If this is the cold open tradeoff, I’ll take the recaps, please.
I knew Grell would be returning this week, but it still felt like a kick in the nuts when that face appeared and Fukuyama Jun started vamping. This was mercifully brief, so not a big deal – in effect we got as much post-Grell episode as we’ve been getting with the long recaps. It’s more just the reflexive shock – I’m conditioned to expect the worst when this happens. Still, in addition to blessed brevity we got sort interesting information (from Sascha) which as far as I remember is new. TO wit, shinigami are people who’ve committed suicide, forced to do the work as a form of repentance. Of course Sascha it hasn’t exactly worked out that way…
Sascha also offers an interesting observation during that cold open, In reference to Sieglinde and Wolfram going to England, he notes that history is shaped by such things. The whole A-part is rife with suggestions that the shit is going to hit the fan in a big way in Europe, with Germany and England at the heart of it. The timeline is way off of course – we’re around 1889 here, a good 25 years before the technologies in reference (tanks, mustard gas, et al) would be brought to bear in World War I. A blink in the eye of history, but quite a long time in narrative context. It leads one to wonder if Black Butler is going to chart its own world line here, increasingly divergent from the one we know.
Diedrich takes Team Phantomhive back to (one of) his (many) castle to rest and tend to the wounded. Upon seeing the motley crew at his master’s side Diedrich’s butler notes that he’s been up to considerable mischief, and you get the sense that it’s not a new experience for him. A doctor is summoned to treat the wounded, Wolf certainly the most seriously. Ciel finally sheds his feminine attire and relaxes in the bath, with Sebastian tending to him with the seeming tenderness he often displays in such moments, so paradoxical to the seeming nature of their relationship.
For me, the significant part of this exchange is Sebastian noting that while humans change in the blink of an eye, Ciel doesn’t seem to be getting any taller. In my mind I’d thought Ciel had grown some physically, but it’s hard to say. Is there merely the usual needling Sebas-chan loves to inflict, or is there a deeper meaning here – some previously unconfirmed element of their contract which keeps his master forever a child?
As for Wolfram, he’s as physically robust as you’d expect to look at him, and quickly starts to mend. He and Sieglinde have a heart to heart where she forgives him based on the fact that she was willing to flee Germany without him to see the world, thus making them even. It’s a charitable assessment on her part, but the truth is both of them simply want to be together so really, there’s no harm in it. Neither one of them is remotely ready to meet the Queen however, and that’s especially a problem in her case. It falls to Sebby to teach the Emerald Witch the manners of an English court lady (and even for him, that will surely prove no easy task).
Diedrich, for his part, continues his tsundere act with the boy he clearly feels great affection towards. He relays the story of a visit by Undertaker (after the cruise ship zombie incident), the most interesting part of which is Undertaker crying as he looks at a photo of Vincent (and a thin young Diedrich). Or it would have been the most interesting apart from the fact that he mentions “the other Earl” – and Ciel’s reaction makes it indisputably clear that he’s not sure whether that comment was in reference to him “or…”. Let the Ciel Twin Theory flag wave proudly.
Back in London to see the Queen, Ciel sets a timeline of a week for Sebastian to make Frau Sullivan and Wolf presentable to Victoria. That has to start with their clothes, which means a visit to Nina Hopkins (played with the usual aplomb by Inoue Kikuko). I know Hopkins appears earlier in the manga (rather memorably in the “Circus” Arc for one) but this seems to be her debut in the anime. Nina Hopkins has no interest whatsoever in men – only females and young boys (under 15) are worth her attention. That leaves Ciel and Sieglinde squarely in the crosshairs, but today it’s not the young Earl who needs seeing to. Sieglinde makes a special request – and one suspects an impending visitor to Phantomhive Manor is going to be horrified at the prospect…
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