A double-episode on a Sunday is just cruel, what with the schedule being what it is.
Seriously, could there be anything more Japanese than a guy coming into a house, pointing a gun at you, and saying “somebody walked into your house without taking off their shoes. Can’t you be more surprised?” But then, this is a country where burglars routinely take their shoes off as a courtesy. That’s really a sidebar though, as this was the episode where all the lies everyone in the cast has been living really started to boil over like that nabe on Youko’s stove is just about to do.
All sorts of stuff is going down here, starting with Utsubu making his move on his chicken, Kainuma. It’s pretty straightforward, really. He’s embellished what Kainuma was already doing to Misaki – though it didn’t need all that much embellishment. Posing as bigwigs from an agency about to re-launch Misaki’s career, they extort Kainuma’s mother for ¥60 million. Which is a lot of money, but I guess you choose somebody like that as a target because the family has it. The plan, as usual, it to take the chicken out after the fact, but Kainuma totally going off the deep end complicates things a bit.
Akira, meanwhile, has pretty much won over Hina. The thing is, his advice is pretty spot-on, and she’s right about his sincerity – he’s a very sincere mass murderer. A major falling out between Hina and Utsubu seems imminent, especially with Isaki having blurted out the deal with Misaki and Kainuma within her earshot. Suzuki – sent to spy on Kainuma – reports that he’s decided to kill her at work the next day as revenge. Utsubo is fine with that, as it makes disappearing Kainuma that much less suspicious. But Hina calls Misaki at Octopus and warns her to get out because her life is in danger.
Akira’s facade is definitely showing cracks. He has no choice but to save Misaki when Kainuma pulls a knife on her, but in the process the manager sees how formidable his delivery boy is. Manager’s guess isn’t correct of course, but it’s actually a lot closer than it might have been. And Akira is willing to go with that. And despite everything Kainuma has done, Akira still intends to get him back from Utsubo’s clutches. He confronts Suzuki and again, is forced to more or less blow his cover. Suzuki is no fool, and has a pretty good idea that Satou is not what he appeared to be. He promises Suzuki a commotion he can’t imagine if he hasn’t returned Kainuma within 24 hours.
At this point chaos is breaking out pretty much on all fronts. Kainuma has managed to escape from Isaki up in the mountains, and Suzuki has gone to Satou’s house to force the issue (paying no heed to the fact that it’s owned by the Maguro Group). It’s Youko he finds there rather than Akira, but he’s still bitten off a lot more than he bargained for. Youko, trooper that she is, never stops enjoying herself. She even tries to give Suzuki a handicap before she unleashes the dogs of war on him. Suzuki may be right that Youko is no killer, but she doesn’t need to kill him to subdue (and humiliate) him.
As for Kainuma, Karma is a bitch for him. If he’d stayed put Akira would have managed to bring him back to face the cops. But he tries to get away and falls off a cliff, much to Isaki’s dismay. Akira doesn’t kill or even hurt Suzuki in response. He cuts his ropes and tells him he’s free to go, and when Suzuki returns (shoes off this time) and asks why, even invites him to stay for nabe. Suzuki being who he is, this is a cruel blow to his pride – getting whupped by a woman was bad enough. Youko is right to be concerned, but give Akira his due – he’s genuinely trying to abide by the agreement he made in coming to Osaka.
As I did last week, I found Akira kind of poignant here. He never shows us what he’s genuinely feeling – if indeed he is feeling anything. But he’s seemingly quite dismayed that Kainuma is dead. Kainuma is a horrible bastard, who’d planned to rape Misaki (though I still suspect he’d have freaked out and not gone through with it) and then to stab her in revenge for getting caught. But Akira bemoans how much he didn’t want anyone around him to die. Even Kainuma. Is he genuinely tired of being surrounded by death? I really do think Manager’s deduction hit closer to the truth than it initially appears.
Whatever the wisdom of Akira’s decision to let Suzuki go, there are clearly going to be consequences. Suzuki wants payback for the crushing of his pride. And Utsubo does too, because as it turns out the guy in the car with Hina whose throat Fable slit was his younger brother. Suzuki is skeptical of Utsubo’s resolve in taking on Fable, but he seems satisfied with that motivation. And Utsubo has been planning for this moment for a long time – his whole motivation in dragging Hina around (and killing her parents) was to get at Fable. And now he’s more than happy to use her as the bait, knowing that Satou-kun seems to have feelings for her.
Satou managed to extract himself from the Kojima affair without breaking his rules of engagement, thanks to Ebihara doing his dirty work (and the zaku being weak enough). But with the competent Suzuki and the ever-scheming Utsubo coming at him with grenades and mines, it’s hard to see how he can do that here. At this point I believe Akira’s desire to live up to his promise and live a quiet life is genuine, and I’m not even sure it’s going to change when his year is up. But Utsubo and his vendetta are going to put Akira’s skills at avoiding commotion to their stiffest test yet.
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