former answers who the murderer is, the latter tells us they are still out there. That there’s 2 people willing to kill their mother. Possibly in the same household…
This brings us to Eiji, the eldest son of the family. Out of everyone who saw Metry, who saw the “ghost” Migi was pretending to be, he’s the only one who reacted as if she was dead. The only one to explicitly call her a ghost, to pee his pants in freight, to run away terrified from something he thought was already dead. Does this mean that he killed her? But he would have been a child at the time, maybe 4, 5 years old at best. Yet that would explain why Metry died with one of Eiji’s buttons in her hand. So was it an accident? But how does a child accidentally kill her, and how does it get covered up for all of these years? It’s kind of crazy how Migi & Dali can answer one question only to introduce so many more.
On top of the question of murder we also have to ask whether or not Eiji is even Reiko’s to begin with! Remember, while the Father doesn’t seem aware of what’s going on, Eiji and his sister ate dinner and actively encouraged this weird toddler fantasy the mother has. They are in on it. So is it possible they were conditioned as well? Kidnapped from their homes and raised as Reiko’s children, conditioned into her perfect little family? It would explain why they are so accepting of it all, as well as that line about hair color changing. Maybe he thinks Reiko really is his mom, that the conditioning was just that effective. I don’t know! All I do know is that it’s interesting and that, when not doing weird baby stuff, Migi & Dali’s mystery is starting to ramp up.
Finally I want to take a moment to talk about some feel-good parts of the episode, specifically the ending. Up until now Dali has largely stayed out of the family. He was the more serious of the brothers, always focused on discovering what happened to their mom while Migi sort of just enjoyed having a family. Yet all work and no play mays Dali a dull boy, and this week that finally starts to get to him. Surviving off of dog food, struggling to hide and sleep in a hostile environment, the kid was falling apart. Literally malnourished and unable to move. Which made it really sweet to not only see Migi trick the Sonoyama’s into caring for Dali instead of him, but for Dali to finally feel some of that familial love. To accept it, if only for a moment, and enjoy a genuine family. It was sweet.
So yeah, all in all this was a weird fucking episode with parts that I could really do without, but the important bits spread between that weird shit were great. I love the slow unraveling of the mystery, how the more we learn begets more questions, teaching us more and more about this neighborhood and its history. I think Migi & Dali is really good at building that up and expanding on it while never straying to far from the emotional core of the show, the twins. Funnily enough, the very thing that caught my eye and made me start blogging Migi & Dali is what is holding it back the most now: The weirdness. Or rather, this desire to one-up the weirdness. If Migi & Dali can rein that in a bit, that would be nice. Even if it doesn’t though, I hope to enjoy where it goes.
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